History of the WaldensesWylie, J. A. (James Aitken)
History
History of the Waldenses
Wylie, J. A. (James Aitken)
Church history -- Middle Ages, 600-1500; Waldenses
These are only a few of the many martyrs by whom, even during this
period of comparative peace and prosperity, the Church of the Valleys
was called to testify against Rome. Some of these martyrs perished
by cruel, barbarous, and most horrible methods. To recite all these
cases would be beyond our purpose, and to depict the revolting and
infamous details would be to narrate what no reader could peruse. We
shall quote only part of the brief summary of Muston. “There is no
town in Piedmont,” says he, “under a Vaudois pastor, where some of our
brethren have not been put to death.... Hugo Chiamps of Finestrelle had
his entrails torn from his living body, at Turin. Peter Geymarali of
Bobbio, in like manner, had his entrails taken out at Lucerna, and a
fierce cat thrust in their place to torture him further; Maria Romano
was buried alive at Rocco-patia; Magdalen Foulano underwent the same
fate at San Giovanni; Susan Michelini was bound hand and foot, and left
to perish of cold and hunger at Saracena. Bartholomew Fache, gashed
with sabres, had the wounds filled up with quicklime, and perished thus
in agony at Fenile; Daniel Michelini had his tongue torn out at Bobbio
for having praised God. James Baridari perished covered with sulphurous
matches, which had been forced into his flesh under the nails, between
the fingers, in the nostrils, in the lips, and over all his body, and
then lighted. Daniel Revelli had his mouth filled with gunpowder,
which, being lighted, blew his head to pieces. Maria Monnen, taken at
Liousa, had the flesh cut from her cheek and chin bone, so that her
jaw was left bare, and she was thus left to perish. Paul Garnier was
slowly sliced to pieces at Rora. Thomas Margueti was mutilated in an
indescribable manner at Miraboco, and Susan Jaquin cut in bits at La
Torre. Sara Rostagnol was slit open from the legs to the bosom, and so
left to perish on the road between Eyral and Lucerna. Anne Charbonnier
was impaled and carried thus on a pike, as a standard, from San
Giovanni to La Torre. Daniel Rambaud, at Paesano, had his nails torn
off, then his fingers chopped off, then his feet and his hands, then
his arms and his legs, with each successive refusal on his part to
abjure the Gospel.”[47] Thus the roll of martyrs runs on, and with each
new sufferer comes a new, a more excruciating and more horrible mode of
torture and death.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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