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The Waldensian Dissent. Persecution and Survival, c. 11 70-c. 15 70. By Gabriel Audisio. Translated by Claire Davison. [Cambridge Medieval Textbooks.) (New York: Cambridge University Press. 1999. Pp. xiv, 234. $59.95 clothbound; $21.95 paperback.)
The Poor of Lyons emerged around 1170 as followers of Vau&s, a layman who advocated literal observance of the gospel and lay preaching. As an evangelical movement, the Poor stand apart from other such experiments in the Middle Ages because, although condemned and long persecuted by the Church as heretics, they survived until absorbed into the Protestant Reformation. Since the original publication in 1989 of this volume as Les 'Vaudois': naissance, vie et mort d'une dissidence (xii(e)-xvi(e) siecle), Audisio's work has been the most easily accessible general account of these 'Waldensians' (as their medieval Catholic enemies called them), and an English translation is therefore very...