In the mid- to late-12th century a wealthy merchant of Lyon, France, named Valdesius (Waldo in English) was serving as a lay leader in the local Roman Catholic church. An inquisitive and devout man, he wanted to know what the Bible said, but it was only available in Latin. Waldo paid two priests in the local diocese to translate and copy the Scriptures for him in the vernacular of Occitan.
Convicted by the message of the Gospels, Waldo responded to a major drought in the region and the starvation of the masses which followed by opening a soup kitchen in May of 1174. By August he was giving away his money to the poor and again, convicted by the passage of the rich young man in Matthew 19, Waldo decided to give his wealth away and to follow Christ preaching the Gospel on the streets of Lyon.
This was the first time that more than two percent of the population had heard the Scriptures in a language they understood. The effect was electrifying. Within a few short decades, Waldo and his followers were called the Poor of Lyon or the Poor in Christ. Their preaching spread throughout the region and by the time of his death in 1206-07 the Waldensian witness had spread from southern France into northern Spain, northern Italy, and across the Alps into Austria.
However, the Roman Catholic Church was threatened by this movement, in part because it created such a contrast between the wealthy church with its “secretive” language in worship, and the humble and poor followers of Waldo who communicated the Scriptures in a language the common person could understand.
Though tolerated by Archbishop Guichard, Waldo’s movement was less well received by Archbishop Jean Bellesmains, who had Waldo and his followers expelled from Lyon in the early 1180s. By 1184, Waldo and his followers were excommunicated from the church and were ordered to cease their preaching.
By 1220, the Poor in Christ were branded as heretics, and the Roman Catholic Inquisition directed its full fury to their eradication. Those who either refused to recant or were second (or more) offenders were burned at the stake. Those who recanted were given various levels of penance. In the armed assaults and “crusades” these rules were often disregarded, but such killings were outside canon law.