Waldenses

1 definition found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Waldenses \Wal*den"ses\ (?; 277), n. pl. [So called from Petrus
     Waldus, or Peter Waldo, a merchant of Lyons, who founded this
     sect about a. d. 1170.] (Eccl. Hist.)
     A sect of dissenters from the ecclesiastical system of the
     Roman Catholic Church, who in the 13th century were driven by
     persecution to the valleys of Piedmont, where the sect


     survives. They profess substantially Protestant principles.
     [1913 Webster]