There are two prevailing theories about the identity and origin of the Waldensians. Their own claim is that their history extends back to the apostolic church while the mainstream academic view is that the Waldensians were followers of Peter Waldo (or Valdes or Vaudes).
On the other hand, he "was called Valdus, or Waldo, because he received his religious notions from the inhabitants of the valleys." History of the Christian Church, William Jones, Vol II, p.2
Preaching required official permission which he was unable to secure from the Bishop in Lyon and so in 1179 he met with Pope Alexander III at the Third Council of the Lateran and asked for permission to preach. The pope, while praising his ideal of poverty, ordered him not to preach unless he had the permission of the local clergy. He continued to preach without permission and by the early 1180s he and his followers were excommunicated and forced from Lyon. The Catholic church declared them heretics - the group's principle error was "contempt for ecclesiastical power" - that they dared to teach and preach outside of the control of the clergy "without divine inspiration". They were also accused of the ignorant teaching of "innumerable errors" and condemned for translating parts of the Bible into Vernacular. Thus, they were considered heretics because the clergy saw them as a danger to what they understood as the divinely sanctioned church hierarchy. In 1207, one of Waldo's early companions, Durand of Osca, converted to Catholicism after debating with Bishop Diego of Osma and St. Dominic. Durand later went to Rome where he professed the Catholic faith to Innocent III. Innocent gave him permission to establish the Poor Catholics who continued the Waldensian preaching mission against the Cathars. The Franciscans and Dominicans latter supplanted the Poor Catholics. Waldo and his followers developed a system where they would go from town to town and meet secretly with small groups of Waldensians. There they would confess sins and hold service. A traveling Waldensian preacher was known as a barba and could be either man or woman. (The idea of a female preacher was novel, almost revolutionary in and of itself, for the era.) The group would shelter and house the barba and help make arrangements to move on to the next town in secret.
Much of what is known about the Waldensians comes from reports from Reinerius Saccho (died 1259), a former Waldensian who turned state's evidence and wrote some reports for the Inquisition, Summa de Catharis et Pauperibus de Lugduno "Of the Sects of Modern Heretics" (1254) (first rediscovered and printed in S. R. Maitland), Facts and Documents Illustrative of the History, Doctrine, and Rites of the Ancient Albigenses and Waldenses, (London, 1832). Reinerius' lists of their tenets reveals that the heirs of Waldo considered themselves the true representatives of the apostolic Christian church, that statues and decorations were superfluous, that their obedience was to God, not to prelates, of whom the pope was the chief source of errors, and that no one is greater than another in the church, following Matthew 23: "All of you are brethren." The Waldensians believed that the Pope and bishops were guilty of homicides because of the inquisition and the crusades. They believed that the land and its people should not be divided up, that bishops and abbots ought not to have royal rights and that the clergy should not own possessions. They purportedly believed that none of the sacraments, including marriage, were of any effect. They also denied the validity of the secular use of force, which they considered a mortal sin. However, the inquisitors often noted the Waldensian belief in early church fathers. Moreover, the Waldenses never developed a church entirely independent from the Catholic Church.
They absorbed a number of other groups including the Humiliati and had their own internal split and reformation with the Lombards. Because the Cathars had also been condemned around the same time, the Waldensians became associated with them as part of the target for the Albigensian Crusade from 1208. However the Waldensians and Cathars were not similar in their core beliefs. Waldo possibly died around this time, possibly in Germany, but he was never captured and his fate uncertain.
As early as the twelfth century, the Waldensians were granted refuge in Piedmont by the Count of Savoy. While the House of Savoy itself remained strongly Roman Catholic, this gesture angered the Papacy. While the Holy See might be willing to tolerate the continued presence of large Muslim populations in the Normans' Kingdom of Sicily, it was less than willing to accept a new Christian sect in Piedmont.
The Albigensians and other Bogomil heretics were apparently believers in Dualism and denied the third person of the Holy Trinity. The Waldensians did not. However, both the Waldensians and Albigensians were folk movements that involved public preaching. In the thirteenth century, there was a substantial enough problem with clerical literacy that preaching to the laity in churches was hampered. Therefore, the field was somewhat clear for peripatetic evangelism of these heretical and protesting movements. At the same time, the lack of ecclesiastical structure and training meant that each sect could be at wide variance with others. The Waldensians became a diverse movement as it spread out acroos Europe in France, Italy, Germany, and Bohemia.
Unlike the Cathars, the Waldensians survived elsewhere in Europe, remaining strong in France and also having a presence in northern Italy, southern Germany and down into central Europe. Particular efforts against the movement began in the 1230s with the Inquisition seeking the leaders of the movements. The movement had been almost completely suppressed in southern France within twenty years but the persecution lasted into the 14th century.
A crusade against Waldensians in the Dauphiné region of France was declared in 1487, but Papal representatives continued to devastate towns and villages into the mid 16th century as the Waldensians became absorbed into the wider Protestant Reformation. Moreover, the Waldensian absorption into Protestantism led to their transformation from a sect on the edge of Catholicism that shared many Catholic beliefs into a Protestant church adhering to the theology of John Calvin, which differed much from the beliefs of Peter Waldes.
By the 1920s the Waldensian churches and missions merged into the Presbyterian Church due to the cultural assimilation of the second and third generations.
The American Waldensian Society is a cultural organization that works to preserve their millennial heritage among their descendants.