For obvious reasons this article on Waldensian Historiography captured my attention and I was thinking of Philip Schaff long before his name emerged in the article.
Romanticism took on many hues during the 19th century and while American Protestants poured most of their energy into crafting the narrative about the Mayflower Pilgrims or Pilgrim Fathers, they were not alone. Hostility to Roman Catholicism generated other historical debates over Church History and Protestants from the US and the UK, to France and beyond wanted a piece of the Waldensians.
This has continued to some extent though at this point in time, the culture wars and the perceived Christendom Crisis has led many Protestants to revise their views of the Middle Ages. The tendency now is to celebrate and appropriate Rome and the many cultural achievements associated with Catholicism. Revisionist historians have changed the narrative concerning the Crusades and contemporary theology is coloured by a progressive orthodoxy that tolerates and celebrates what previous generations reckoned as idolatry and abomination. Figures like Aquinas and Charlemagne that were once condemned by Protestants as papists and idolaters have been transformed into God-fearing Biblical Christians to be revered and emulated.
I find it tiresome to keep repeating but it needs to be said. The record is clear. Waldensianism often functioned as a catch-all term for various groups. If speaking narrowly of the Lyonist group associated with Peter Waldo, then the origin can be found in the 12th century. The problem is the 1218 Bergamo Conference revealed the existence of another Waldensian group (the Poor Lombards) who were already extant in Italy and not founded by Waldo - in fact they viewed him through a rather dubious lens. Whether these Lombards were leftover Arnoldists or another catch-all for various groups in Italy and beyond is unknown. Their views and practices were different and yet seemed to generally match up with the various Waldensian bodies that emerged in Germany, Hungary, Bohemia, Austria, and so forth. The Lyonist faction was restricted to Southern France and the Cottian Alps (on the border of today's Italy and France). This Alpine faction (which also sponsored some colonies in Calabria) is often confused as being the sole Waldensian group or somehow the headquarters or central locale of all Waldensianism. This is simply not the case.
The reason for this is probably due to the fact that they retained their identity through the Magisterial Reformation period - even though they functionally abandoned their Waldensian distinctives and joined the Calvinist wing of Protestantism. Their French brethren were either eradicated or became Huguenots and the Calabrian colonies were wiped out by the agents of Rome.
The Lombard group or the Waldenses of Northern Italy and Central Europe disappeared with the rise of the Magisterial Reformation and in the fires of the religious wars, emigration, and Counter-Reformation. The descendants of this movement became Lutherans, Reformed, and in other cases Anabaptists. There are also records of some German Waldensians migrating to Bohemia and joining the Brethren that would later be renamed the Moravians.
Sadly, these questions have been confused and in some circles discredited because of the meddling of Samuel Morland and others who deliberately tried to push the date of documents and other evidence into a pre-Waldo time-frame. They were wrong and had they understood the history better they wouldn't have felt the need to manipulate the record.
Additionally it must be said the gross inflation of deaths and executions at the hand of Rome has lessened credibility and allows Rome and other historians to shift the debate away from the reality that many were butchered and killed - even if the death toll was not in the millions. Some Protestant historians have irresponsibly combined all deaths in the Middle Ages, including Cathar Crusades, the witchcraft craze and the like - when these numbers cannot genuinely be included in the Waldensian death toll. Yes, the witch hunts took many angles and sometimes Waldensians were swept up in these episodes and accused of such practices but the 'millions' thrown about by some are not credible. Additionally it should be noted that the real witch craze epoch was not during the Middle Ages but during the Renaissance and post-Reformation period.
So what about the pre-12th century? I've addressed this in other writings but the main question for me is this - did underground groups already exist and were exposed by the Gregorian Reform and the concentration of ecclesiastical power, or did the Gregorian Reform lead to protest and the rise of dissident groups and a medieval underground?
Prior to the Gregorian Reform (1050-1085) it seems clear that the Catholic Church was not quite the Roman Catholic Church as we think of it. This debate over when it became 'Roman' is an old one and some argue for its 'Roman' identity back in Late Antiquity with the rise of popes such as Leo and Gregory I. There's a case to be made for this. But in other respects while the Old Catholic Church had a pope it did not become 'Roman Catholic' until Gregory VII - who built on the Cluniac Reforms and the like from the previous century.
As we move through the Dark Ages (c.500-1000) the record reveals a lack of liturgical or ecclesiastical uniformity as well as a dearth of consistent enforcement. Emperors, Kings, and prelates would certainly (but selectively) pursue the 'heretics' that began to emerge but the real concentrated effort does not rise until the 12th century. This is followed by the papal-instigated bloodbath of the 13th - a time of crusade and inquisition.
The testimonies of Vigilantius in the 5th century and Claudius of Turin (d. 827) reveals this lack of uniformity and a sharp disparity between Catholic practice in Southern France/Northern Spain and that of Italy. And even Italy was divided by schisms and rivalries throughout the 6th and 7th centuries - and outside communion with Rome. We also know there were sharp disagreements in places like Scotland and Wales with the dictates of Rome. Monatanists and Novatians survived well into the Dark Ages. The most problematic period is the 10th and 11th century - a truly dark time where little witness of resistance is to be found.
The whole Waldensian debate is misguided. Those American Protestants in the 19th century who wanted to 'claim' them were mistaken but the whole outlook of men like Schaff was equally problematic and out of accord with the religion of the New Testament. Schaff's reading of Waldensian and other medieval dissident history is corrupted by his own philosophical and cultural bias. These groups don't fit within his Hegelian paradigm and so he dismissed them. This was also in keeping with the Mercersburg ethos which he shared with John Nevin who attacked the 'Puritan View of Church History' - a question I have also addressed.
Magisterial Protestantism was a novelty in many respects but Catholic historians are deluded if they think Roman Catholic history is some kind of monolith or consensus. Nevin did not argue this but insisted that the broad strokes and flow of the ancient and medieval history was in keeping with Roman Catholicism as opposed to Protestantism. Nevertheless he was a committed Protestant, not out of Biblical conviction but out of a commitment to his historicist philosophy. Protestantism was (in his thinking) a necessary development, the antithesis to the Roman thesis. His hope (along with Schaff) was that their ecumenical efforts would produce a synthesis in the future.
As such the Waldensians were relegated to the status of being a quaint anomaly completely out of sync with the main flow of Church history. They're a group to be pitied but not necessarily admired and certainly not to be emulated.