Adrian IV, Pope

ADRIAN IV, Pope. - He is the only Englishman to have ascended the papal throne; his name was Nicholas Breakspear and he was the son of Robert, a cleric of Bath.

Having failed to obtain admission to the monastery of St. Albans in his homeland, he went to France and studied in Paris, although he was in extremely poor financial circumstances. He then became a regular canon of St. Rufus near Avignon, and in 1137 he became prior of the canonry and perhaps later abbot general. But he was denounced at Rome and had to go there to justify himself; Eugene III kept him with him, having come to know his fine personal qualities, made him cardinal bishop of Albano, and in 1150 sent him as legate of the Holy See to the Scandinavian countries to reorganize the ecclesiastical hierarchy there. The mission was fully successful, and Nicholas also brought back many offerings to St. Peter; thus, shortly after his return, which took place in 1154, Anastasius IV having died in December, he was elected Pontiff on 4 December under the name of A. IV.

The conditions of the city of Rome were at that moment very sad, because Arnold of Brescia dominated there, inflaming the people with classical memories and stirring them up against papal rule; violence often occurred and a cardinal had even been wounded. A., who had a high conception of papal rights, laid an interdict on the city to force it to expel Arnold, but the Senate refused to yield. However, the people, who did not want to renounce the celebration of religious functions, rose up and drove out Arnold; thus the Pope was able to celebrate in the Lateran for Easter. Meanwhile Frederick Barbarossa had come down into Italy, and A. saw the opportunity for an understanding with him; the meeting took place at Sutri and gave rise to some incident, but afterward the two came to Rome, where on 18 June 1155 the imperial coronation took place. As a consequence Arnold of Brescia was arrested, handed over to the prefect of the city and burned; a brawl broke out between Romans and Germans, in which the Pope acted as peacemaker.

The first relations that arose between A. and the king of Sicily, William the Bad, were not friendly, because the sovereign had not asked the Holy See for the investiture of his states, as was obligatory, given the feudal dependence on the Church, and therefore the Pope did not recognize him. William sought to detach Barbarossa from his friendship with A. and carried out raids in the lands of the Church; in turn the Pope sought to stir up the lords of the kingdom against him and then excommunicated him. A request for peace advanced by the king having been refused, open war ensued, which ended in disaster for the Pontiff, besieged in Benevento; on 18 June 1156 A. had to accept the harsh conditions imposed on him, namely the recognition of the king and the latter's right to grant or to deny permission to ecclesiastics who wished to appeal to Rome. From that moment the alliance between the Holy See and the Normans remained unaltered and provoked the wrath of the emperor. For this and for various other reasons of a jurisdictional character, Frederick Barbarossa very soon changed his initial attitude toward the Pope and ended by coming into open conflict with him; the most significant episode is that of the incident that befell the papal legates presented at the court of Besançon to remind the sovereign of the numerous "benefits" received from the Church. That word was misinterpreted by the noble officials, jealous guardians of the sovereign's honor, but afterward, through the work of those who were desirous of maintaining good understanding between the two authorities, a settlement of the dispute was reached. It was the Pope who yielded, also because the German clergy had written to him declaring themselves in agreement with the emperor; yet occasions for resuming the struggle were not lacking. When Frederick came down into Italy in 1158, he held a great diet at Roncaglia, where, among other things, he reaffirmed his rights over Corsica, which was a papal domain, and imposed tributes also on the lands of the Church, claiming possession of various cities. To the papal protests the emperor replied proudly, maintaining that his sovereignty over Rome must not remain a mere name, and raising threats. An attempt at arbitration having failed, Barbarossa looked favorably upon the Roman democrats, always hostile to the Pope, and the latter came to an understanding with the Lombard Communes in struggle with the emperor. The war, by now inevitable, was instead averted by the death of A., at Anagni, on Sept. 1, 1159. The secular conflict, owing to the lofty moral stature of the two adversaries, had by now reached its critical moment, which derived its reason from the very organization of medieval society.

Henry II of England sent an embassy in 1156 to A. to ask his permission to conquer Ireland; it was an indiscreet request inasmuch as the Pope would, by consenting, have justified an aggression. If the bull of reply that has come down to us is authentic, A. would have laid down various conditions for the carrying out of the enterprise and would not have admitted the hereditary possession of the island by the English kings. However, the expedition took place only much later.

A. continued the work of his predecessors aimed at ever more centralizing the bureaucratic organism of the Curia and therefore granted numerous privileges and exemptions to monasteries in order to bind them to the Holy See. He was an energetic and wise Pontiff, as well as eloquent, charitable and virtuous.

Paolo Brezzi