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Thesis for: Bachelor of Arts Advisor: Anna Taylor; Brian Ogilvie: Project: Women's Roles in the Waldensian Movement

The long and tortured history of Waldensianism, a Christian sect which emerged during the High Middle Ages, demonstrates the tenacity of its adherents and their ability to adapt to extreme circumstances. Despite all attempts to exterminate it, the movement survived and continues to thrive into the present day. As a heretical movement and being among the first groups accused of making satanic pacts, Waldensianism has long drawn the attention of scholars. While many historians focus on the doctrines of the Waldensians, due to their importance in studies of the Reformation, and to accusations that the Waldensians made pacts with the devil, some of the first accusations of that kind, not nearly as much attention has been paid to another peculiar facet of the Waldensians – they, at least supposedly, allowed women to preach. A chief reason for the lack of scholarship in this area stems from a scarcity of primary sources regarding medieval peasant women, a class of which the vast majority of Waldensian women belonged to, and a deficiency of primary source material on the Waldensians in particular, and even more so on women in the movement. Yet by piecing together the material which does exist, and by sifting through historical narratives interpreting this material, a basic picture emerges. The Waldensians did allow women to preach, and did afford them greater rights, but under the auspices of male leadership, and thus, while the Waldensians did afford women higher status, this higher status was not the same thing as equality