The Church’s reactions to the two different types of heresy described in Madigan were very different and highlighted the church’s feelings about each sect. For the Waldensians the church initially gave them an ultimatum and said that if they didn’t join the Orthodox Church and follow their rules for preaching that they would be considered heretics and would be treated as such. In response to this the Waldensians decided to continue what they were doing and take the label. The church was not as eager to hunt them down as they were other heretical groups since they basically shared the same beliefs and it was simply a disregard for power that was at the root of their heresy. Eventually though in an attempt to reconvert the Waldensians to orthodoxy the church established a society for the “Catholic Poor” and this action was enough to cause many Waldensians to convert to orthodoxy. The Cathars were a harder egg to crack as the Pope had to call on the ae old technique of Crusading in order to make them quit. After destroying many cities in southern France (where the largest populations of Cathars were) it left the door open for a new way of discovering the remaining heretics, inquisition. However it was much less torture than Hollywood would want you to believe it was much more about reconverting people to orthodoxy than it was about crushing an opposition. These two different ways of reconverting heretics were both fairly successful, the latter was more successful with luke-warm Cathars than with the perfects but it did ultimately spell the end for the Cathars as a whole, and the former, worked well to convince Waldensians to return to the church.

The Third Lateran Council addressed the Waldensian movement as if it were dealing with children in its lack of respect for their ability to read, comprehend, and preach the information in the bible. It ultimately lumps them in with Cathars and probably others under the general banner of heresy even though they did share almost all of the same doctrinal beliefs but they just disregarded the power of the Church to control them which was enough to be labeled heretics. Through Walter Map’s recollection of the council we can see that the church saw the Waldensians as a group trying to prove them wrong in an attempt to shut them up as opposed to a group who were genuinely searching for the truth. This as well as the lack of respect for the Church would ultimately cause the Church to view the Waldensians quite disdainfully.

In the Fourth Lateran Council the Church formally excommunicated everyone who doesn’t agree with all of the doctrine that they had laid out in a previous section of the council’s records. This refined their position on the Waldensians by implying they were now dogmatic heretics by saying that, “Nobody can effect this sacrament except a priest who has been properly ordained according to the church’s key” (Rosenwein 364). They also directly reference the Waldensians as heretics when they recall second timothy and say, “There are some who ‘holding the the form of religion but denying its power’, claim the authority to preach” (Rosenwein 365). Then they go one to strictly forbid those people from being able to preach in public or private or else risk excommunication. The Church then goes about installing guidelines for people to follow in order to properly report heretics and sets out parameters for what their punishments should be based on the egregiousness of their offenses. They also set out punishments for people not reporting every heretic in their territory.

In the first section of the Fourth Lateran Council’s records they outline all of their doctrinal beliefs in an attempt to highlight the areas of contention between themselves and the heretics. They disagree with heretics on the role of sacrament in the church, they believe that it is very important and can only be correctly carried out by priests they ordain, and the ability of anyone to preach, which they do not believe exists. They also point out that they believe that when people rise after death that they inhabit their own bodies which is in stark contrast to the beliefs to the Cathars (in addition those doctrinal rulings previously stated).  They are drawing the line between orthodoxy and heresy doctrinal grounds so that there can be clear divisions between them and what they consider to be wrong as opposed to the Third Lateran Councill where they called people heretics even if they just wanted to be their own entity outside the church but believed the same dogma.

In chapter three of the FLC the Church says that heretics should be avoided once they have been reported and then if convicted they will be punished. Any, “temporal lord,… neglects to cleanse his territory of this heretical filth, he shall be bound with a bond of excommunication”(Rosenwein 365).  They also say that all of any heretic’s belongings are to be taken and if they are clergy their belongings are to be given to the church that paid them. If someone is excommunicated for more than a year and “refuses to render satisfaction” (Rosenwein 365) they will be branded infamous and cannot hold public office or participate in elections of officials. They also cannot make wills or receive inheritance, they also should not be talked to in public or private, nor can the job he had retain any credit or power and all things professionally that they have done are then undone. So basically it crushes an individually economically and spiritually when he is excommunicated and does not properly repent.