Good question! Rome destroyed all that they could not use to condemn their theological adversaries. They preserved what they thought was useful to justify their actions. However, it is in these very limited materials preserved we find the greatest contradictions. The only writings preserved of the Donatists are those preserved by Augustine in order to justify himself in regard to their debates. And even in what he preserved it is from his memory rather than from their pen.
In regard to the Waldenses, the earliest writings we have are those from the twelveth century and only because they hid them with themselves in their mountain refuge. In those writings we have it confirmed by their own pen that Rome slandered them and accused them wrongly in order to condemn them. The same thing is charged against Rome by Anabaptists in the 16th century. We have similar short statements preserved from the Paulicians who accused Rome of falsely condemning them for Manichaeism when in fact they condemned him and his teachings.
There is sufficient evidence from what Rome preserved of their enemies that they commonly attributed one name to several different types of people with different types of beleifs and this is evident because they record testimonies that are completely different and yet assign the same names to describe them.
What you are missing is that the Bible itself provides an interpretative guide to post-apostolic secular history of the Lord's Churches. It makes certain predictions concerning how they will be viewed by future generations and the arise of a greater apostate form of Christianity especially in relationship with the governments of the world. In other portions of scripture it is predicted they would be treated with the same scorn and ridicule and distortion that Jesus Christ was treated by the professed people of God of his own day.
Most professed Christians ignore the predictive element of the scriptures in regard to the future presentation of the true churches of God by the religious apostate world.
The evidence does exist and the surprising thing is that such evidence is produced by NON-Baptist historians. Historians like Mosheim, Neander, and even by high Roman Catholic officials and Reformers like Zwingli and others like Ridpath - all of which are non-Baptists and therefore cannot be accused of denominational bias. These historians note the discrepancies between the reports about the same people by Roman inquisitors and source materials and in addition to some preserved statements by the very people in question who denied they were guilty of what Rome charged them but declared they were being framed to merely be legally condemned.
Non-believers like Edward Gibbons who wrote one of the most comprehensive histories on the Roman Empire confirm how the Roman Catholic Church slandered others in order to condemn them, burning their records and even abusing the scriptures and the mass of immorality and ungodiliness that characterized the Vatican many times over.
Roman Catholics simply brush all these non-Baptist historians aside by accusing them as unqualified historians. Of course that is the Roman bias in response to anyone who opposes them on an intellectual and historical level.
You need to do further research and go beyond the Romish bias.
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