FURTHER SPREADING OF THE AFORESAID PERSECUTION, IN WHICH THE WALDENSES WERE BURNT IN GREAT NUMBERS, A. D. 1284.
P. J. Twisck gives the following account for the year 1284: “The Waldois or Waldenses, of whom, since the year 1159, much mention is made, increased at this time more and more, in France and other countries of Christendom, notwithstanding that they were craftily sought and cruelly persecuted, and that all diligence and every means had first been employed, utterly to exterminate them; which greatly astonished certain bishops and advocates of Avignon of that time.” “They were burnt,” he writes, “in great numbers.” Chron., fol. 611, 612, from Henr. Boxhorn, fol. 26.
GERARD SAGARELLUS, BURNT IN THE CITY OF PARMA, FOR THE FAITH OF THE WALDENSIAN ANABAPTISTS, A. D. 1285.
In the year 1285, there became known, and were proclaimed heretics by the adherents of popery, Gerard Sagarellus of Parma, and Dulcinus of Novaria. Both of them were particularly accused, on account of various articles opposed to the Roman church and her superstitions, with which they were charged, of having fallen into heresy, and having borrowed their belief from the Waldenses, which, writes Abr. Mellinus, is quite presumable.
As to the articles which they confessed contrary to the belief of the Roman church, and on account of which they were called heretics, they are written in the second book of the Hist. of the Persecutions, fol. 470, col. 3.
Finally, as Gerard Sagarellus would not depart from, but continue steadfast in, the truth of his Savior, Jesus Christ, he was (in the same year, it is supposed) burnt alive in the city of Parma, by the blood-thirsty inquisitors. A. Mell., p. 470, col. 3. Also, Bal. Cent. 4, cap. 30, in Append. ad Laurent. Angl.
Dulcinus, who, besides the charge of his true faith, was also assailed with great calumnies, was put to death in great steadfastness some years afterwards. However, of this a fuller account will be given for the year 1308.
Note.—Since the death of Dulcinus did not occur the year in which Sagarellus died, but long afterwards, we will reserve the account of the same for the proper time and place. Bear this in mind.
HERMAN, ANDREW AND GUILLEMETTE[181] EXHUMED AND BURNT, A. D. 1299.
A. D. 1299, the Fratricelli, that is, the Albi-Waldenses, who were called Little Brothers, were declared heretics, by Pope Boniface VIII., because their belief was contrary to the Roman church, as we have already shown. Said Pope caused these Fratricelli (or Albigenses) to be persecuted with so much violence that he not only spared not the living, but not even the dead; for he caused one Herman, who had been one of their principal teachers, to be exhumed twenty years after his death, and his bones burnt to ashes, notwithstanding the papists, who were his enemies, had, in his life time, regarded him as a holy man. Thus they did also with the dead bodies of one Andrew, and of his wife Guillemette, who were also greatly noted for their remarkable godliness.