Paul Daniel Alphandéry

“ The bishops were forbidden to oppose any of the utterances of the Humiliati brethren, “for the spirit must not be stifled.” James of Vitry, without being unfavourable to their tendencies, represents their association as one of the peculiarities of the church of his time (Historia orientalis, Douai, 1597) . So broad a discipline must of necessity have led back some waverers into the pale of the church, but the Waldenses of Lombardy, in their congregationes laborantium, preserved the tradition of the independent Humiliati. ”

“ The “Chronicon anonymi Laudunensis canonici” (Mon. Germ. hist. Scriptores, xxvi. 449) , at date 1178, states that a group of Lombards came to Rome with the intention of obtaining the pope’s approval of the rule of life which they had spontaneously chosen; while continuing to live in their houses in the midst of their families, they wished to lead a more pious existence than of old, to abandon oaths and litigation, to content themselves with a modest dress, and all in a spirit of Catholic piety. ”

“ Returning to their own country, they did penance and took the name of Humiliati. They do not seem to have had any fixed rule, nor did St Bernard succeed in inducing them to submit to one. The traditions relating to a reform of this order by St John of Meda are ill authenticated, his Acta (Acta sanctorum Boll., Sept., vii. 320) being almost entirely unsupported by contemporary evidence. ”