HENRY OF LAUSANNE (variously known as of Bruys, of Cluny, of Toulouse, and as the Deacon), French heresiarch of the first half of the 12th century. Practically nothing is known of his origin or early life, but if St. Bernard's reproach (Ep. 241) be true, Henry was an apostate monk.
In 1134 Henry appeared before Innocent III. at the council of Pisa, where he was compelled to abjure his errors and was imprisoned. Towards 1139, Peter the Venerable, abbot of Cluny, wrote his Epistola seu tractatus adversus Petrobrusianos (Migne, Patr. Lat. 189) against the disciples of Peter of Bruys and Henry of Lausanne, whom he calls Henry of Bruys, and whom, at the moment of writing, he accuses of preaching heresy in the south of France. In 1145, at the instance of the legate Alberic, St. Bernard set out for the heretical towns of Bergerac, Perigueux, Sarlat, Cahors and Toulouse. At his approach Henry quitted Toulouse, leaving Bernard by his eloquence and miracles to make many converts and to restore Toulouse and Albi to orthodoxy. After inviting Henry to a disputation, which he refused to attend, St. Bernard returned to Clairvaux. Soon afterwards the heresiarch was arrested, brought before the bishop of Toulouse, and probably imprisoned for life.
See E. Vacandard, "Les Origines de l'heresie albigeoise," Revue des questions historiques (1894) , and Vie de S. Bernard (vol. ii., 1895) •