About One Hundred Persons Called Waldenses, in the Year 1212

In the year 1212, the true doctrine of the Gospel began to show itself widely in Alsace, among the Waldenses, who were one people and of the same faith as the Albigenses. But the prince of darkness, unable to endure this great light, used every means to put it out, so that in that same year, in Strasburg alone, about a hundred people, men as well as women, were burned alive on the same day, for this confession, by the servants of antichrist, and especially through the bishop of that city.

About this, the papist writer H. Mutius writes: "In the year 1212 a heresy arose in Alsace, by which noble and lowborn were led astray. They held that it was lawful to eat meat every day throughout the whole year, and that there is as much excess in the immoderate eating of fish as of any kind of meat." Again: "That those who forbid marriage do very wrong, since God has created all things, and everything may be used in a holy manner, with thanksgiving."

"This opinion of theirs," he writes, "they held very firmly, and many believed them. Moreover, they did not hesitate (hear how the papists speak) to revile the most holy lord, the pope, because he forbade persons of the church to marry, and ordered them to abstain on certain forbidden days from some kinds of food. The pope of Rome therefore commanded that these people should be done away with and put to death. So about a hundred were burned together on the same day, by the bishop of Strasburg. H. Mut., Chron. book 19.

Bruschius, in his history of the Monasteries of Germany, relates that at the same time thirty five, or, as others read, thirty nine people, inhabitants of Mentz, were brought to Bingen, and there burned alive for the doctrine of the Waldenses; and at another time, by the same bishop of Mentz, eighteen others for the same confession. Also A. Mell., 2nd book, folio 457, column 3; also P. J. Twisck, Chron., page 526, column 1, from Guil. Merulae Tijdt thresoor, folio 800.