GUNDULF, perhaps "a reformer before the reformation," in the 11th c. gathered disciples around him in the u. of France, particularly in Arras and Liege. lie may have been an artisan who had settled in that region because of the flourishing condition of manufactures there, and among Ids fellow-workmen found or made disciples to his religions views. His greatest success was prior to 1025, in which year a company of his followers were arrested by Gerhard, bishop of Cambrai and Arras, and brought to trial for spreading heretical doctrines. According to the rules which they avowed they were persons who had forsaken the world, were striving to keep the flesh in subjection, to support themselves by their industry, to be honest in their dealings and to love all who were willing to join them. In their assemblies they were accustomed to pray and to wash one another's feet. But Gerhard, affirming that he had obtained from some of their proselytes a knowledge of their faith anti practice, charged them with rejecting the Roman Catholic church, the pope's supremacy, the hierarchical system and even all clergy whatever; and with saying that "dogmatic, liturgic, and constitutive traditions are worthless; all the sacraments of the Roman Catholic church are to be rejected; the consecrated elements of the Lord's supper are nothing more than what they appear to our senses; at the last supper Christ did not really give his disciples his body for food and his blood for drink; marriage is to be avoided; church buildings are not holy, hence worship does not derive any special virtue from being offered therein; the altar is only a heap of stones; fumigations, and the ringing of bells are useless ceremonial; crosses, crucifixes, images tend to idolatry." But although Gerhard charged the followers of
Gundalf with believing these doctrines, they would not avow them. They defended only their opinions concerning baptism, to show the inefficacy of which, as an outward rite, they pointed to the immoral lives of the clergy who administered, and of the people who received it, as well as,to the fact that in the children baptized, not one of the condi tions was to lie found on which all efficacy must depend—no consciousness, no will, no faith, no confession. But at length, under the combined influence of the bishop's argu ments and of torture, they agreed to recant their errors. Then Gerhard and other members of the synod pronounced a condemnation of the heresy, excommunicated the authors of it, if they did not repent, and Compelled the prisoners to sign is statement of the true Roman Catholic doctrine before they were released. A copy of the proceedings was sent also to the bishop of Liege. The acts of the synod are the only source from which knowledge of this sect can be obtained; and after the trial neither Gundulf nor his fol lowers can be traced. If they continued to hold their opinions they did so in secret. Similar sects existed at all times in the Roman Catholic church and, so far as the facts concerning them can be discovered, they seem generally to have been seekers after truth and godliness, in an age whose corruptions had dishonored the Christian name.