ties, they held firm. Their
punishment was terrible. They were, of course, by Rome's cruel fiction
that the Church punishes no man, delivered over to the secular power;
and the sentence upon them was that of branding on the forehead, their
garments being cut down to the girdle, and being turned into the open
fields. Proclamation was made that none should presume to receive them
under his roof, nor "to administer consolation." The sentence was
carried out with even more barbarity than it was issued, for Gerhardt
was twice branded, on forehead and chin, all were scourged, and were
then beaten with rods out of the city. No compassion was shown even to
the women. Not a creature dared to open his door to the "heretics."
Their solitary convert recanted in terror. But the Germans went
patiently and heroically to their death, singing, as they passed on, the
last beatitude--"Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you and persecute
you, and shall say all manner of evil against you, falsely, for My
sake." Their suffering did not last long. It was in the depth of
winter that they were cast out, and they soon lay down in the snow and
yielded up their martyr-souls to God.

According to the monkish chroniclers, not one survived. But one
elaborate argument may be found, by an eminent antiquary (_Archaologia_,
nine 292-309), urging that survivors of this company were probably the
ancestors of a mysterious group entitled "Waldenses," who appear in the
Public Records in after years as tenants, and not improbably vassals, of
the Archbishop of Canterbury. They paid to that See 4 shillings per
annum for waste land; 3 shillings 4 pence for "half a plough of land of
gable;" 5 shillings 4 pence at each of the four principal feasts, with
32 and a half pence in lieu of autumnal labours--_i.e._, mowing,
reaping, etcetera. When the Archbishop was resident on the manor of
Darenth, they had to convey corn for his household, in consideration of
which they received forage from his barns, and a corrody or regular
allowance of food and clothing from a monastery. I am not competent to
judge how far the contention of the writer is valid; but the possibility
of such a thing seemed to warrant the supposition in a tale that one or
two of the company might have escaped the fate which undoubtedly
overtook the majority of the mission.

The story may be found in a condensed form in Milner's Church History,
Three, 459.

Every one of the singular nam