History Book: Massacre of the Waldensians

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Monday April 22nd. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Up next, the WORLD History Book. Three- hundred sixty- nine years ago this week, more than 1,500 Christians died at the hands of mercenaries in the Italian Alps. Here’s WORLD Associate Correspondent Caleb Welde.

CALEB WELDE: In late April, 1655, spring is blooming in the coastal towns of Italy. But in the Piedmont valleys, near Italy’s border with France, there is still snow on the ground.

On Saturday, April 24th, local soldiers, joined by thousands of French and Irish reinforcements wake up before dawn, get dressed and prepare to start killing their hosts– an isolated group of Christians that the Catholic Church has declared are heretics.

They’re known as the Waldensians—meaning “people of the valleys.”

Tradition says these villagers received the Gospel during the first century—perhaps by two of the 70 missionaries sent out by Jesus—or, by the Apostle Paul himself if he carried out his plans to visit Spain mentioned in Romans 15, verse 28 and visited the valleys on his way.

Waldensian manuscripts from the 12th century—in the heart of the dark ages—affirm they believed in salvation by faith alone, through grace alone, in Christ alone 400 years before Calvin and Luther.

Dr. David De Boer teaches political history in the Netherlands or Amsterdam.

DAVID DE BOER: So already, in the late Middle Ages, they find it very important that people read the Bible themselves, that they translate the Bible into the vernacular so that, you know, normal people can actually read what's in there.

Young Waldensians would attend “colleges” where they memorized and copied entire books of the Bible. Then, they would be sent out…with both the Gospel, and a useful trade to serve as cover for their real mission. They hid their precious manuscripts in coat linings and sometimes … in loaves of bread. The missionaries could be miles away before the illegal texts were discovered. Persecution intensified in the 14th and 15th centuries.

GAVIN ORTLUND: This particular group was savagely persecuted.

Gavin Ortlund is author of “What It Means to Be Protestant: The Case for an Always-Reforming Church.” Audio from his YouTube channel, “Truth Unites.”

ORTLUND: This was a part of the official catholic theology at the time. Again, don’t get mad at me, Okay? I’m not making this up. There was a theology of the extermination of heretics.

In 1487, Pope Innocent the 8th promised indulgences, or spiritual merit, to anyone willing to join a crusade against the Waldensians. 18,000 crusaders attacked the valleys the next year killing thousands including 400 children who eventually succumbed to the smoke filling their cave hideout.

Things get worse one hundred fifty years later when a new Catholic duke comes to power in northern Italy—the Duke of Savoy.

In January, 1655, he issues a new decree “under pain of death and confiscation of houses and goods” the Waldensians must convert to Catholicism, or leave the valleys.

They have three days to decide. The vast majority flee in the dead of winter to settlements higher up the mountains.

That brings us to the Spring morning of April 15th. An army begins amassing near the Waldensian villages. Its number grows to 15,000 by the 19th.

On April 21st, the military commander in charge asks for a meeting with the Waldensian leaders. He asks them to house soldiers … as a show of good faith—saying they will only punish those who actively resist. The Waldensians are greatly outnumbered and acquiesce on April 23rd—quartering some of the troops in their homes that night.

And so, in the early morning of April 24th, the soldiers wake up early and set to work.

DE BOER: Eyewitness accounts really give some gruesome details about the massacres. Right? So one of the authors actually says like, the pen falls from my hand describing these horrible things. And they really described like these outrageous games with body parts and cannibalism and sexual violence.

Those who escape climb Mount Castelluzzo while their homes burn below them. The soldiers pursue and throw them from cliffs, and worse.

DE BOER: And it really shows that this was really a massacre. Right? That a whole community was basically destroyed by an army.

As many as 2,000 Waldensians are tortured and killed that day, though some estimates suggest as many as 6,000. When news of the massacre reaches England, Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of England, declares a national day of prayer.

DE BOER: He at some point threatened to send the English fleet to Nice, which is a city close by, and sort of forced Duke of Savoy to stop any persecution, or stop any violence against the Waldensians, or otherwise England would attack.

News travels to other protestant centers like Geneva, Paris, and Amsterdam. At least 30 pamphlets and periodicals circulate throughout Europe with the story.

John Milton writes:

ON THE LATE MASSACRE IN THE PIEDMONT:
Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughter’d saints, whose bones
Lie scatter’d on the Alpine mountains cold,
Ev’n them who kept thy truth so pure of old,
When all our fathers worshipp’d stocks and stones;
Forget not: in thy book record their groans
Who were thy sheep and in their ancient fold
Slain by the bloody Piemontese that roll’d
Mother with infant down the rocks. 

DE BOER: And there was actually so much compassion with all the Waldensians in these Protestant countries that they raised enormous amounts of money. And some observers back in the day were actually starting to worry again, that England and the Dutch Republic might declare war on the Duke of Savoy.

Under mounting international pressure, the Duke eventually backs down. But then, in 1686, another Duke orders another Protestant purge in Southern Europe. Survivors flee through the mountains to Switzerland. 200 die along the way. Most of these refugees eventually return to the valleys, but some stay in Switzerland.

DE BOER: Even though it was a small community, this made the Waldensians very important throughout Europe - sort of the first Protestants.

Others move to Germany, France, the Balkans, and eventually, across the Atlantic. They settle in North Carolina, Missouri, and Texas where congregations continue worshiping today.

DE BOER: It’s interesting, a couple of years ago, Pope Francis for the first time visited the Walendian community, and he apologized for what had happened in the 17th century.

Some consider the Waldensians the first evangelicals because of their fidelity to God and the purity of His Word beginning in the dark ages and continuing to encourage the church, two thousand years on

That’s this week’s WORLD History Book. I’m Caleb Welde.

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