This reconciliation lasted but a short time: for, as Adrian was not a
character to tamely submit to any invasion of his rights, he could not
long keep on terms with a man like Frederic Barbarossa.
Towards the end of 1158, Frederic, after reducing Milan, held a great
Diet on the Roncalian Plains, between Cremona and Placentia; at which,
not only his German princes and prelates, but many Italian bishops,
and nearly all the consuls of the cities of Lombardy, were present. A
papal legate also appeared. At this Diet, Frederic caused certain
doctors of Roman law from Bologna to pronounce what were, and what
were not, his legal rights in Italy. After due investigation, they
awarded to their formidable client such a monopoly of fisheries,
mines, customs, taxes, and other dues, under the name of regalities,
that hardly anything in the entire country remained over, to which the
emperor could not lay claim under that title. The consequence was,
that the various towns, dioceses, convents, and chapters saw
themselves deprived, at a blow, of rights and property which they had
long possessed, and fairly acquired. It was impossible for Adrian not
to look with the liveliest displeasure at such wholesale spoliation on
the part of his imperial son; whose victims formally submitted to
their fate out of sheer terror and impotence of resistance.
But when, in the face of former oaths and pledges to uphold and make
good all the rights and property of the Holy See, Frederic began, with
reckless effrontery, to wrong that see by investing his uncle, Duke
Guelph VI., with Tuscany and Sardinia,--in fact, with the entire
inheritance of the Countess Matilda, who, as is well known, had
bequeathed it to Gregory VII. and his successors for ever,--the pope's
right thereto having been formally acknowledged by the Emperor
Lothair;--when, moreover, Frederic began to levy tribute on other
possessions of the Church, and did so under pretence of his imperial
prerogatives in Rome; when from these temporal, he passed to spiritual
usurpations, and intruded, firstly, his chancellor, Raynald, into the
vacant see of Cologne,--contrary to the provisions of the treaty of
Worms to which he has sworn; and, secondly, his favourite, Guido of
Blandrate, into the see of Ravenna,--in direct opposition to the
pope's wishes, to whose episcopal jurisdiction, Guido, as subdeacon in
the Roman church, was exclusively subject, and by whom he was destined
for other and more suitable preferment; then, at last, Adrian's
indignation could contain itself no longer, and he addressed to the
emperor a brief, in which, under a forced calmness and moderation of
style, his soreness at the outrages committed against him is yet
plainly perceptible.
This brief was carried to the emperor by a messenger of inferior rank;
who, moreover, did not wait for an answer, but disappeared as soon as
he had delivered it. This is asserted by some to have been meant as an
insult to Frederic, who, at any rate, took care to view it as such.
Adrian, however, was surely of too lofty a character to descend to
such a petty act of spleen; and it is far more likely that the
messenger, aware of what sort of letter he was carrying, and to what
sort of person, did not care, under the circumstances, to do more than
his bare errand; but, that done, to save himself, hastened from the
very possible consequences to his poor limbs of the first ebullitions
of the imperial wrath. Be that as it may, Frederic determined to let
the pope see that he too could act as meanly and spitefully as it was
pretended his Holiness had acted; and, accordingly, he gave his
secretary orders to set in his reply the name of the emperor before
that of the pope, who, at the same time, was to be addressed in the
second person singular; contrary to etiquette, which, even in that
age, required the plural number to be used towards persons of high
rank. To this insolence of Frederic, Adrian rejoined shortly and
pithily, rating him for his irreverence to the Holy See and to St.
Peter, demonstrating to him how his present conduct belied his former
oaths, and warning him lest, in seizing that which had not been given
to him, he should lose that which had. Frederic, conscious of the
grave nature of his crimes against the Holy See, but so long as
fortune favoured him, obstinate in his pride and deaf to religious
reproach, retorted Adrian's reproof more audaciously than ever.
The imperial bully now bid the pope, in plain terms, stick to those
things which,--as he said,--Christ was the first to perform and teach.
The law of justice, said he, has restored to every one his own; and he
(Frederic) will not fail to pay the full honor due to his
predecessors, by preserving intact the dignity and crown which they
had transmitted to him. Why he was not to require feudal oaths and
service from bishops, who professed to belong simply to God, is all
the more incomprehensible to him, as Christ, the great teacher of all
men, freely paid taxes to Caesar for himself and Peter. By so doing,
proceeds Frederic, he gave thee (Adrian) an example to follow, and a
lesson of the last importance in those words: "Learn of me, for I am
meek and humble of heart." From this sacrilegious irony he passes to
vulgar abuse; and tells the pope that his legates had been turned out
of Germany, because they were not preachers but thieves, not lovers of
peace but heapers of money, not reformers of the world but insatiate
seekers of gold. Did Pope Sylvester, he asks, possess any temporal
lordship in Constantine's time? and did not the popes afterwards owe
all their temporal power to the generosity of that prince, and the
rest of Frederic's predecessors? In conclusion, he remarks that it was
because he saw the monster pride seated even in the chair of Peter,
that he felt moved to use the language he did.
This letter was well calculated to provoke Adrian's deepest
indignation; but, as he never allowed his passions to get the better
of his judgment, and always knew how to curb the liveliest movements
of personal wrath, when the interests of the Church were at stake,
heartily tired, moreover, of the petty rubs on which the dispute
between him and Frederic was by the latter ostensibly made to hinge,
he bestirred himself once more to effect a reconciliation compatible
with his duty and character. To this end, he sent an embassy of a more
stately description than had ever represented a Pope before, composed
of five cardinals, one of whom was a personal friend of Frederic, to
the emperor at Bologna; whither he had arrived soon after Easter (A.
D. 1159) to pass sentence on the Milanese, who, in the mean time, had
again sought to shake off the German yoke.
The terms which this embassy was instructed to demand as fair and
equitable, were as follows: That for the future no imperial agent
should exercise pretended imperial prerogatives in Rome, without the
foreknowledge of the Pope; that no levies on the domains of the Church
should be made by the Emperor, except when he was crowned; that the
Italian bishops should not take oaths of particular, but only of
general homage; that the possessions of the Roman church, and the
revenues of Ferrara, Massa, Fighernola, of the Matilda inheritance, of
the country between Acquapendente and Rome, of Spoleto, Sardinia, and
Corsica,--all acknowledged in the middle ages as indisputable feoffs
of the Holy See,--should be restored.
At first the emperor haughtily refused to grant these conditions;
then, on further reflection, offered to abide by the decision of a
committee of arbitration, to consist of six cardinals chosen by the
pope, and six bishops chosen by himself. But Adrian, as Frederic
foresaw and reckoned upon, at once rejected this offer, as derogatory
to the dignity of a supreme Pontiff, which, regarded by christendom as
superior to every temporal jurisdiction, could not therefore bow to
one. At the same time, he reminded the Emperor of his concordat with
Pope Eugenius, and called on him to stand to it. Frederic rejoined,
that he considered himself exonerated from it, as Adrian had been the
first to break it by his treaty of peace with the king of Sicily. That
this charge was a false one, has already been shown. The Emperor
persisted in his proposition for a committee of arbitration. As both
parties continued inflexible, all prospect of a reconciliation
vanished. Indeed, measures of a hostile character seemed on the point
of being resorted to on both sides. For while Frederic gave audience
to a republican embassy from Rome, and appeared to listen favourably
to the overtures made; Adrian openly exhorted the Lombards to
persevere in their resistance to the emperor, and formed fresh
relations with the king of Sicily. He also addressed a brief to the
archbishops of Mayence, Cologne, and Treves, in which he gives his
feelings full vent, and asserts the superiority of his dignity over
the emperor's, in the true spirit of the hierarchy of that age.
"Praised be God in the highest," writes he, "that ye remain faithful;
while the flies of Pharao, sprung from the abyss of hell, and driven
about by the whirlwind, are turned to dust, instead of darkening the
sun according to their wish. Thanks be to God, who doubtless hath
enabled you to perceive that betwixt us and the king there can be no
more fellowship. This schism caused by him will yet rebound upon his
head. Yes! he is like the dragon that would needs fly through the
midst of heaven, and draw after him by his tail the third part of the
stars; but toppled into the abyss, and left to his successors nothing
but the warning, that he who exalts himself will be humbled. Thus does
this fox--who is your hammer too--think to lay waste the Lord's
vineyard; thus does this wicked son forget all gratitude and godly
fear. Not one of his promises has he kept; everywhere has he deceived
us; and deserves, therefore, our ban, as a rebel against God, and as a
true heathen. And not only he, but also--we say it for your
warning--every one who seconds him, yea, every one who either in word
or thought agrees with him. He sets up his power as equal to ours, as
though this last were confined to a mere corner like Germany--to
Germany, which, till the Popes exalted it, passed only for the
smallest of states: did not the German kings travel about in an
oxen-drawn chariot, like any poor philosopher, till Pope Zacharias
consecrated Charles? do they not still hold their court in a forest at
Aix, whereas we reside at Rome? Even as Rome is above Aix, so are we
above that king, who boasts of his world-wide sway; while he can
hardly keep in check one of his refractory princes, or even subdue the
rude and foolish race of the Frieslanders. In short, he possesses the
empire through us; and that which we gave him,--on the supposition of
gratitude alone,--we can resume. Do ye admonish him after this manner,
and reclaim him to the right path,--to peace with us; for it will
plunge you also into ruin, if there be schism between church and
state."
It may easily be supposed, that words like these would be ill
calculated to arrest Frederic's unprincipled career; nor, of course,
did Adrian expect they would. He rather acted now under the persuasion
that conciliation had reached its limits, inasmuch as further
concessions would dishonour his dignity, and be a dereliction of his
duty as chief pastor of the Christian Church;--the unconditional
subjection of which under the brutal sway of the civil sword, Frederic
plainly proved that it was his great aim to effect. Adrian therefore
resolved, now that every advance and self-sacrifice on his side,
consistent with reason and justice, had been made in vain, to arm
himself with those thunders which the arm of a pope only can launch,
and which the feelings of Christendom rendered so dreadful even to the
most potent and hardened offenders.
To this course he was impelled all the more as Frederic, in further
proof of his contempt of the most sacred obligations, when they stood
in the way of his ambition, shortly added to his crimes against the
Church another against public morals, by wantonly repudiating, out of
motives of state policy, his lawful empress, to marry in her stead
Beatrix of Burgundy. Any remnants of hesitation to adopt extreme
measures which Adrian might still cherish, were completely eradicated
in his mind by this crying scandal; and he at once prepared a ban of
excommunication against the emperor; but in the moment of fulminating
it, death paralysed his arm. This happened Sept. 1st, 1159, near
Anagnia, in the Campagna, and according to William of Tyre, in
consequence of a quinsy. Pagi relates that the partisans of Frederic
told a story to this effect--that Pope Adrian died by a judgment of
God, who permitted him while drinking at a well, a few days after
denouncing excommunication against the emperor, to swallow a fly,
which stuck in his throat, and could not be extracted by the surgeons,
till the patient had expired through the inflammation produced by the
accident. Adrian, however, did not excommunicate the emperor at all,
but died on the eve of doing so. His body was carried to Rome, and
entombed in a costly sarcophagus of marble, beside that of Eugenius
III., in the nave of the old basilica of St. Peter.
In the year 1607, on the demolition of this church, the body was
exhumed and found entire, as well as the pontificals in which it was
arrayed. It was re-interred under the pavement of the new basilica.
According to Pagi, Pope Adrian IV. composed Catechisms of Christian
Doctrine for the Swedes and Norwegians, a Memoir of his Mission to
those nations--_de Legatione sua_--various Homilies, and a Treatise on
the Conception of the Blessed Virgin,--performances which appear to
have perished. The work, describing his mission to the north, must
have been of great interest for the light which it no doubt threw on
the history and manners of those countries. Munter, the church
historian of Denmark, mentions that he sought to discover it at Rome,
but without success; it being supposed, if still extant, to lie buried
beneath the impracticable hoards of the Vatican.
Cardinal Boso, an Englishman, and Pope Adrian's private secretary,
whom he sent out on a mission to Portugal, wrote a life of his patron,
but so invaluable a work is also unavailable, as no trace of it now
exists. From an anecdote preserved in William of Newbridge, Adrian IV.
would seem to have pushed integrity in money matters to a harsh
extreme; and so to have proved himself the antipodes of those popes
who afterwards practised nepotism. For it is related of him, that
rather than award a pittance towards the relief of his aged and
destitute mother out of those ample revenues, which as pope he had at
his disposal, but which he did not feel himself justified in diverting
to private uses, he allowed her to subsist as best she could on the
alms of the Chapter of Canterbury. Notwithstanding the incessant
conflicts of his short career, he yet found time to do something
towards the improvement and decoration of Rome. To this end he
projected and carried out various new buildings and restorations,
consisting in churches within and without the city, in castles for the
protection of the Campagna, and in additions to the Lateran Palace.
The duration of his pontificate comprised four years and eight months.
The End.