Petrus Valdes

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Valdes on the Luther Monument (1868) in Worms

Petrus Valdes or Waldes , also Waldus, Valdesius, Valdus, Peter Waldo, Pierre Waldes († before 1218), was a merchant in Lyon and, as a religious layman and traveling preacher, founded the community of faith of the Waldensians , later named after him , which was considered one of the most important medieval heresies (Heretic movements) and which as a religious association has survived to this day despite persecution by the Inquisition . The first name Petrus has not been passed down in contemporary sources and was probably later attributed to him by his followers.

Life and work in Lyon

As a wealthy citizen of Lyon, Valdes devoted himself to studying the Bible and in the early 1170s commissioned the priest Stephan von Anse to translate the Latin Bible translation , the Vulgate , into the local southern French / Occitan or Franco-Provencal dialect so that the Bible could also be understood by the common people could be. Copies of this translation were made that have not survived.

Probably around 1176/77, when a famine swept across the country, Valdes experienced a religious experience of purification that was to change his previous life in a decisive way. The backgrounds of this event are presented differently in the sources. According to the information provided by Anonymous of Laon († after 1219), Valdes is said to have been deeply moved by the song of a minstrel, which contained the legend of Alexius von Edessa . Afterwards, Valdes is said to have left a large part of his property to his wife and entrusted his daughters to the monastery in Fontévrault . According to the Passau anonymous, however, the sudden death of another noble citizen is said to have frightened him and then prompted him to immediately spend a large amount of money on the poor, have the text of the New Testament translated into his language and the poor about the Gospel taught.

During the famine, Valdes organized public meals for the poor in the Lyons area and held Bible readings in the months that followed, attracting numerous followers who wanted to follow his example of a pious life in voluntary poverty. In the ideal of an apostle-like life, in the following years more and more men and women preached in poverty and living by begging moved through the area of ​​the Diocese of Lyon , which is why Valdes and his followers, the later Waldensians (French: Vaudois ), called the “poor of Lyon ”.

The conflict with the church

Valdes and his followers had devoted themselves primarily to the invitation of Christ to his apostles “proclaim the gospel to all creatures” ( Mk 16.15  EU ), who they understood as a mandate that was in principle free for every Christian. It was precisely at this point, however, that the fundamental conflict with the Catholic Church arose which would later make the Waldensians the target of the Inquisition. Because the church saw this commission of Christ with reference to the biblical words "You are Peter , the rock, and on this rock I will build my church" ( Mt 16,18  EU ) transferred to itself alone; According to the church, the right to preach was therefore reserved only for its own clergy . The release of the right to preach to laypeople would have fundamentally called into question the justification of church institutions.

Valdes recognized this problem and, in order to forestall a major conflict, turned to Pope Alexander III in 1179 during the Third Lateran Council in Rome . to obtain official papal permission to preach. At a side meeting of the council, chaired by the English envoy Walter Map († 1208/1210), two speaking "poor of Lyon" were mocked by the Catholic clergy with great laughter. Nevertheless, the Pope , who, according to Anonymus von Laon Valdes, is said to have even embraced, approved the poverty-stricken lifestyle of the “poor of Lyon” and granted them the required permission to preach, albeit with the essential restriction that they only preached with the approval of the local bishop may be.

In return, Valdes signed - he signed with "ego Valdesius" (the first name Peter appears in a source for the first time in 1368) - at a synod held in Lyons in 1180 in the presence of the papal legate, the Cistercian Cardinal Bishop of Albano, Henri de Marcy, an orthodox Confession against the Cathars. It relativized the ideas of the “poor of Lyons” about poverty and preaching compared to those of the Catholic Church. At the same time, beliefs were formulated that clearly separated the Waldensians from the heretical movement of the Cathars, which has meanwhile become dangerous for the Church in southern France , in order to prevent any rapprochement between these communities.

For some time, Valdes and his followers were able to legally comply with the proclamation of the Gospels under the Lyons Archbishop Guichard († 1181) on the basis of the permission to preach . But with his successor, Jean Bellesmains , the conflict arose again under circumstances that were not entirely clear. According to Stephen of Bourbon († 1261), who complained about the participation of women in the sermon in relation to the “poor of Lyon”, Archbishop Valdes, who had appeared before him, formally withdrew the right to preach . Valdes, on the other hand, insisted on preaching, is said to have replied to him with a quotation from the Bible: “One must obey God more than men” ( Acts 5:29  EU ).

Expulsion as a heretic

After Valdes' refusal to obey the episcopal preaching ban, he was excommunicated by the archbishop in 1182/83 and expelled from Lyon with his followers. In 1184, the "poor of Lyon" in the Pope Lucius III. after the Council of Verona written edict ad abolendam first time as heretics ( heretic listed), occupied by permanent excommunication and threatened with serious criminal sanctions. Another conviction took place in 1215 in the course of the IV Lateran Council under Pope Innocent III.

After their expulsion, the “poor of Lyon” first spread to southern France and northern Italy. In Central Europe they can be traced back to the turn of the 13th century. According to their religious outlook, the early Waldensians may not have initially seen themselves in conflict with the Catholic teachings. But in the course of the dispute with the church institutions, views of the Bible that were stricter and ran counter to Catholic teachings began to prevail. The rejection of purgatory , the veneration of saints , church statutes as well as secular criminal jurisdiction and the taking of the oath is documented as early as 1218 - both among the French "poor of Lyon" and their fellow believers, who were referred to as "Lombard arms" in northern Italy . Larger waves of persecution by the Inquisition did not occur until the 1230s / 40s.

Nothing is known about the last years of Valdes' life, who in his conception of the lay service to the faith is often compared to Francis of Assisi . His death is put in the literature in the years before 1207, but certainly before 1218.

For the further history of the followers of Valdes see Waldenses .

Remembrance day

April 12th in the Evangelical Name Calendar .

swell

  • Ad Abolendam . In: Aemilius Friedberg (Ed.): Corpus iuris canonici, Volume 2 . Leipzig 1879 (photomechanical reprint Graz 1955), Sp. 780–782.
  • Anonymus von Laon: Ex chronico universali Anonymi Laudunensis . In: Georg Waitz (Ed.): Scriptores (in Folio) 26: Ex rerum Francogallicarum scriptoribus. Ex historiis auctorum Flandrensium Francogallica lingua scriptis. Hannover 1882, pp. 442–457 ( Monumenta Germaniae Historica , digitized version )
  • Ignaz Döllinger: Contributions to the sect history of the Middle Ages . Volume 2, Munich 1890, p. 6.
  • Liber Visionum et Miraculorum . In: Michel Rubellin: Église et société chrétienne d 'Agobard à Valdès . Lyon 2003, pp. 502f.
  • Durandus from Osca: Liber Antihaeresis. In: Kurt-Victor Selge: The first Waldensians. With edition of the Liber Antiheresis by Durandus von Osca , 2 volumes. Berlin 1967. (Works on Church History 37). In it the creed of 1180: Vol. II, pp. 3–6.
  • Stephan von Bourbon & Passauer Anonymus: Texts in: Alexander Patschovsky, Kurt-Victor Selge (Hrsg.): Sources for the history of the Waldensians . Gütersloh 1973. (Texts on the history of the church and theology 18), pp. 15–17 and 19.
  • Walter Map: De nugis curialium . Published by Montague Rhodes James . Oxford 1983, ISBN 0-19-822236-X , chap. 31, pp. 124-129.

literature

  • Gabriel Audisio: The Waldensians. The story of a religious movement . Bechtermünz, Augsburg 2001, ISBN 3-8289-4885-5 .
  • Peter Biller: The Waldenses, 1170-1530. Between a religious order and a church (Collected Studies Series; 676). Ashgate Variorum Books, Aldershot 2001, ISBN 0-86078-798-2 .
  • Herbert Grundmann : Religious Movements in the Middle Ages. Studies on the historical connections between heresy, the mendicant orders and the religious women's movements of the 12th and 13th centuries and on the historical basis of German mysticism . Scientific book society. Darmstadt 1977 (repr. Of the Berlin 1935 edition).
  • Malcolm Lambert: Heresy in the Middle Ages. Heresies from Bogumil to Hus . Bechtermünz, Augsburg 2004, ISBN 3-8289-4886-3 .
  • Amadeo Molnár: The Waldensians. History and European extent of a heretic movement . Herder, Freiburg / B. 1994, ISBN 3-451-04233-9 .
  • Werner Raupp: Petrus Waldes - with wooden sandals around the world, in: Ders .: Werkbuch Kirchengeschichte. 52 people from two millennia, Gießen / Basel: Brunnen Verlag 1987, pp. 166–171 u. Pp. 60–61 (quiz: profile).
  • Kurt-Victor Selge : The first Waldensians. With edition of the Liber Antiheresis by Durandus von Osca (Works on Church History; 37). De Gruyter, Berlin 1967.
  1. Investigation and presentation
  2. The liber antitheresis
  • Erich Wenneker:  Valdes, founder of the Waldensian reform movement. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 12, Bautz, Herzberg 1997, ISBN 3-88309-068-9 , Sp. 1029-1035.  ( Article / beginning of article in Internet archive )
  • Paul R. Tarmann: The Waldensians' concept of poverty. A socio-philosophical approach , Frankfurt am Main (et al.) 2010; ISBN 978-3-631-60203-4
  • Martin Windischhofer: The first Waldensians . In: Ders .: The Waldensians in Austria. Dawn, persecution and change of the early movement up to 1315 . Diploma thesis, University of Vienna 2006, pp. 7–29.
  • Rolf Zerfaß: The dispute over the lay sermon. A pastoral historical investigation into the understanding of the ministry and its development in the 12th and 13th centuries . (= Studies on practical theology of pastoral care; 2). Herder, Freiburg 1974, ISBN 3-451-16626-7 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Petrus Valdes in the ecumenical dictionary of saints

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Valdes, Peter
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Waldes, Peter; Waldus, Petrus; Valdus, Peter; Waldo, Peter; Waldes, Pierre
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Merchant and founder of the Waldensians
DATE OF BIRTH 12th Century
DATE OF DEATH before 1218