Samuel morland persecution meaning

Chapter 4:
Inhumane Persecutions of the Waldenses

We have already given an account of the popish crusade against the Waldenses of the south of France , and the horrible cruelties and massacres inflicted on them by the bloody Montfort and the Pope's legate, at the commencement of the thirteenth century.

(Book v., chap. 7, 8.) Nothing more than a very brief sketch can now be added of the barbarities of a similar kind, which at various intervals were endured by this pious and interesting people during the five centuries which followed from the commencement of the crusade of pope Innocent.
In spite of all the efforts of the popes and their bigoted adherents to extirpate from the earth these pious people, they continued to increase in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries in various countries of Europe, but especially in the valleys of Piedmont, where, shut in by the lofty and snow-capped mountains around them, they were in some degree shelt The Plain Truth About The Waldensians - Chapter II: VYSO