given in full in _de la Marche, Anecdotes historiques_, etc., Paris, 1877. § 108.11. 2. =Their Divisions.=--One of the oldest, most important, and most reliable sources of information regarding the affairs of the old Waldensians was first published by Preger in 1875, in his _Beiträge z. Gesch. d. Waldensier im MA._, namely, an epistle embodied by the “_anonymous writer of Passau_” in his heretic catalogue, from the “Poor Men of Italy” to their fellow believers in Germany, _ad Leonistas in Alamannia_, in which they give a report of the proceedings at a convention held at Bergamo in A.D. 1218, with the deputies from “_the ultramontane_,” that is, the French, “Poor Men.” On the basis of this communication Preger has contested the view that the “Poor Men of Italy” were the Waldensians, and traces their origin rather to the working men’s association of the _Humiliati_ that had already sprung up in the eleventh century (§ 98, 7), which having even before this, by adopting Arnoldist ideas, become estranged from the Catholic church, came also into connection with Valdez, appropriated many of his opinions, and then entered into fraternal relations with the French Waldesians. This theory, as also no less the explanations connected therewith of the constitutional and doctrinal differences of the two parties, has been proved by Carl Müller in his _Die Waldensier u. ihre einzelne Gruppen bis Auf d. 14. Jhd._ to be in many particulars untenable, and he has shown that the Waldensian origin of “the Poor Men of Lombardy” is witnessed to even by this epistle. The results of his researches are in the main as follows: The movement set on foot in A.D. 1177 by Valdez of Lyons in the direction of an apostolic walk and conversation was transplanted at a very early period into northern Italy, and found there a favourable reception, especially in the ranks of the Humiliati. These, too, as well as Valdez, in A.D. 1179, approached Alexander III. with the prayer to authorize their entering on such a vocation, but were also immediately repulsed, attached themselves then to the “Poor Men of Lyons,” submitting to the monarchical rule of their founder, and along with them, in A.D. 1184, fell under the papal ban. Yet among the Lombards a strong craving after greater independence and freedom soon found expression, which asserted itself most decidedly in the claim to the right of their own independent choice and ordination of lifelong organs of government for their society, as well as for priestly services, which, however, Valdez, fearing a dissolution of the whole society from the granting of such partial independence, answered with a decided refusal.