He went bare-footed, preceded by a man carrying a staff surmounted with an iron cross; he slept on the bare ground, and lived by alms.
Women, encouraged by his words, gave up their jewels and luxurious apparel, and young men married prostitutes in the hope of reforming them.
[2] In 1135 Henry was brought by the archbishop of Arles before Pope Innocent II at the Council of Pisa, where he was condemned for heretical views and told to return to a monastery.
According to Peter of Cluny, Henry's teaching is summed up as follows: rejection of the doctrinal and disciplinary authority of the church; recognition of the Gospel freely interpreted as the sole rule of faith; condemnation of the baptism of infants, of the eucharist, of the sacrifice of the mass, of the communion of saints, and of prayers for the dead; and refusal to recognize any form of worship or liturgy.
"[9] On several occasions St Bernard was begged to fight the innovator on the scene of his exploits, and in 1145, at the instance of the legate Alberic, cardinal bishop of Ostia, he set out, passing through the diocese of Angoulême and Limoges, sojourning for some time at Bordeaux, and finally reaching the heretical towns of Bergerac, Périgueux, Sarlat, Cahors and Toulouse.
maj., at date 1151) that a young girl, who gave herself out to be miraculously inspired by the Virgin Mary, was reputed to have converted a great number of the disciples of Henry of Lausanne.
[8] It is impossible to designate definitely as Henricians one of the two sects discovered at Cologne and described by Everwin, provost of Steinfeld, in his letter to St Bernard (Migne, Patr.
Dr. William Wall, "the Petrobrusians—otherwise called the 'Henricians'—did own water-baptism, and yet deny infant-baptism.... Peter Bruis and Henry [of Lausanne were] the two first antipaedobaptist preachers in the world."
The Jehovah's Witnesses suggest that Henry of Lausanne may have been one of a long line of "genuine anointed Christians" who defended Bible truth down through the ages.