Bruys, Or Bruis, Peter De, a priest of southern France, the founder of a sect called from him the Petrobrussians, burnt at St. Gilles (according to Neander) in 1120. He is supposed to have been a pupil of Abelard; but nothing is known of his life prior to the time when he began his vehement opposition to the church. His chief aim was to restore the Christian religion to its earliest simplicity, and to free its observances from all symbolism. He denied the authority of an established hierarchy, and the necessity of priestly ministration; opposed the baptism of infants; held that the communion was not a sacrament, and was unnecessary; and that churches or places of worship were useless, since prayer could be offered everywhere. He rejected the doctrines of the celibacy of the clergy, of the value of masses and prayers for the dead, and of purgatory. He gained a considerable body of followers in southern France, who partook of his own fanaticism, and whom he did not restrain from violence; they destroyed images in the churches, burned the crosses, and ill-treated priests and worshippers. In spite of the boldness of these acts, his preaching is said to have continued twenty years; but he was at last seized at St. Gilles and condemned to the stake.

His followers long maintained his doctrines in southeastern France and Switzerland, under the leadership of Henry of Lausanne, from whom the sect derived their later name of Henricians.