4. The origin of the Western sectaries, so-called, under the common name of Waldenses, has been the subject of much controversy. One class of writers, favorable to Romanism, with the view of involving them in the common charge of Manicheism, have endeavored to prove that their opinions were of Eastern, or Paulician origin; while the opposite party affirm that they were free from the Manichean error, and that they have been the inheritors and maintainers, from father to son, of a pure and scriptural Christianity, from the time of Constantine, if not from the days of the apostles.
But as it is not so much our object at present to trace the history of these ancient, simple, and devoted christian people, as to bring out another feature of the papacy under Innocent, in its most fully expressed blasphemy and cruelty; we will merely satisfy the reader as to who these people were, and as to the scene of their slaughter. "The terms," says Dr. Gilly, "Vaudois in French, Vallenses in Latin, Valdisi in Italian, and Waldenses in English ecclesiastical history, signifying nothing more or less than 'men of the valleys;' and as the valleys of Piedmont have had the honor of producing a race of people who have remained true to the faith introduced by the first missionaries who preached Christianity in those regions, the synonyms have been adopted as the distinguishing names of a religious community, faithful to the primitive creed, and free from the corruptions of the church of Rome."
The Albigenses, though essentially one with the Waldenses in matters of faith, were so called because the greater part of Narbonnese-Gaul which they inhabited was called Albigesium, or from Albi, a town in Languedoc. The Alps separated the two communities. God found an asylum for the Waldenses in the valleys on the eastern side, and for the Albigenses in the valleys on the western side, of that great mountain range, where they were preserved and fortified for many centuries.