begging, they walked "two two, barefooted, dressed in wool, possessing nothing, but holding all in common after the example of the Apostles." The Roman Catholic Church despised them, says Lemer, both for their "ostentatious poverty" (which put highhing orders in a bad light) and their unre-strained lay preaching. Waldo tried to gain Rome's blessing, but instead was excommunicated around 1182. By 1184, Pope Lucius I11 had declared all Waldensians heretics.
Their religious radicalism...