In the eleventh century, Lambertus, a Catholic and friend of Gregory VII. writes thus: "The court of Rome has so completely stifled all charity and Christian simplicity, that almost all good and just men believe that the reign of Antichrist, of which St. John speaks, is already commenced." John the Fifth, who reigned before this period, has been called by cotemporary writers, the most wicked of men. In these unhappy times the Vaudois did not venture to preach any where but in the woods and highest mountains, except in their most remote villages, such as Macel and Pral, &c. In the eleventh century, Berenger, so celebrated for his knowledge and virtues, was condemned by two councils, convoked by Pope Leo IX., and was forced to retract what he had written against transubstantiation, &c. by Pope Nicholas. He lost no time, however, in protesting against this forced recantation, and persevered in his doctrine till his death, in 1091. Now the belief of Berenger, (says an ancient author,) the same as that of the Vaudois, was so well preserved in the valleys, that to call a man a Berengerian was the same as calling him a Vaudois. Peter de Bruys,* a priest of Toulon, whose doctrine was precisely similar, succeeded Berenger, and preached in Languedoc, Provence, and Dauphiné, particularly at Gap and Embrun, a few hours distance only from the Vaudois valleys; his disciples were called Petrobrusians, and he was martyred at S. Gilles, 1124. * His disciples after his death, published a book, declarative of his reasons for opposing the Roman Catholic Church; a copy of which, in ancient Gothic characters, is extant in the library of Cambridge. Henry de Bruys, and Arnaud de Bresse now took up the cause, and extended the Vaudois doctrines in Lombardy. Of the disciples of the former, St. Bernard, who wrote in 1120, bears this testimony, "that they prided themselves in being the true successors of the apostles, and conservators of their doctrine."