Peter Waldo

Peter Waldo was a wealthy citizen of Lyons whom Martyrs’ Mirror describes as moved to repentance after the sudden death of a companion. He gave generously to the poor and began teaching Scripture in the language understood by the people who came to hear him.

The conversion account begins about 1160. A separate discussion uses 1170 as the common reckoning for the Waldenses’ beginning while also discussing earlier witnesses. These passages are kept together rather than replacing the source’s several date statements with a single precise founding day.

The surrounding sections describe the Waldenses’ dispersion, confessions, baptism, rejection of war and oaths, and practical conduct. They give a substantive path from a named teacher into the medieval communities followed through the later centuries of the book.