A Lent “Poor in Sundays”? The Case of the Waldensian Sermons

The contribution is an introduction to the question of medieval Lenten Waldensian sermons, written in vernacular. Starting from the general coordinates of the corpus, firstly it is shown that only two texts for the first Sunday can be actually considered Lenten sermons, as they are preserved in the sermonary and provided with explicit headings. Secondly, it is pointed out that there is anyway a considerable amount of texts which can be considered “Lenten” sermons only because of their themata, as they are not presented as such in the manuscripts. Thirdly, the already proved relationship between the Waldensian sermons and Iacobus de Voragine’s sermones de tempore and quadragesimales is investigated as regards the two types of Lenten Waldensian sermons. In this perspective, some connections between sermons and inquisitorial records are pointed out, in order to show how the translation from Iacobus transforms the Dominican tradition.