Waldenses

Wal‐den″ses (?; 277), n. pl. [So called from Petrus Waldus, or Peter Waldo, a merchant of Lyons, who founded this sect about a. d. 1170.] (Eccl. Hist.) A sect of dissenters from the ecclesiastical system of the Roman Catholic Church, who in the 13th century were driven by persecution to the valleys of Piedmont, where the sect survives. They profess substantially Protestant principles.