Were there Waldensians in England during the 12th or 13th centuries?

This is very difficult to ascertain, because there was a common tendency to categorize any religious group who would not baptize babies as "Waldensian".

In the 12th century, there were many Waldensians in Italy, Austria, Spain and France with the 1163 Council of the Romish Church at Tours forbidding any exchange with them because they taught "a damnable heresy, long since sprung up in the territory of Toulouse."

In Strassburg in 1212 the Dominicans had arrested 500 Waldenses, of all classes, most of whom they killed. They said that there were many like them in Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Bohemia and elsewhere. England does not seem to be detailed, but it wouldn't be hard for them to have spread there. Many different names were attributed to them, such as Cathars, Patarenes, Poor Men of Lyons, Passagini, Josephini, Arnaldistae, Speronistae etc. The inquisitor, David of Augsburg, admitted that formerly "the sects were one sect". The name "Friends of God" was often given to them by those who appreciated their self-sacrificing devotion to God and their charity.

In a future century we had the case of two women in Wigtown, Scotland. Margaret McLachlan and Margaret Wilson, refused to take the Oath of Abjuration and were sentenced to death. They were tied to stakes in Wigtown Bay so that they would be drowned by the incoming tide. The older woman perished first; she was placed further out in the hope that her younger companion, seeing her die, would recant. But Margaret Wilson began to read from her Bible from the 8th chapter of Romans:

"I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height nor depth nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

- till her Bible was washed away. Then she began to sing the words of the Psalm:

"My sins and faults of youth, do thou, O Lord, forget; After thy mercy think on me, and for thy goodness great."

- until the water reached her head and her voice was heard no more.

She was only 18, and when we are 18, life is very sweet.

The best book I've ever read on the subject of the multitude of groups in Europe who would not bend their knee to Rome or the pope, including the Waldenses, is detailed below. He has a lot about them and a helpful index at the back, but I can find no specific mention of them being in England during the 12th and 13th centuries. AiH

I agree with Annsan - it would be very difficult to establish the extent to which the Waldensians spread throughout Europe and into England. However, I did find this information which might be helpful:

"When infant baptism was introduced by the Church of Rome, various churches dissented and denounced the practice. In the 11th and 12th centuries, the Petrobrusians rejected infant baptism. They became known as Anabaptists. They re-baptised believers who had been baptized as infants, maintaining that baptism is only valid if it was a conscious act of faith by the believer. The Anabaptists survived intense persecution and still exist today. From the Anabaptists the English Baptists came to prominence in the mid-1600s.

A group called the Waldensians was started in 1170 in Lyons, France, by a wealthy man named Valdes (Peter Waldo). He valued poverty as the basis for Christian life and the necessity for all Christians to preach the gospel. The Waldensians continued to expand but became increasingly estranged from the Roman Church over their doctrine, and in 1184 a papal bull was issued against them. Other reform groups existing before the Protestant Reformation were the Novatians, the Albigenses, the Petrobrussians, the Paulicians, the Cathari, the Paterines, the Lollards, and more."

There's loads more interesting information in the article from the link below.

LM

The Waldensians remained in limited areas of France until their forced flight from persecution. That being the case, they really didn't move into the British Isles until the 1400s or later.