Adrian IV

Adrian IV (born 1100?, Abbot’s Langley, near St. Albans, Hertfordshire, England—died September 1, 1159, Anagni, near Rome [Italy]) was the only Englishman to occupy the papal throne (1154–59).

He became a canon regular of St. Ruf near Avignon, France, and in about 1150 Pope Eugenius III appointed him cardinal bishop of Albano, Italy. Eugenius sent him in 1152 as legate to Scandinavia, where his mission to reorganize the hierarchy was so successful that on his return in 1154 he was elected pope (December 4). Adrian crowned Frederick I Barbarossa as Holy Roman emperor in 1155, after Frederick had captured and handed over to him Arnold of Brescia, who had led a revolt in Rome. Although Arnold was hanged and burned at the stake in 1155 and his ashes scattered over the Tiber River, Adrian’s conflict with the commune of Rome continued.

The papal policy toward the Normans of southern Italy, however, aroused the emperor’s anger. Thereafter, the relations between Adrian and Frederick laid the groundwork for the struggle to come between Pope Alexander III and Frederick. Adrian refused to recognize William I the Bad, who had been crowned king of Sicily (1154). That step caused the Sicilians, after unsuccessfully attacking the papal possession of Benevento, to wage war in the southern Campania. Thereupon the pope excommunicated William.

Adrian then marched to Benevento, during which time he received John of Salisbury, secretary to the archbishop of Canterbury, and granted him the Donation of Ireland (known as the bull Laudabiliter), which supposedly gave Ireland to Henry II of England. Attacked for false representation, the bull was subsequently refuted. (Even if Laudabiliter is authentic, which is doubtful, it does not grant hereditary possession of Ireland to the English king.)

Meanwhile, in June 1156, peace was made with the Sicilians, and Adrian agreed to invest William, who in turn became the pope’s liege man, which further embittered Frederick.