1. =Their Origin.=--A citizen of Lyons, named Valdez (Valdesius, Waldus, the Christian name of Peter, given to him first 120 years later, is quite unsupported), who had become rich by the practice of usury, an occupation condemned by the church, was about A.D. 1173 deeply impressed by reading the legend of St. Alexius, and was in his spiritual anxiety directed by a theologian to the words of Christ to the rich young ruler in Matthew xix. 21. Making over to his wife only his landed property, and distributing all the rest of his possessions among the poor, and then, for further instruction in regard to the imitation of Christ required of him, having applied himself to the study of the gospels, the Psalter, and other biblical books, and a selection of classical passages translated for his use by two friendly priests out of the writings of the Fathers into the Romance dialect, he founded in A.D. 1177, in company with certain men and women, who were prepared like himself to abandon the world and all its goods, a society for preaching the gospel among the people. In accordance with the Lord’s command to the seventy disciples (Luke x. 1-4), they went forth two and two in apostolic costume, in woollen penitential garments, without staff or scrip, their feet protected with merely wooden sandals (_sabatas, sabots_), preaching repentance, and proclaiming the gospel message of salvation throughout the land, in order to bring back again among the people the Christian life in its purity and simplicity. The Archbishop of Lyons prohibited their preaching; but they referred to Acts v. 29, and appealed, praying for a confirmation of their association, to the Third Lateran Council of A.D. 1179, under Alexander III., which, however, scornfully dismissed their appeal. As they nevertheless still continued to preach, Pope Lucius III., at the Council of Verona, in A.D. 1184, laid them under the ban. They had hitherto no intention of offering any sort of opposition to the doctrine, worship, or constitution of the Catholic church. Even the Catholic authorities did not so much take offence at what they preached but rather only at this, that they without ecclesiastical call and authority had assumed the function of preaching. Innocent III., also, admitted the imprudence of his predecessor, and favoured the plan of a Waldensian who had left his brethren to transform the association of the _Pauperes de Lugduno_ into the monastic-like lay union of _Pauperes Catholici_, to which in A.D. 1208 he assigned the duties of preaching, expounding Scripture, and holding meetings for edification under episcopal supervision. But this concession came too late.