prior to his condemnation as
an heretic; and, moreover, the various ways in which it is written, _e.g._,
sometimes Valdo, sometimes Valdus, at other times Valdesius or Valdensis,
shows that the word was not a proper name, but a mere appellative. So with
regard to the idea that Vaudois comes from Vaudes, a sorcerer, it would be
more correct to say that the term sorcerer was one applied by the
inhabitants of the plains to those who were Vaudois, or hill-men, under the
notion that the inhabitants of such localities practised sorcery. Hence we
are compelled to assume that the name is purely geographical, and applied
from time immemorial to the persons living in those valleys of Piedmont
which have ever formed part of the Italian territory, and are not to be
confounded with the Swiss Canton de Vaud, bearing a name so like because of
the similarity of geographical conformation.

In answer to the next question, How long have the Waldenses lived in the
locality from which they derive their name? _Da ogni tempo, da tempo
immemoriale_--from all time, from time immemorial--is the claim set up by
them in their earliest documents, and repeated over and over again in their
petitions to the House of Savoy for liberty of conscience.[A] Nor is there
any attempt to refute this claim of antiquity on the part of their princes
or their persecutors.

To this statement of the Waldenses themselves we will add corroborative
testimony from others.

Their enemies. We begin with Reinerius the Inquisitor, A.D. 1250. He refers
to the Waldenses under the term of Leonists, and says that this sect has
been of longer continuance (than the others to which he refers), having
lasted, some say, from the time of Pope Sylvester (314), and others from
the time of the apostles.

Pilichdorf, a writer of the same date, expressly asserts that the Waldenses
claimed to have existed from the time of Pope Sylvester, and Claude
Seyssel, Archbishop of Turin from the close of the fifteenth century to the
beginning of the sixteenth, and whose diocese extended to the valleys of
Piedmont, says that the Waldenses took their origin from Leo, a person in
the time of ye Emperor Constantine, who, hating the avarice of Pope
Sylvester and the immoderate endowment of the Church of Rome, seceded from
her communion, and "_drew after him all who entertained right sentiments
about the Christian religion_."

Next in order we may take the testimony of Rorenco, Grand Prior of St. Roch