Among those who continued to accept the Christian faith but refused to obey the clergy on account of their wickedness, the most important sect was that of the Waldensians. These were followers of Peter Waldo of Lyons, who gave up all their property and lived a life of apostolic poverty. They went about preaching the Gospel and expounding the Scriptures, which they translated into the language of the people. They made many converts, and before the end of the twelfth century there were great numbers of them scattered throughout western Europe. The Church did not wish to condemn the efforts of good and simple men to imitate as exactly as possible the life of Christ and the apostles. Nevertheless these laymen, who claimed the right to preach and hear confession, and who asserted that prayer was quite as efficacious when uttered in bed or in a stable as in a church, seemed clearly to call in question the general belief in the Church as the exclusive agent of salvation, and seriously to threaten its influence among the people. [Sidenote: Beginning of the fight against heresy.] Before the end of the twelfth century the secular rulers began to take notice of heresy. Henry II of England, in 1166, ordered that no one should harbor heretics in England, and that any house in which they were received should be burned. The king of Aragon decreed (1194) that any one who listened to the preaching of the Waldensians, or even gave them food, should suffer the penalties for treason and should have his property confiscated by the state. These are the beginnings of a series of pitiless decrees which even the most enlightened kings of the thirteenth century issued against all who should be convicted of belonging either to the Albigenses or the Waldensians. The Church and the civil government agreed that heretics were dangerous to the welfare of both, and that they were criminals deserving the terrible death of burning alive.[151] [Sidenote: Heresy regarded as treason.]