_Munich, May, 1849._
POPE ADRIAN IV.
AN HISTORICAL SKETCH.
I.
THE information, which has come down to us respecting the early life
of the only Englishman, who ever sat on the papal throne, is so
defective and scanty, as easily to be comprised in a few paragraphs.
Nicholas Breakspere was born near St. Albans, most probably about the
close of the 11th century. His father was a clergyman, who became a
monk in the monastery of that city, while his son was yet a boy. Owing
to extreme poverty, Nicholas could not pay for his education, and was
obliged to attend the school of the monks on charity. [1] This
circumstance would seem to have put his father so painfully to the
blush, that he took an unnatural dislike to his son; whom he shortly
compelled by his threats and reproaches to flee the neighbourhood in a
state of utter destitution.
Thus cruelly cast on the world, Nicholas to settle the church in those
remote countries, where it had been planted about 150 years. The
circumstances which led to this legation were as follows:[2]--originally
the three kingdoms of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, were
spiritually subject to the archbishop of Hamburg, whose province was
then the most extensive in Christendom. In the year 1102, Denmark
succeeded, after much protracted agitation of the question, in
obtaining from Pope Paschal II., a metropolitan see of its own, which
was founded at Lund; and to whose authority Sweden and Norway were
transferred. The same feeling of national independence, which had
procured this boon for Denmark, was not long before it began to work
in those kingdoms also; and the more so as the Danish supremacy was
asserted over them with much greater rigour than had formerly been
that of Hamburg, and was otherwise repugnant to them, as emanating
from a power with which they stood in far closer political relations,
and more constant rivalry than with Germany. After some indirect
preliminary steps in the business,--which do not seem to have
forwarded it,--the kings of Sweden and Norway sent ambassadors to Pope
Eugenius III., to request for their states the same privilege which
his predecessor had granted to Denmark; and which he himself had just
extended to Ireland, in the erection of the four archbishoprics of
that country. The arrival of these ambassadors at Rome happened a year
before the elevation of the abbot of St. Rufus to the see of Albano.
The pope promised to accede to their request. It was in fulfilment of
this promise that Nicholas Breakspere was sent into the north.
Doubtless, the circumstance of his being an Englishman had weight in
his selection; as, in consequence of that circumstance, he would be
viewed as far more likely to possess a correct knowledge of the
character and government peculiar to northern nations than an Italian.
Taking England in his way, the Cardinal legate passed thence into
Norway; where he landed in June of the year above-mentioned. The
country was then governed by three brothers, named Sigurd, Inge, and
Eystein, sons of the late King Harrold Gille. Between the first two, a
serious quarrel happened to rage. For a Norwegian nobleman having
murdered the brother of Sigurd's favourite concubine, and then entered
the service of Inge, the latter shielded his client against the
punishment which Sigurd sought to inflict.
Before entering on the affairs of the Church, the Cardinal Legate saw
that this quarrel must first be settled. Of the three brothers, Inge
seems to have stood the highest in the esteem of all classes in the
state, by reason of his benevolence, and other virtues. With him the
cardinal took part, and compelled Sigurd, together with Eystein,--who
seems also to have meddled in the dispute against Inge,--to agree to a
reconciliation. At the same time, he visited with ecclesiastical
censures the former two, for various crimes, of which they had been
guilty in other respects.
On the settlement of this quarrel, he proceeded at once to the special
business of his legation,--the erection of an archbishopric for the
kingdom. This he decided to fix at Nidrosia, or Nidaros, the capital
of the province, over which Sigurd in those days ruled, and
corresponding to the city and district of Drontheim now. The selection
of Nidrosia was made chiefly out of honor to St. Olaff, whose relics
reposed in its church.
Here, he invested John, Bishop of Stavanger, with the Pallium; and
subjected to his jurisdiction the sees of Apsloe, Bergen, and
Stavanger, those of the small Norwegian colonies, of the Orcades,
Hebrides, and Furo Isles, and that of Gaard in Greenland. The Shetland
and western isles of Scotland, with the Isle of Man, and a new
bishopric which the cardinal founded at Hammer in Norway,--and in
which he installed Arnold, at that time expelled the see of Gaard,--were
also included in the province of Nidrosia. The bishop of Sodor
and Man, as well as the bishops of the Shetland and western isles, had
till this time been suffragans of the see of York, but obeyed the
authority of Nidrosia for the next 200 years; after which, the
Norwegian primate lost his rights over those islands, which returned
under their first jurisdiction. The greater part of the other sees had
already, directly, or indirectly, acknowledged the authority of the
bishops of Nidrosia, while the rest had bowed to the supremacy of
Hamburg. [3]
The possession of a metropolitan see of their own spread such
satisfaction among the people of Norway, that no mark of respect
seemed too great for the immediate dispenser of the boon; and under
this feeling, they allowed the Cardinal Legate to introduce various
regulations into the country beyond what his powers entitled him to
do, and even to reform their civil institutions. Thus there is every
reason to assume,--though positive historical evidence is wanting,--that
he bound the Norwegian Church to the payment of Peter's pence to
the Holy See. He also effected extensive reforms as regards the
celibacy of the clergy; but, in spite of his great influence, does not
seem to have been able to carry them so far as he could have wished.
Various rites and ceremonies of religion, into which abuses had crept,
were purged by him. Moreover, he placed the public peace on a surer
footing than it was before, by means of a law which he procured to be
passed, forbidding all private persons to appear armed in the streets;
while to the king alone was reserved the right of a body guard of
twelve men. [4] Snorrow relates, that no foreigner ever came to
Norway, who gained so much public honor and deference among the people
as Nicholas Breakspere. On his departure he was loaded with presents,
and promised perpetual friendship to the country. When he became pope,
he kept his promise, and invariably treated all Norwegians who visited
Rome during his reign with extraordinary attention. He also sent into
Norway, architects and other artists from England, to build the
cathedral and convent of the new see of Hammer. On his death the
nation honored his memory as that of a saint.
Having finished the business of his legation to Norway, Nicholas
Breakspere next passed into Sweden. His first proceeding in this
kingdom was to hold a synod at Lingkopin; to fix on a see for the new
archbishopric about to be created. But the members, consisting of the
heads of the clergy of Sweden and Gothland, could not agree on the
point, as, out of a spirit of provincial rivalry, the one party
claimed the honor for Upsala, and the other for Skara. Finding that
the dispute was too hot to be soon settled, the Cardinal Legate
consecrated St. Henry of Upsala bishop of that city, introduced
various new regulations respecting the celibacy of the clergy and the
payment of Peter's pence to the pope; and then took his departure for
Denmark on his way to Rome. The pallium which was destined for the new
primate of Sweden, he deposited, until the difficulties in the way of
the election of that dignitary should be removed, with Eskill,
Archbishop of Lund, who received him in the most honorable and cordial
manner, notwithstanding that by his agency the authority of the Danish
Church was so seriously curtailed. The Cardinal Legate would seem to
have sought by this act of confidence to soothe the soreness, which
Eskill must naturally have felt at seeing his honors so shorn. The
primate of Lund was also informed that he should still continue to
preserve the title of Primate of Sweden, with the right of
consecrating and investing with the pallium the future archbishops of
that kingdom. Farther, he was promised, as some compensation for what
he had lost, the grant of a right from the Holy See of annexing to his
archiepiscopal dignity the style of "Legati nati Apostolicis Sedis" in
the three kingdoms. [5] During the stay of Nicholas Breakspere in
Denmark, it happened that John, a younger son of Swercus, King of
Sweden and Gothland, and a prince whose radically bad character had
been totally ruined by a neglected education, carried off by violence,
and dishonored the wife of his eldest brother Charles, together with
her widowed sister,--princesses of unsullied fame, and nearly related
to Sweno III., at that time, king of Denmark. This atrocity naturally
excited a deep resentment against its author, at home and abroad: and
roused Sweno to resolve on invading Sweden and Gothland with all his
forces, in revenge of so insulting an outrage; a resolution in which
he grew all the more fixed, by the recollection that Swercus himself
had formerly injured Nicholas, a predecessor of Sweno on the throne,
by perfidiously seducing, and marrying his intended bride--an injury
all the bitterer, as Nicholas never could retaliate it, by reason of
domestic broils with his own people.
The Cardinal Legate no sooner became aware of this gathering storm,
than he sought to avert its outbreak; and repaired to King Sweno, with
whom he remonstrated against the projected war, not only on religious,
but prudential grounds; depicting to him the many serious obstacles by
sea and land which must be surmounted before any advantage could be
won; and reminding him, "that if the spider, by disembowelling
herself, as least, caught the flies she gave chace to, yet the Danes
could only expect to run the certain peril of their lives in their
proposed campaign." [6] The cardinal's interference in this instance
in behalf of peace, seems not to have been crowned with the same
success, as in Norway. King Sweno, a proud and obstinate man, lent a
respectful, but callous ear to his arguments; and was equally
impervious to the efforts of the ambassadors, whom Swercus also sent
to prevent hostilities.
The events of the war which followed brought condign punishment to
each party: for Prince John, on being directed by his father to levy
troops for the defence of the state, was massacred in a popular riot
as the odious cause of the public dangers; and Sweno, on his invasion
of Sweden, having been inveigled by the wily tactics of Swercus--who
feigned to retire before him--to push his expedition beyond its
original destination as far as Finland, was there surprised by a
rising of the natives, who destroyed the flower of his army; while he
himself escaped with difficulty into Denmark, covered with shame, at
so ignoble and fatal a defeat. Not long afterwards, Sweno was murdered
in his bed by two of his chief nobles, who had long cherished disloyal
feelings towards their king; and, at last, entered into a treasonable
correspondence with Swercus. The end of the latter proved eventually
not less tragical. In the mean time, Nicholas Breakspere had quitted
the country, and returned to Rome. On his arrival he found Pope
Eugenius dead, and succeeded by Anastasius IV., an old man of ninety.
Anastasius, who reigned little more than a year, among other acts,
confirmed, by a bull addressed to John, Archbishop of Nidrosia, all
that the English legate had done in Norway, with the exception,
however, of that concession to the primate of Lund, by which the
latter was to enjoy the right of investing the new archbishops of
Norway and Sweden with the pallium. This right, Anastasius reserved to
the Holy See. The venerable pontiff died shortly afterwards, December
2nd, 1154.
On the following day the conclave met in St. Peter's church, and
elected the cardinal bishop of Albano to the vacant throne; in which
he was solemnly installed on the morrow, and took the name of Adrian
IV.--thus giving not the least striking among many examples in the
dynasty of the popes, of an exaltation from the meanest station in
society to one the sublimest in dignity, and most awful in
responsibility that exists under heaven.
[1] Guillelmus Neubrigensis, de rebus Anglicis, lib. 2. cap. 6. 8.
[2] Munter, Kirchengeschichte V. Danemark und Norwegen. Buch 2. tom.
2.
[3] Munter, ibid.
[4] Torfaeus, Hist. Rer. Norweg. pars. 3. lib. 9. cap. 12.
[5] Munter, &c., ibid.
[6] Joannes Magnus, Hist. Gott. lib. 18. cap. 17.