WALCHEREN WALDENSES. 



861 



tion of th_! country. The insurrection of 1821, 

 (see Hetaireia and Greece, Revolution of) was quel- 

 led, and only rendered the state of the province 

 more deplorable, until the war of 1828, when it was 

 occupied by the Russians, and now, though nominally 

 a Turkish province, is quite undpr Russian inflnewe 



WALCHEREN, oa WALCHERN; an island 

 of the Netherlands, the most important and the 

 most, westerly of the Zealand islands, about thir- 

 teen miles from north to south, and eight from east 

 to west, situated in the German sea, at the mouth 

 of the Scheldt. It lies low, protected from inun- 

 dation by strong dikes ; is well cultivated, but not 

 healthy. It contains three towns, Middleburg, the 

 chief place, with 13,200 inhabitants; Flushing, a 

 fortress ; and Veere ; and numerous villages. 

 Middleburg is the capital. Lon. 3 29' E. ; lat. 

 51 34' N. The British troops suffered dreadfully 

 from ague and fever, while quartered at Walcheren, 

 in 1809. 



WALDECK ; a sovereign principality of Ger- 

 many, bordering to the south and east on Hesse- 

 Cassel, and to the west and north on the Prussian 

 province of Westphalia. It has a superficial area 

 of 455 square miles, with 56,000 inhabitants. The 

 soil is mostly stony, but yields grain in abundance, 

 and affords good pasturage. The religion of the 

 inhabitants, who are industrious, but poor, is Lu- 

 theran. The county of Pyrmont belongs to Wai- 

 deck, though territorially separated from it. The 

 Waldeck estates are composed of certain landed pro- 

 prietors, deputies from the thirteen towns of the 

 principality, and ten deputies of the peasants. Wal- 

 d<;ck, as a member of the German confederation, 

 has one vote in the general assembly (plenum,} and, 

 in conjunction with the Hohenzollern, Lippe, Reuss, 

 and Lichtenstein houses, the sixteenth vote in the 

 diet. (See Germany.} The chief town is Cor- 

 bach, with 2200 inhabitants. The residence of the 

 prince is Arolsen, 1750 inhabitants. The revenue 

 of this petty principality is about 45,000 ; public 

 debt about 135,000 ; quota of troops to the army 

 of the confederacy, 518 men. The house is one 

 of the most ancient in Germany. Waldeck was 

 one of the shambles, as Chatham appropriately called 

 them, to which the British government had re- 

 course for purchasing troops in the American war. 



W ALDENS ES. This Christian sect, celebrated 

 as the precursor of the reformation, appears, from 

 old manuscripts in the university of Cambridge, to 

 have existed as early as 1100. According to 'the 

 common opinion, it owes its origin and name to 

 Peter Waldus (Waldo, Vaud), a rich citizen of 

 Lyons, although some of their writers derive the 

 appellation Waldenses from voile (valley), and call 

 them Vaudois, or dwellers in the valleys. About 

 1170, Waldo, from reading the Bible and some 

 passages from the fathers of the church, which he 

 caused to be translated into his native tongue, 

 came to the determination to imitate the mode of 

 life of the apostles and primitive Christians, gave 

 his goods to the poor, and by his preaching col- 

 lected numerous followers, chiefly from the class 

 of artisans, who, from the place of their birth, were 

 called Lyonists ; or Poor Men of Lyons, on account 

 of their voluntary poverty ; Sabatati, or Insabatati, 

 on account of their wooden shoes or sandals (sabots') ; 

 Humiliatists, on account of their humility ; and 

 were often confounded with the Cathari, Patarenes, 

 Albigenses, and others, whose fate they shared. 

 In their contempt of the degenerate clergy and 

 their opposition to the Roman priesthood, the 



Waldenses resembled other sects of the middle 

 ages ; but, going beyond the design of their founder, 

 which was merely to improve the morals of men, 

 and preach the word of God freely to every one 

 in his native language, they made the Bible alone 

 the rule of their faith, and, rejecting whatever was 

 not founded on it, and conformable to apostolical 

 antiquity, they gave the first impulse to a reform 

 of the whole Christian church, renounced entirely 

 the doctrines, usages and traditions of the Roman 

 church, and formed a separate religious society. 

 They were therefore excommunicated as heretics, 

 at the council of Verona, in 1184 ; but they did not 

 suffer a general persecution until the war against 

 the Albigenses, after they had spread and established 

 themselves in the south of France, under the pro- 

 tection of the counts of Toulouse and Foix. At 

 that time (12091230), many Waldenses fled to 

 Arragon, Savoy and Piedmont. Spain would not 

 tolerate them. In Languedoc they were able to 

 maintain themselves till 1330; in Provence, under 

 severe oppression, till 1545, when the parliament 

 at Aix caused them to be exterminated in the most 

 cruel manner; still longer in Dauphiny; and not 

 till the war of the Cevennes were the last Walden- 

 ses expelled from France. In the middle of the 

 fourteenth century, single congregations of this sect 

 went to Calabria and Apulia, where they were soon 

 suppressed; others to Bohemia, where they were 

 called Grubenheimer, because they used to conceal 

 themselves in caverns. These soon became amal- 

 gamated with the Hussites; and from them the 

 Bohemian Brethren derive the apostolical consecra- 

 tion of their bishops. On the other hand, they 

 found a retreat, fortified by nature, in the valleys 

 of western Piedmont, where they founded a distinct 

 church, which has remained, till the present day, 

 the main seat of their sect. Their doctrines rest 

 solely on the gospel, which, with some catechisms, 

 they have in their old dialect, consisting of a mix- 

 ture of French and Italian. In this language their 

 simple worship was performed, till their oldBarbes 

 (uncles, teachers) became extinct, in 1603. They 

 then received preachers from France, and since that 

 time their preaching has been in French. These 

 teachers, however, form no distinct priesthood, and 

 are supplied from the academies of the Calvinistic 

 churches. Their rites are limited to baptism and 

 the supper, respecting which they entertain the no- 

 tions of Calvin. The constitution of their congre- 

 gations, which are chiefly employed in the cultiva- 

 tion of vineyards, and in the breeding of cattle, and 

 which are connected by yearly synods, is republican. 

 Each congregation is superintended by a consistory 

 composed of elders and deacons, under the presi- 

 dency of the pastor, which maintains the strictest 

 moral discipline, and adjusts small differences. From 

 the time of their origin, the Waldenses have been 

 distinguished from their Catholic neighbours by 

 their pure morals and their industry, and have been 

 esteemed as the best subjects. After they had 

 entered into a religious communion with the Cal- 

 vinists, in the sixteenth century, they were also 

 exposed to the storm which was intended to sweep 

 away the reformation, the doctrines of which they 

 had already cherished for upwards of three cen- 

 turies. This was the cause of their extirpation in 

 France, and their chequered fate in Piedmont. 

 Those who had settled in the marquisate of Saluzzo 

 were totally exterminated by 1633 ; and those in 

 the other valleys, having received from the court of 

 Turin, in 1654, new assurances of religious, tree- 



