PETROBRUSIANS

The followers of peter of bruys, who were widely spread throughout southern France during the first half of the 12th century. Their views concerning hierarchy, Sacraments, and ecclesiastical observances were typical 12th-century protests that deteriorated into heresy. Peter of Bruys's contemporary, the monk henry of lausanne, spent most of his career in France, first in Le Mans, where his insistence on evangelical life spent in penance and poverty finally persuaded Bp. hildebert of lavardin to expel him. In the south he accepted the teachings of Peter of Bruys, which, according to peter the venerable, he modified and elaborated (Patrologia Latina, ed. J. P. Migne 189:723A). Although he did not at first hold the cross in horror as did Peter, he too developed an antisacerdotal and antisacramental aspect in his teaching. Henricians were accordingly identified with Petrobrusians. There is no evidence that they prepared the way for the waldensians. More probable is their indebtedness to the manichaean current (as Vacandard and Döllinger once suggested). Support for such a connection has been deduced from a passage in the Exordium magnum Cisterciense 17 (Patrologia Latina, ed. J. P. Migne 185:427C), where bernard of clairvaux, on his way to refute the Henrician heresy, is described as setting out for Toulouse "to confute the heresy of the Manichaeans." But this work was written c. 1210 in the full tide of albigensian influence, when no careful distinctions were drawn. Furthermore, in place of subscribing to thoroughgoing dualism, the Petrobrusians did not reject marriage, though they urged continence. They denied only infant Baptism. The Second lateran Council (1139) condemned some Petrobrusian ideas but not the movement itself. Canon 22 (H. Denzinger, Enchiridion symolorum, ed. A. Schönmetzer 718), reproducing word for word canon three of the Council of Toulouse (1119; see J. D. Mansi, Sacrorum Conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio, 21:226), dwells on the denial of the Eucharist and the rejection of infant Baptism and of the priesthood, but the repudiation of Matrimony attributed to them belongs probably to other sects.

Bibliography: r. manselli, Studi sulle eresie del secolo XII (Studi storici 5; Rome 1953) 1–23. e. vacandard, "Les Origines de l'hérésie albigeoise," Revue des Questions Historiques 55 (Paris 1894) 50–83; Vie de Saint Bernard (4th ed. Paris 1910). f. vernet, Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, ed. a. vacant, 15 v. (Paris 1903–50; Tables générales 1951–) 6.2:2178–83. j. j. i. von dÖllinger, Belträge zur Sektengeschlchte des Mittelalters, 2 v. in 1 (Munich 1890) 1:75–97.

[e. w. mcdonnell]