Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Waldensians" in English language version.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)[...] returning to the region of the Alps, he [Vigilantius] found a body of Christians like-minded with himself; with these he gladly united, and laboured.
The Waldensians eschewed the Cathars, who were busy in the same regions at the same time. While the Cathars were heretics, the Waldensians generally were not. Their real act of defiance was quietly to deny the existence of purgatory.
George Herbert Orchard (1796–1861), an English Baptist pastor in Bedfordshire ... sought to trace Baptist churches from the time of John the Baptist through such groups as the Montanists, Novationists, Donatists, Paulicians, Patarines, Petrobrusians, Arnoldists, Albigenses, Waldenses, Unitas Fratrum, Lollards, and Anabaptists. Thereby Baptist church successionism was added to the body of Landmark beliefs.
little is known with certainty about the reputed founder, Valdes (also called Peter Waldo, or Valdo). As a layman, Valdes preached (1170–1176) in Lyon, France
The earliest Waldensian sources show a strong belief in the presence of Christ in the Eucharist. They drew on Peter Lombards' "Sentences" to respond to the Cathars and explain how evil men could consume the Eucharist. Nothing here was heretical or deviated from Orthodoxy.
The real founder of the sect was a wealthy merchant of Lyons who in the early documents is called Waldes (Waldo) ... On the feast of the Assumption, 1176, he disposed of the last of his earthly possessions and shortly after took the vow of poverty.
The first Waldensian congregations, it was maintained, were established by St. Paul who, on his journey to Spain, visited the valleys of Piedmont ... In the nineteenth century, however, it became evident to critics that the Waldensian documents had been tampered with.
Pope Lucius III consequently included them among the heretics against whom he issued a Bull of excommunication at Verona in 1184.