a religious sect, which had its rise in France and the Netherlands about the year 1110. The name is derived from Peter Bruys, a Provençal, who made the most laudable attempt to reform the abuses and remove the superstition that disgraced the beautiful simplicity of the gospel. His followers were numerous; and for 20 years his labour in the ministry was exemplary and unremitting. He was, however, burnt in the year 1130 by an enraged populace set on by the clergy.

The chief of Bruys's followers was a monk named Henry; from whom the Petrobrussians were also called Henricians. Peter the Venerable, abbot of Clugny, has an express treatise against the Petrobrussians; in the preface to which he reduces their opinions to five heads. 1. They denied that children before the age of reason can be justified by baptism, in regard it is our own faith that saves by baptism. 2. They held that no churches should be built, but that those that already are should be pulled down; an inn being as proper for prayers as a temple, and a stable as an altar. 3. That the cross ought to be pulled down and burnt, because we ought to abhor the instruments of our Saviour's passion. 4. That the real body and blood of Christ are not exhibited in the eucharist, but merely represented by their figures and symbols. 5. That sacrifices, alms, prayers, &c. do not avail the dead.

F. Langlois objects Manicheism to the Petrobrussians; and says, they maintained two gods, the one good, the other evil: but this we rather esteem an effect of his zeal for the catholic cause, which determined him to blacken the adversaries thereof, than any real sentiment of the Petrobrussians.