Thereupon, as it appears, no small persecution arose; but as to the manner in which the same occurred, and the persons who then suffered for the faith, we have not been able to find any account, notwithstanding we have made diligent search. No doubt, it fell chiefly upon the heads of the Waldenses and Albigenses, since they were mentioned by name in the mandate of the Pope.
We deem what we have here shown sufficient for this time; hence we will leave it, without adding any more.
Note.—A. D. 1270, eight years afterwards, Peter Caderita and William Colonicus, Dominicans, persecuted the (so-called) heretics in the kingdom of Aragon. Bzov., A. D. 1270, ex Surita, lib. 2. A. Mell., Hist., fol. 470, col. 2.
In the year 1280, the moon was completely changed into the color of blood; which by many was held to signify the very bloody and lamentable state of the church of God; the more so since at that time, not only a dire persecution prevailed, but also, a destructive crusade, under the sign of the cross, such as was formerly waged against the Saracens, was undertaken the following year, namely, 1281, by the papists, by order of the Pope, against the Albigenses in Spain. Compare the large book of Christian martyrs, fol. 470, col. 2, 3, with Bal. Cent. 4, Append. ad Greg. de Brid. Lington., p. 446, from Everildenas.
SEVERE PERSECUTION OF THE ANABAPTIST WALDENSES IN FRANCE, ABOUT A. D. 1280.
P. J. Twisck, having noticed, in the first part of his Chronijck, for the year 1280, the doctrine of the Waldenses, whom he calls Waldois, after their leader, Peter Waldus, finally he speaks of their persecutions, saying: “Matthias Illyricus, in his Register of the witnesses of the truth, says, that he has in his possession the consultations of certain advocates of Avignon, also, of the three bishops of Narbonne, Arles, and Aix, and of the bishop of Alban, tending to the extermination of the Waldois, or Waldenses, and written three hundred years previously; from which it is evident, that at that time and before, a great number of the believers were scattered here and there throughout France.
“We can also infer from the consultations of the aforesaid archbishops, that even as their number was great, so was also the persecution against them very cruel; for at the end of this consultation it is written: ‘Who is so great a stranger in France, as to be ignorant of the damnatory sentence (thus speak these papists themselves) which has now, for a long time, been most justly used against these heretical Waldois (Waldenses); and should we doubt a matter so notorious and common, which has cost the Catholics so much money, sweat, and labor, and has been sealed with so many condemnations and executions of unbelievers (thus he calls the true believers)?’
“Hence appears,” writes Twisck, “what massacres of believers occurred at this time, and what cruelties the subjects of antichrist employed against them. ‘And it can be proven,’ says Boxhorn, ‘even from the testimony of their greatest enemies, that they declared, maintained, and testified in the midst of the fire, that they had received this their faith unaltered, from hand to hand, from the times of the apostles; and they continue even to the present time, having never been entirely exterminated.’ ” P. J. Twisck, Chron., p. 606, col. 1, 2.
CONTINUATION OF THE PRECEDING PERSECUTION, A. D. 1283.
Mellinus writes that “A. D. 1283, the Waldenses had again greatly increased in France, as also in other countries throughout Christendom, notwithstanding they had been very cruelly sought out and persecuted up to this time.” In the second book of the History of the Persecutions, fol. 470, col. 3, from Vignier, Hist. Eccl., A. D. 1283.