Pope Adrian IV Part 1

Pope Adrian IV.

by Richard Raby.

I. PREFACE.

The following sketch was written to supply what its author felt persuaded could not fail to interest his fellow Catholics in England; namely, some account of the only English Pope who ever reigned.

In it he does not pretend to any novelty of research; but simply to present a connected narrative of such events in the history of Pope Adrian IV. as have hitherto lain broken and concealed in old chronicles, or been slightly touched for the most part in an incidental way by modern writers.

In the course of his sketch, the author has ventured to take part with Pope Adrian in some acts of his, which it is commonly the mode to condemn. Should his opinions in so doing not be deemed sound, he yet hopes that at least the spirit which inspired them--in other words, the spirit to promote the cause of practical rather than theoretical policy, as also of public order and legitimate authority, will deserve commendation.

For the rest, the striking similarity between the difficulties which Pius IX. in our day has to contend with, and those which Pope Adrian had to encounter in the twelfth century, should only lend the more interest to his story.

R. R.

_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 circ.u.mstance 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 dest.i.tution.

Thus cruelly cast on the world, Nicholas to settle the church in those remote countries, where it had been planted about 150 years. The circ.u.mstances 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 a.s.serted 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 amba.s.sadors 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 amba.s.sadors 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 circ.u.mstance of his being an Englishman had weight in his selection; as, in consequence of that circ.u.mstance, 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 pa.s.sed 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 n.o.bleman having murdered the brother of Sigurd's favourite concubine, and then entered the service of Inge, the latter s.h.i.+elded 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 cla.s.ses 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 ent.i.tled him to do, and even to reform their civil inst.i.tutions. Thus there is every reason to a.s.sume,--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 pa.s.sed, 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 friends.h.i.+p 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 pa.s.sed 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 t.i.tle 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 amba.s.sadors, 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 ma.s.sacred 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 ign.o.ble and fatal a defeat. Not long afterwards, Sweno was murdered in his bed by two of his chief n.o.bles, 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.

II.

At the moment, Adrian IV. took his seat behind the helm of Peter's bark, the winds and waves raged furiously against her, nor ceased to do so, during the whole time that he steered her course. That time, though short, was yet long enough to prove him a skilful and fearless pilot,--as much so as the very foremost of his predecessors or successors, who have acquired greater fame than he, simply because a more protracted term of office enabled them to carry out to completer results than he could do, designs in no wise loftier than Adrian's; and, in so doing, to unveil before the world more fully than was permitted to him, characters not, therefore, n.o.bler or more richly endowed than his.

The first difficulty with which the English pope had to grapple, on his accession to power, was the refractory spirit of the citizens of Rome, among whom Arnold of Brescia had, some time before, stirred up the republican mania.

Arnold was a native of the city, indicated by his surname, and was born there most likely about the year 1105. His was one of those proud and ambitious natures, in which imagination and enthusiasm are mixed up in far greater proportions, than judgment and sobriety. From his childhood he developed s.h.i.+ning parts and an ardor for study, calculated to elicit their full force. To pursue his studies with as little interruption as possible, he adopted, while yet a boy, the clerical habit, and not long afterwards obtained minor orders. [1]

In those days, events were pa.s.sing, at home and abroad, well adapted to excite all that extravagance, which was to be expected from a character like his. In Italy, it was the era of the spread of those republican principles, which were at last fought out so heroically and through such perils by the cities of Lombardy, against local barons and transalpine emperors; in Europe, at large, it was the era of the bloom of intellectual chivalry, whose seat was Paris, whose foremost champion, Abailard. But it was also the era of a wide-spread demoralization of the clergy, among whom simony and concubinage were the order of the day; and, consequently, every other disorder which naturally follows in the wake of those two capital vices. In the midst of such a complicated state of things, requiring so much steadiness of eye to view it properly, so as not to be misled,--on the one hand by a false admiration, and on the other by a false disgust,--the youth Arnold devoured the pages of Livy; and imbibed from him, as well as from other Roman cla.s.sics, those principles of heathen republicanism, which he subsequently sought to restore to practice, in the metropolis of Christendom, with such fatal results to society and himself.

On the completion of his studies at home, he repaired, thirsting for deeper draughts of knowledge, to Paris; and became one of the most devoted scholars of Abailard; whose rationalist invasions of the domain of theological doctrine,--by which the supreme authority of the Church in matters of faith was threatened,--accorded with Arnold's tone of mind. In fact, he soon arrived, by the line of argument which the lessons of his master and his own feelings led him to adopt, at the firm persuasion that he alone had hit upon the true plan for reforming, not only the political, but the religious abuses of the age; and, moreover, that none but he could carry that plan out. Under this hallucination, which the fumes of pagan principles of statesmans.h.i.+p and rationalist principles of Christianity, fermenting together, had hatched in his brain, he returned, after a few years'

stay at Paris, to Brescia; not failing to visit, at his pa.s.sage of the Alps, the Waldenses, and other sects, with whose tenets he secretly sympathized.

On his arrival at Brescia, he opened his career by a series of pulpit philippics against the temporal government of the Prince Bishop, and the immoral lives of the clergy. With fiery eloquence, that told all the more by reason of the sanct.i.ty of the preacher's exterior--a precaution which he took so well that even St. Bernard admitted its success--Arnold opposed the doctrines and practice of Holy Writ to the vices and luxuries which he denounced; affirming that the corruption of the Church was caused by her having overstepped the boundaries of her domain. That she had done so, was proved, he said, by the wealth and political power which she had acquired, contrary to the spirit and example of apostolic times; to whose simplicity she must return if she was to be reformed as she ought to be, and as, for the good of society, it was indispensable she should be. Of course, this line of argument received all that applause which it never fails to do whenever urged. For the reformation of the Church, by reducing her to the poverty of the apostolic ages, involves,--besides such purely spiritual advantages as are set forth at large in the plan,--others of a material kind, which, if not usually paraded with the first, are not the less kept steadily in view. For instance, that those who carry out the reforms in question will be sure to get well paid for their pains; seeing that the transaction necessarily pa.s.ses so much money and goods through their fingers, as well to private, as public profit. And, then, there is the secret satisfaction naturally felt above all by the rich and lax, at seeing the clergy, by means of this very reformation, deprived of much formidable influence--such as wealth always bestows on its possessors--and which is surely as necessary to the Church as to any other public corporation, to the end that she may carry out efficiently the affairs of her vast mission; keep up her dignity amid an irreverent world; s.h.i.+eld her oppressed; relieve her poor members, and strike respect into powerful sinners, who would not only scorn but trample on her too, if she had nothing but words to oppose to blows.

In consequence of Arnold's sermons--preached not only at Brescia, but also in other towns of Lombardy,--and which, besides their virulent censure of the existing abuses in Church and State, broached opinions contrary to orthodox faith, especially in regard to infant baptism, and the sacrament of the Eucharist,--an insurrection broke out against the Prince Bishop Manfred, in the year 1138, and lasted through the next.

Manfred made a vigorous stand to begin with; then seemed on the point of giving way, when an unexpected event turned the scales in his favour. This was the calling by Pope Innocent II., in the year 1139, of all the bishops and abbots of the Church to an oec.u.menical council at Rome, to condemn the memory of his late rival, the anti-pope Anacletus II. Among the rest, the Bishop Manfred and the abbots of Brescia appeared; and did not fail to seize the opportunity of denouncing the actions and opinions of Arnold to the pope and the curia. The proper course was forthwith taken; the proceedings of so pernicious a disturber of the public peace were condemned; himself warned to hold his tongue in future, and banished out of Italy under an oath not to return thither, without an express papal permission.

Arnold now betook himself again into France; and smarting with wounded pride and ambition, vindictively espoused the party of his old master Abailard, just then embroiled in his famous dispute with St. Bernard.

For the abbot of Clairvaux had found out that it would never do to allow that honest, but mistaken man to go on spreading his views any longer unopposed, if the orthodox faith was to be preserved intact in Christendom; and so, after more than once privately warning him of his errors to no purpose, accepted a challenge which Abailard at last vauntingly sent him to a public disputation. This disputation came off at the Synod of Sens, A. D. 1140, and resulted in the total defeat of the philosopher by the monk. But Abailard appealed from the synod to the pope; whereupon the synod suspended its farther measures, and advised the Holy See through St. Bernard of what had transpired. In doing so, the latter took care to expose the fatal consequences to revealed religion involved in Abailard's opinions, and, in one of his letters on this subject, stated the case thus: "That inasmuch as Abailard is prepared to explain everything by means of reason, he combats as well Faith as Reason: for, what is so contrary to Reason, as to wish to go beyond the limits of Reason by means of Reason? and, what more contrary to Faith, than to be unwilling to believe that which one is unable to reach by means of Reason?"

Abailard fared no better at Rome than at Sens. His defeat was ratified by that authority from which there is no appeal. Moreover, he was commanded to desist from holding any more lectures; and all persons who should obstinately maintain his errors were excommunicated.

Foremost among these was Arnold of Brescia, who scorned to imitate Abailard's submission to the authority of the Church, and blamed his penitential retreat at Clugny, where he shortly died an edifying death.

St. Bernard,--who had previously formed an ill opinion of Arnold from the reports which preceded him out of Italy,--no sooner saw him at Sens actively interested for Abailard, than he penetrated the entire duplicity of his character; at the same time that he felt fully alive to the damage, which the victory just won over error might yet suffer from a man so able and resolute. Wherefore, as it was not his custom to serve the cause of truth by halves, the saint resolved to include the scholar with the master in his denunciations to the pope; who, at his instance, ordered that Arnold too, as well as Abailard, should be incarcerated in a convent. But the crafty Italian managed to elude his doom by a timely flight; and after running many dangers by reason of the keen chace which St. Bernard gave him, found a safe retreat at Zurich.

In that age Zurich, by reason of the trade of Germany and Italy pa.s.sing through it, was the most flouris.h.i.+ng town of Switzerland.

Trading communities are commonly as fond of novelty in opinion as in wares. Zurich verified this a.s.sertion in many ways; for, owing to its free government, its proximity to the republics of Lombardy, and to the settlements of the Waldenses in the Alps, the place swarmed with that motley tribe of political and religious dreamers which Liberty is ever doomed to tolerate in her train. Of course, Arnold had his clique among the rest. His reception by the citizens was enthusiastic; a public situation was given to him; and he resided in the city for the next six years. During that interval, he confined his activity to Zurich and the cantons bordering it. In these he propagated his doctrines with success, and seems to have been forgotten by the public of France and Italy. No doubt, he may be viewed as having helped to pave the way for Zwingli in the 16th, and Strauss in the 19th,--both of whom, like Arnold, spread the poison of their ideas from Zurich.

In the meantime, events were transpiring at Rome which were destined to call Arnold from his retreat, and produce him again on the great stage of the world in a part more important than ever. These were the attempts of the Romans to restore their ancient republic on the ruins of the papal government. These attempts were not peculiar to the 12th century, but had been made in preceding ages, invariably to no other purpose than anarchy to the city, and scandal to the world. Indeed, there seems always to have been a party at Rome whose adherents, more pagan than Christian in their hearts, perversely mistook the destiny of the city; and far from viewing its new spiritual empire as n.o.bler than its old material one, held the former as something meanly inferior to the latter; wholly blind to the fact that the senate and emperors had been merely types of the hierarchy and the popes, and that in these, and not in those, G.o.d had decreed, from the time of Romulus himself, the true power and majesty of Rome should eventually reside. This party then,--who viewed the pope as the Jews viewed our Saviour, whom they would not accept as their Messias, but reviled him as an impostor because he possessed no worldly-power; this party it was that, at the end of the 8th century, treated Leo III. with such impious cruelty in their first recorded attempt to overthrow the papal government; that in the 10th century not only dethroned, but imprisoned and murdered, by the hands of the consul Crescentius, Benedict VI., and plunged the state into such disorders as to render necessary the b.l.o.o.d.y but just intervention of Otho III. Emperor of Germany, who delivered the Holy See from the oppression and indignities which overwhelmed it. About the middle of the 12th century, the example of the cities of Lombardy, roused to their struggle for freedom to a great degree by the eloquence of Arnold of Brescia, again awoke the republican faction at Rome; where other elements of lawlessness unhappily existed in the papal schism which then raged, and in which the anti-pope Anacletus drove from the Holy See Innocent II., the lawful pope. On the death of Anacletus and the return of Innocent, the sentence of the council, above mentioned, against Arnold of Brescia, still more embittered the revolutionary spirits of the city, worked up to wild enthusiasm by the temporary presence of that arch-demagogue on the spot to defend his cause. At last the pope's conduct to the citizens of Tivoli burst the storm of rebellion over his head.