''La nobla leyczon'' (, ''La nòbla leiçon'' in modern Occitan, "The Noble Lesson") is an anonymous text written in

Old Occitan Old Occitan ( oc, occitan ancian, label= Modern Occitan, ca, occità antic), also called Old Provençal, was the earliest form of the Occitano-Romance languages, as attested in writings dating from the eighth through the fourteenth centuries. Old ...

. It is the founding document of the Waldensian creed. Its sixth line, ''ben ha mil & cent an complí entierament'' (already eleven hundred years have run their course ince_Christ_died.html" ;"title="Christ.html" ;"title="ince Christ">ince Christ died">Christ.html" ;"title="ince Christ">ince Christ died, places it in the early 12th century but modern scholars now date it between 1190 and 1240. However, the very same line varies according to which of the four manuscripts is studied: the Geneva and Dublin ones say ''mil e cen'' (1100) while the Cambridge ones both state ''mil e cccc cent'' (1400). Further discrepancies include various anachronisms and the fact that Old Occitan was not spoken in the

Lyon Lyon,, ; Occitan language, Occitan: ''Lion'', hist. ''Lionés'' also spelled in English as Lyons, is the List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, third-largest city and Urban area (France), second-largest metropolitan area of F ...

region. The manuscript was found in the

Piedmont it, Piemontese , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = , demographics1_title2 ...

ese valleys.Ralph Griffiths & George Edward Griffiths, ''The Monthly Review'', 1825, p. 25

/ref> The 479 lines of the poem can be divided into seven parts according to the themes treate

1-56 deal with the eschatology, end of the world; 57-229 retrace the history of the

Bible The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts ...

; 230-265 tell of the new law; 266-333 narrate Jesus's life and works; 334-360 praise the faithful Christian Church; 361-413 relate the persecutions and the corrupted lives of

papist The words Popery (adjective Popish) and Papism (adjective Papist, also used to refer to an individual) are mainly historical pejorative words in the English language for Roman Catholicism, once frequently used by Protestants and Eastern Orthodo ...

s and 414-479 explain what true repentance is.

Opening lines

External links

Full online text

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:La Nobla Leyczon Occitan literature Medieval literature Christian denominations established in the 12th century