FIVE MEN AND THREE WOMEN BURNT AT TROYES, IN CHAMPAGNE, A. D. 1200; AND SOME EXPELLED FROM METZAbout two years after Pope Innocent III had issued those three bloody letters, for the persecution and suppression of the true, defenseless Christians, who were commonly called Waldenses, but by their enemies or persecutors, publicans and sinners, it came to pass, in the last year of the twelfth century namely A. D. 1200, that in the citv of Page 300 Troyes, in Champagne, there were apprehended, by order of the pope and the reigning authorities, eight persons, five men and three women, who made the same confession as was stated above with regard to the Waldenses, contradicting the authority of the pope, infant baptism, the swearing of oaths, the office of criminal authority, and whom the papistie author of the large Chronicle of the Netherlands calls Popelitatnos. However, these persons were not accused by the papists of any evil works, but simply on account of their faith; in which faith they desired to remain steadfast unto death, without, in any wise departing from it. Hence they were all sentenced to the fire, in said year, and offered up their bodies unto God as a burnt sacrifice, having commended their souls into His hands. THE EXPULSION OF THE CHRISTIANS FROM METZ, AND THE BURNING OF THEIR BOOKS At the same time, many Christians at Metz, who professed the same faith and were called Waldenses, were shamefully expelled from Metz, and their books burnt, because they had translated the Holy Scriptures into their mother tongue. The papistic author of the large Belgic Chronicle, upon the authority of the ancient historian Albericus, calls them a Waldensian sect, and says, "That certain abbots were sent to preach against them; who burnt some books translated from the Latin into their mother tongue, and thus extirpated said sect. Mon. Nuciensis Magn. Chron. Belgicum, edit. Frankfort, A. D. 1607, page 189.
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