Wal*den"ses (?; 277), n. pl. [So called from
Petrus Waldus, or Peter Waldo, a merchant of Lyons, who
founded this sect about a. d. 1170.] (Eccl. Hist.) A
sect of dissenters from the ecclesiastical system of the Roman Catholic
Church, who in the 13th century were driven by persecution to the valleys
of Piedmont, where the sect survives. They profess substantially Protestant
principles.