CHAPTER III.

FIRST PERSECUTIONS OF THE WALDENSES.

Their Unique Position in Christendom--Their Twofold Testimony--They Witness against Rome and for Protestantism-- Hated by Rome--The Cottian Alps--Albigenses and Waldenses-- The Waldensian Territory Proper--Papal Testimony to the Flourishing State of their Church in the Fourteenth Century--Early Bulls against them--Tragedy of Christmas, 1400--Constancy of the Waldenses--Crusade of Pope Innocent VIII.--His Bull of 1487--The Army Assembles--Two Frightful Tempests approach the Valleys 19