nerol (see Leger's map), which have so long been distinguished as the
native country of the Vaudois. In the acts of the Inquisition, we find
Waldenses, sive pauperes de Lugduno, used as equivalent terms; and it
can hardly be doubted that the poor men of Lyons were the disciples of
Waldo. Alanus, the second book of whose treatise against heretics is an
attack upon the Waldenses, expressly derives them from Waldo. Petrus
Monachus does the same. These seem strong authorities, as it is not easy
to perceive what advantage they could derive from misrepresentation. It
has been however a position zealously maintained by some modern writers
of respectable name, that the people of the valleys had preserved a pure
faith for several ages before the appearance of Waldo. I have read what
is advanced on this head by Leger (Histoire des Eglises Vaudoises) and
by Allix (Remarks on the Ecclesiastical History of the Churches of
Piedmont), but without finding any sufficient proof for this
supposition, which nevertheless is not to be rejected as absolutely
improbable. Their best argument is deduced from an ancient poem called
La Noble Loicon, an original manuscript of which is in the public
library of Cambridge, and another in that of Geneva. This poem is
alleged to bear date in 1100, more than half a century before the
appearance of Waldo. But the lines that contain the date are loosely
expressed, and may very well suit with any epoch before the termination
of the twelfth century.

Ben ha mil et cent ans compli entierament,
Che fu scritta loro que sen al derier temp.

Eleven hundred years are now gone and past,
Since thus it was written; These times are the last.

See Literature of Europe in 15th, 16th, and 17th Centuries, chap. 1, Sec.
33.

I have found however a passage in a late work, which remarkably
illustrates the antiquity of Alpine protestantism, if we may depend on
the date it assigns to the quotation. Mr. Planta's History of
Switzerland, p. 93, 4to. edit., contains the following note:--"A curious
passage, singularly descriptive of the character of the Swiss, has
lately been discovered in a MS. chronicle of the Abbey of Corvey, which
appears to have been written about the beginning of the twelfth century.
Religionem nostram, et omnium Latinae ecclesiae Christianorum fidem, laici
ex Suavia, Suicia, et Bavaria humiliare voluerunt; homines seducti ab
antiqua progenie simplicium hominum, qui Alpes et viciniam habit