WALDEN'SES, in ecclesiastical his tory, a remarkable religious sect, said to have derived their name from Peter do, a merchant of Lyons, who preached what he regarded as the pore doctrine of the Scriptnres about 1180. Historians have confounded them, on the one hand, with the Vaudois (see that article,) who appear, although their history is involved in much obscurity, to be an older and separ ate people ; and on the other (especially those of the Catholic party,) with the Albigenses ; and thus it has been endeav ored to throw on them the discredit of the Manichean tracts, which are cowinon ly (bot on very doubtful testimony) im puted to the latter. It seems clear, how ever, That the Waldenses were distinct from these, and probably from the Vau dois also. Their distinguishing character, it has been said, "seems to have consist ed in a strict adherence to what they con sidered to he the doctrine originally delivered by Christ to his apostles." And out of their extremely literal interpreta tion of the Gospel appears to have arisen most of their peculiarities, whether good or evil. They seem to have rejected an established succession of the priesthood, and the distinguishing characteristics of the priestly otlice ; the high Catholic doc trine of the sacraments, besides the en111.•
men ecclesiastical abuses of their day; and are said in addition, to have protest ed against oaths, warfare, lawsuits, and the accumulation of wealth. Their later history is obscure ; and it may be said of them, as well as of other sects of the day, that they had little of the elements of permanence, the same opinions being continually promulgated a fresh by new reformers, and then receiving new (le WA LPUltql IS NIGHT, the night of the 1st of May, a festival of St. Philip and St. James. Saint Walpurga was an English lady, sister of Boniface, the apos tle the Germans : her festival falls on same day with that of the above-men tioned saints, and is a common day in Germany, like Lady day in England, for the commencement of leases, ,Le. It is also known as the day on the eve of which, according to popular superstition, the great witch festival is held on the sum mit of the Brocken, in the Hartz moun tains. This superstition is supposed to have originated in the rites performed by the pagan remnants of the Saxons to their gods, when their nation was forcibly 'converted to Christianity ; which. being secretly celebrated in remote places, were supposed by the vulgar to be super natural orgies.