li, Populicani.

Upon the subject of the Waldenses and Albigenses generally, I have
borrowed some light from Mr. Turner's History of England, vol. ii. p.
377, 393. This learned writer has seen some books that have not fallen
into my way; and I am indebted to him for a knowledge of Alanus's
treatise, which I have since read. At the same time I must observe, that
Mr. Turner has not perceived the essential distinction between the two
leading sects.

The name of Albigenses does not frequently occur after the middle of the
thirteenth century; but the Waldenses, or sects bearing that
denomination, were dispersed over Europe. As a term of different
reproach was derived from the word Bulgarian, so _vauderie_, or the
profession of the Vaudois, was sometimes applied to witchcraft. Thus in
the proceedings of the Chambre Brulante at Arras, in 1459, against
persons accused of sorcery, their crime is denominated _vauderie_. The
fullest account of this remarkable story is found in the Memoirs of Du
Clercq, first published in the general collection of Historical Memoirs,
t. ix. p. 430, 471. It exhibits a complete parallel to the events that
happened in 1682 at Salem in New England. A few obscure persons were
accused of _vauderie_, or witchcraft. After their condemnation, which
was founded on confessions obtained by torture, and afterwards
retracted, an epidemical contagion of superstitious dread was diffused
all around. Numbers were arrested, burned alive by order of a tribunal
instituted for the detection of this offence, or detained in prison; so
that no person in Arras thought himself safe. It was believed that many
were accused for the sake of their possessions, which were confiscated
to the use of the church. At length the duke of Burgundy interfered, and
put a stop to the persecutions. The whole narrative in Du Clercq is
interesting, as a curious document of the tyranny of bigots, and of the
facility with which it is turned to private ends.

To return to the Waldenses: the principal course of their emigration is
said to have been into Bohemia, where, in the fifteenth century, the
name was borne by one of the seceding sects. By their profession of
faith, presented to Ladislaus Posthumus, it appears that they
acknowledged the corporal presence in the eucharist, but rejected
purgatory and other Romish doctrines. See it in the Fasciculus Rerum
expetendarum et fugiendarum, a collection of treatises illustrating the
origin of the Re