"Orthopraxy and the Formation of the Early Waldensians and Franciscans, 1173-1228" compares how the medieval Waldensians, whom the clergy labeled heretical, and the Franciscans, whom the Roman Church accepted as orthodox, negotiated their identities in response to various factors. It argues that the clergy's perceptions of the Waldensians and Franciscans were rooted not in the groups' religious beliefs but in their distinctive practices, which the clergy saw as either orthopraxic or heteropraxic. Both Waldes and Francis received some of their initial ideas for their way of life from a gospel lesson at Mass. However, the groups that they established began to form a community around the gospel and other texts in different ways. The Waldensians interpreted those texts independently of the liturgy, while the Franciscans did so through the liturgy. Moreover, the archbishops of Lyon and the bishop of Assisi reacted to the Waldensians and Franciscans respectively with local interests in mind, seeing them as results of or even remedies for problems that existed in their ecclesiastical territories. Because the clergy saw respect for the sacraments and the office of preaching as intertwined, they did not believe that someone could accept the sacraments but reject their preaching authority, which is one reason they saw the Waldensians as heretics. The major difference between the Waldensians' and the Franciscans' voluntary poverty was that the Waldensians laid claim to a definitive right of alms in return for preaching, while the Franciscans, rejecting all such claims to power, embraced an orthopraxy of work. Finally, there was no major shift in papal policy toward new religious groups between 1173 and 1228. Rather, the popes adopted an emphasis on praxis when examining the new religious groups, much as the prelates in Lyon and Assisi had done.