Source : Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)

Waldenses \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.