Pope Adrian IV Part 2

The truth was, that the senate and citizens, exasperated beyond measure at Frederic's treatment of their amba.s.sadors, and at his superior generalship in occupying the city and effecting his coronation in their teeth, had met at the Capitol while he was at St.

Peter's; and pa.s.sed the resolution not to let so mortifying a day pa.s.s over without striking a blow in revenge.

Wherefore, as soon as the coronation was finished, and the scene clear, the furious populace burst over the Tiber; and, after first butchering what few German soldiers still lingered imprudently at St.

Peter's, rushed on to the grand attack.

Frederic no sooner heard this unwelcome news, than he started from table, gave the word to arm, and sallied out to encounter the enemy.

The battle that ensued was maintained on both sides with unflinching courage and varied fortunes: now the Romans drove the Germans beyond their lines; now the Germans pursued the Romans into the heart of the city. Such was the hatred which each party felt against the other, that not only the men but the women joined in the struggle. When it had thus lasted till sunset, victory declared for the Germans. The Romans fled on all sides with a loss of more than 1000 killed or drowned, and 200 captured. The emperor, as Otto of Frisingen a.s.serts, [4] had the extraordinary good fortune to lose in such an obstinate and bitter combat only two men,--one killed and one made prisoner.

"Such!" cried Frederic, as he beheld the defeat of the enemy, and recollected the terms of the senate the day before, "Such, O! Rome, is the price which thy Prince pays for thy crown; such the way in which we Germans buy our empire!" [5]

On the morrow he turned over his prisoners to Peter, the prefect of Rome; who executed some, as notorious ringleaders, on the spot; and allowed others to ransom themselves at exorbitant rates. Indeed, that stern functionary would have put the whole of them to death, had not Adrian, in whose breast this unfortunate outbreak had produced the liveliest regret, interfered in their behalf, so that it was reluctantly resolved to set them free.

Notwithstanding his victory, as no market for provisions could be opened for his army, by reason of the animosity of the Roman peasantry, Frederic was obliged to raise his camp, and seek a more friendly and fruitful neighbourhood, where the soldiers might enjoy repose after so trying a campaign. The spot he removed to was near Tivoli. Here he halted for several days, and received a visit in his quarters from Pope Adrian, who kept with the emperor the feast of SS.

Peter and Paul. Both sovereigns appeared at high ma.s.s on this occasion wearing their insignia of state. After the service, Adrian solemnly absolved the emperor's troops from all guilt which the slaughter they had made of the Romans in the late conflict might appear to lay them under; the maxim adopted being that "he who fights out of obedience to his prince against the enemy of the state, must not be deemed a murderer but an avenger." [6]

And yet Frederic did not hesitate to seize an opportunity which now offered of breaking his oaths, and of repaying the pope's good offices by invading his rights. For, on the citizens of Tivoli offering him, at his secret instigation, the sovereignty of their city, which belonged to the Holy See, he accepted it; and only on Adrian's determined opposition to such an usurpation, affected to restore it with reservation of his imperial prerogatives over the place;--prerogatives which he could not define, and which meant in fact nothing more than the renewal of his aggression at the next more favourable opportunity. For now the complaints of his army, worn out by fatigue, exposed, moreover, to every vexation, through the ever increasing animosity of the Italians, and hence doubly impatient to return into Germany, from which it had been absent much longer than the terms of feudal service required, obliged Frederic to think of finishing his campaign, and marching home directly, if he did not mean to be left alone in the heart of a hostile country; a predicament into which the desertion of his men was already beginning to betray him. He accordingly took the road back into Germany soon after he had made rest.i.tution to the pope as above described; and after running many perils in his progress through regions so justly hostile to him, regained his own states beyond the Alps, not so much gratified by the acquisition of the imperial crown, as embittered by what he had gone through in pursuit of it, and resolved not to delay longer than he could help a second invasion of Italy, which should compensate the mishaps and mortifications of the first.

[1] Muratori, Storia d' Italia, vol. 7. p. 135. Leipsic, 1748.

[2] Muratori, Dissertazione sopra le Antichita Italiane, dissert. 4.

[3] Otto Frisingensis, lib. 1. cap. 23.

[4] Otto Frisingensis, ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Otto Frisingensis, ibid.

V.

While Frederic was yet fighting his way home through Italy, Adrian had to face about and confront another foe in William, the Norman king of Sicily.

William had lately succeeded his father Roger, a wise and able monarch, to whom however his son, as so commonly happens, bore no sort of resemblance; but by his incapacity and total subjection under the influence of a profligate favourite of low birth, named Wrajo, soon threw the state, which Roger had left in so prosperous a condition, into the worst disorder.

The breach between him and the pope arose out of a letter which the latter had occasion to address to the king at Salerno, in which the royal t.i.tle was omitted, and that of mere lord subst.i.tuted. Adrian did this because William had a.s.sumed the crown of Sicily without first asking it of the pope, who, as the feudal patron of that island by ancient compact with its Norman conquerors under Robert de Guiscard, in the time of Pope Leo IX. (A. D. 1053), justly felt his rights infringed by a proceeding which set at nought their established forms.

In revenge of this pretended insult, William refused to negotiate with the amba.s.sadors through whom it came; and, furthermore, gave orders to his chancellor Scitinius, whom he had just made viceroy of Apulia, to attack the domain of the Church, which that officer accordingly did, by laying siege to Beneventum, and devastating its territory. But as this proceeding caused a number of disaffected crown va.s.sals of Apulia, already secretly tampered with by agents of the Greek emperor, anxious to recover his lost sway in Italy, to revolt against the Sicilian government,--many of whom in so doing marched to the relief of Beneventum,--Scitinius was soon obliged to raise the siege of that city, and turn his arms against some more vulnerable point. To this end, he pa.s.sed direct into the Campagna, and there set fire to the towns of c.i.p.arano, Barbuco, and Todi; after which, he made his retreat, demolishing by the way the walls of Aquino, and driving a crowd of monks out of their convents, which he gave up to the plunder of the soldiers.

These events had transpired while Frederic Barbarossa was yet advancing towards Rome, to demand the imperial crown, and on his arrival formed one of the heads of complaint to him on the part of the pope, who hoped to use the strong arm of the professed champion of the Church in redressing her wrongs. Frederic, indeed, expressed the warmest zeal in the pope's cause, and, none the less so, as it presented, under the appearance of a sacred duty, a prospect so inviting to his own ambition. But, as we have seen, he was reluctantly compelled by his murmuring soldiers to close his campaign and return home. He did not, however, lose sight of Sicily; which, as will be described in the sequel, gave rise to a fresh and sharper quarrel between him and the pope.

Disappointed in his hopes of a.s.sistance from Frederic, Adrian, with characteristic energy, resolved to a.s.sist himself; and rejoined to the ruffianism of William with a ban of excommunication, a proceeding which instantly decided in the pope's cause several of the most powerful n.o.bles of Apulia, especially Robert Count of Loritelli, the king's cousin, Andrew Count of Rupi Canino, Richard Count of Aquila, and Robert Prince of Capua; men who, like the bulk of their order, were impatient to shake off the oppressive and ignominious yoke of the royal favourite Wrajo. Backed by these, who again were secretly encouraged by the court of Constantinople, Adrian followed up his ban of excommunication, by invading at the head of his troops the Terra di Lavoro, which he totally subdued, and then proceeded to Beneventum, where he fixed his head quarters.

William, who in the mean time was in Sicily, and lulled asleep to every interest under the noxious influence of Wrajo, no sooner became aware of his bad fortune across the water,--where, owing to the events just related, all his Italian possessions, with the exception of Naples, Amalfi, Sorrento, and a few other towns and castles of secondary importance, were wrested from him,--than he presently shook off his lethargy, sailed over to Salerno, and from that city sent amba.s.sadors to the pope to negotiate a peace.

To this step he was urged all the more by finding out that Emanuel, the Greek emperor, after refusing to stand his ally at the beginning of the war, was in correspondence, through his minister Palaeologus, with Adrian; trying to procure from the latter the cession of three sea-ports of Apulia in consideration of a large sum of money, and of the promise to expel the Sicilian king from his Italian dominions. The offers which William made were, namely: to pay a sum equivalent to that tendered by Emanuel; to surrender the three sea-ports in question as an indemnification for the damage done by Scitinius; and to swear fealty to the pope as the liege lord of Sicily.

At first Adrian doubted if these terms were genuine, and sent a cardinal to Salerno, to learn the truth. On being advised that all was straightforward, he declared his readiness to accept them. But a cabal in the German interest among the cardinals now put in such a strong opposition to the pope's intention, that, taken by surprise, he dropped it, and retracted his favourable answer to William.

The truth was, a reconciliation between Adrian and William, would have seriously embarra.s.sed Frederic Barbarossa's designs on Sicily;--to say nothing of the protection which such an event would secure to the pope against those farther aggressions on the Church, which the emperor had in view.

Driven to desperation by the final decision of the pope, William, who, with all his faults, seems still to have been capable of a rash energy when real danger stared him in the face, resolved to throw himself again on the chance of war. Collecting a formidable armament by sea and land, he invested Brundusium; which, with the exception of the citadel, had fallen into the hands of Michael Ducas, the Greek general. [1] The citadel, which could not be subdued by arms, was obliged at last to yield to famine; when, in the moment that the garrison was about to close with the terms of surrender, proposed by the enemy, William came up with his army, and obliged the Greek commander, instead of taking possession of the citadel, to face about and fight a pitched battle for the town. The struggle was obstinate and b.l.o.o.d.y: fortune often changed sides; but at last declared for the Sicilians, into whose hands Ducas himself fell.

The recovery of Brundusium, which followed this victory, seasonably placed at William's disposal a number of rich Greek captives,--whom he sent to Palermo,--much ready money and precious property, besides ships and stores.

A crowd of Apulian malcontents had also the misfortune to fall into his power; on whom he did not fail to wreak his vengeance, by executing some; blinding and maiming others; and selling the rest into slavery.

Flushed with this success, he next marched to Bari. Here he met with no resistance; but, on the contrary, an affecting appeal to his mercy in the spectacle of the citizens coming out before him, dressed in sackcloth, in token of submission. So solemn a humiliation, however, could not atone in the king's eye, for their crime in having demolished the citadel of the town, because it refused to turn disloyal, when the rebellion first broke out. To their entreaties for pardon, he sternly replied, that he should deal out strict justice to them; that as they had not spared his house, he should not spare their houses. A respite of two days only was allowed them, in which to quit their homes with their goods; upon its expiration, the entire city with its walls was reduced to a heap of ruins. Struck with terror at so cruel a vengeance, the rest of the revolted Apulian towns hastened to send in their submission; whereupon, William turned his arms at once against Beneventum; where not only the pope, but also prince Robert of Capua, and several other leaders of the rebellion resided.

As the king approached, the prince of Capua, seized with terror, fled; but with so little caution as to fall into an ambush set for him by his va.s.sal and fellow rebel, Richard Count of Fondi; who took the prince his son and daughter prisoners, and delivered them to his sovereign; by which piece of seasonable perfidy, Richard atoned for his treason, and recovered the royal favour.

As to Robert, he was shipped off to Palermo, thrown into a dungeon, where his eyes were put out. In this sad condition, however, he did not long survive, as the severity of his treatment soon brought death to his relief.

With such melancholy proofs of the mutability of worldly fortune before his eyes, and viewing, moreover, the success of his enemy as a sign of the divine disapprobation of his having been so weak as to refuse terms of peace against his better judgment, Adrian now resolved to lose no time in doing what was yet in his power towards repairing his error; and began by successfully requesting the Sicilian king, to give up farther pursuit of his vengeance against the rest of the rebel chiefs, still shut up in Beneventum, and to pardon them on condition of their quitting the kingdom. He next offered to close with those terms of peace,--the rejection of which had caused the present war,--and sent amba.s.sadors to the king on the subject. William received them respectfully and opened negotiations with them. The pope, on his part, engaged to invest the king in feoff with the kingdom of Sicily, the duchy of Apulia, the princ.i.p.ality of Capua, Naples, Salerno, and Malfi, with the March and with all that he claimed on this side the Marsa. The king, in return, engaged to swear fealty to the pope; to defend him against his enemies; and to pay him a fixed yearly tribute for Apulia, Calabria, and the March. These formed the princ.i.p.al articles of the treaty now agreed to. But there were others included, in which the king took advantage of his position as conqueror, to exact terms in favour of the secular, and to the detriment of the spiritual power in his states. By these terms, the royal right to confirm canonical elections, was extended; appeals to Rome, from Apulia were restricted; while in Sicily, they were wholly abolished, as well as the right to send legates into the island.

This peace was signed in the church of St. Marcia.n.u.s near Beneventum; where, in the presence of a splendid array of n.o.bles, and of a vast crowd of people, the king of Sicily prostrated himself in homage at the feet of the pope; who then embraced his august va.s.sal, and invested him with feoffs of Sicily, Apulia, and Capua, by presenting him with three Standards representing those states. After all was over, the king made rich presents of plate, and precious garments to the cardinals in the suite of the pope, of whom he then took leave and returned to Palermo.

Shortly afterwards Adrian published a bull, in which the peace was confirmed.

On his way from Beneventum to Rome, he visited Orvieto; a city which had for a long time stood in open rebellion against him as its prince, but had recently returned to its duty. Here he stayed some time, and received the most loyal demonstrations from the citizens, on whom he conferred many tokens of his paternal regard. From Orvieto, he proceeded to Viterbo for the winter, and then repaired to Rome.

[1] Hugoni Fracundi. Muratori, Scrip. Rer. Italic. vol. 7. page 268.

VI.

Soon after his accession, Adrian received, among other letters of congratulation, one from Henry II. king of England, who had succeeded to his crown at the same time as the pope. This letter was as follows:--

"A sweet breath of air hath breathed in our ears, inasmuch as we learn that the news of your elevation hath scattered like a refulgent aurora, the darkness of the desolation of the Church. The Apostolic See rejoiceth in having obtained such a consolation of her widowhood.

All the churches rejoice at beholding the new light arise, and hope to behold it expand to broad day. But in particular our west rejoiceth that a new light hath arisen to illuminate the globe of the earth; and that, by divine favour, the west hath restored that sun of Christianity which towards the east was set. Wherefore, most holy Father, we, sharing in the general jubilee at your honors, and celebrating with devout praise the bounties of the divine Majesty, will lay open to you our desires, confiding as we do, with filial devotion, in your paternal goodness. For, if the carnal son exposeth to his father, in confidence, his carnal desires, how much more should not the spiritual son do so with regard to his spiritual one?

a.s.suredly, among other desires of our heart, we do not a little desire, that, as the Almighty's right arm hath chosen your most reverend person to be spiritually planted, like a tree of life in the midst of paradise, and to be transplanted from this land of ours, into his orchard, you will chiefly take care to reform, by your conduct and doctrine, all the churches, that all generations may call your land blessed through your beat.i.tude. This, too, we thirst for with a sincere heart, that the spirit of tempests, which is wont to rage furiously about the pinnacle of honor, may never wrest you from the concern of your sanctification; lest, by reason of any deficiency in you, the deepest abyss of disgrace should succeed to the highest summit of dignity. And this we ardently long for, that, as the regulation of the Church universal belongs to you, you will take care to create such cardinals, free of reproach, as shall know how to appreciate your burthen, and be willing and competent to aid you in supporting it; not regarding ties of country, quality of birth, or extent of power; but that they love G.o.d, hate avarice, thirst after justice, and burn with the zeal of souls. Nor are we slightly affected by the desire that, as the unworthiness of ministers is detrimental above all things to the Church, you will vigilantly watch, whenever your Providence shall happen to be pet.i.tioned, touching the collation of benefices, lest any unworthy person intrude into the Patrimony of the Crucified. And seeing that the Holy Land,--blest by the origin of our redemption,--consecrated by the life and death of Christ,--a land which Christian devotion holds in particular respect,--is distracted by incursions of the infidels, and polluted by their abominations, we wish from our very soul that you would provide men, of your own devout solicitude, in its defence. And, in regard of that empire of Constantinople,--once so ill.u.s.trious, now so wofully desolate,--what Christian man ought not to desire that, by your care and prudence, it may receive timely consolation? For the rest, we confide and hope in the Lord, that, as you have not failed, while rising from virtue to virtue, and from honor to honor, to shine according to the exigence of each of them, so you will not fail, now that you are called to the apogee of apostolical elevation, to ill.u.s.trate and inflame the subject Church, in such a manner, as shall permit no one to hide himself from your light and heat; and that, after your death, you will leave behind such vestiges of sanct.i.ty, that your native land,--which congratulates itself on your happy beginning,--will find much more glory in the Lord, in your happier end. Finally, we request of your Paternity, with full confidence, that you will be pleased to remember us, our family, and kingdom, especially in your prayers and vows." [1]

A few months after the receipt of this letter, Adrian was visited by his renowned countryman, John of Salisbury,--afterwards bishop of Chartres,--who arrived in a diplomatic capacity, from king Henry, to procure the papal sanction to a projected conquest of Ireland, by England.

The motives to this ambitious scheme,--which William the Conqueror, and Henry I., had also entertained,--were alleged to be the civilisation of the Irish people, and the reformation of the Irish Church; both of which were represented as given over to barbaric anarchy, and the most crying abuses. And, indeed, such was the real state of civil and religious affairs in that country in the 12th century,--as will be shown lower down,--that the motives in question, derived the greatest weight from the circ.u.mstance, and induced the pope to give the sanction requested. This he did in the following brief:

"Adrian, bishop, servant of the servants of G.o.d, to his most dear son in Christ, the ill.u.s.trious king of the English, health and apostolical benediction.

"Thy Magnificence thinketh, praiseworthily and fruitfully, touching the propagation of thy glorious name over the earth, and the laying up a reward of eternal felicity in heaven, when, like a Catholic prince, thou dost project the extension of the boundaries of the Church, the proclamation of the Christian faith to ignorant and rude people, and the extirpation of the weeds of vice from the Lord's vineyard; and when, to the better execution hereof, thou dost request the advice and favour of the Apostolic See. In which matter, we feel confident that, as thou shalt proceed with higher counsel, and greater discretion, so thou wilt make, under the Lord's favour, the happier progress, seeing that those things usually reach a good issue, which have sprung out of an ardour for the faith and love of religion. Certainly, there can be no doubt that Ireland, as well as all the isles, which Christ the Sun of justice hath illuminated, and which have borne testimony to the Christian Faith, are subject to St. Peter, and the most Holy Roman Church. On which account, we are all the more ready to plant therein, the plantation of the Faith, and the seed which is grateful to G.o.d, as we discover on close examination it is required of us. Forasmuch, then, as thou hast signified to us, most clear son in Christ, that thou art wishful to enter the island of Ireland, to subdue that people under the laws, and to root out of it the weeds of vice, and art wishful to pay to St. Peter, a pension of one penny a-year for each house, and to preserve intact the rights of the Church in that country; we, regarding favourably, and vouchsafing to thy pet.i.tion our gracious a.s.sent, hold it to be a grateful and acceptable thing, that thou shouldst enter that island, to extend the boundaries of the Church; to stem the torrent of crime; to correct morals; to introduce virtue; to augment the Christian religion; and to execute what thy mind may have found good for G.o.d's honor, and the country's prosperity. And let the people thereof receive thee honorably, and respect thee as their Lord; the rights of the Church remaining intact, and saving the pension to St. Peter and the most Holy Roman Church of one penny a-year for each house. And, shouldst thou be so fortunate as to accomplish what thou hast planned, strive to improve the Irish nation, by good morals; and act in such a manner by thyself, as well as by those whom thou shalt employ, and whom thou shalt first have proved to be trustworthy by reason of their fidelity, their opinions and conduct, that the Church may be adorned, the Christian faith extended, and everything that belongs to the honor of G.o.d, and salvation of souls, so ordered by thee in Ireland, as to qualify thee to deserve an eternal reward in heaven, and a glorious name on earth through all ages." [2]

This famous brief, by which Henry II. of England held himself divinely authorized to conquer Ireland, is strongly disapproved of by many writers, especially by Irish ones; who will not alloy it the least excuse, but overwhelm it with abusive censure. And yet the plain truth is, Adrian meant it, as he worded it, for Ireland's good.

However false the grant of Constantine the Great,--on which the claim set up for St, Peter's dominion over the islands is founded,--may have been proved in later times to be; yet it is certain that both the grant and claim in question were in the 11th, and 12th centuries firmly believed in by all orthodox christians, just as much so as that the Pope was literally our Saviour's vicar on earth, before whose powers every other had to bow. That the king of England was secretly guided by worldly motives, while ostensibly professing religious ones, was his concern and not the pope's: whose business was to weigh the merits of the case, not by reasons imputed, but by those propounded; which, if he found them, from the religious point of view of his times, sound, he was justified in accepting.

Now, there is the best evidence in cotemporary writings, especially in those of Giraldus and St. Bernard, that Ireland was, as above said, given up in the 12th century, to the worst demoralization in Church and State, that a country, not wholly pagan or savage, could be.

Giraldus, who travelled in Ireland in the suite of King John, and attentively observed its condition, expresses in his work [3] written on the subject, his surprise that a nation, in which the Christian faith had been planted so far back as the days of St. Patrick, and had gone on increasing more or less ever since, should yet in his age be so ignorant in the very rudiments of religion. "A nation" as he proceeds to describe it, "filthy in the extreme, buried in vice, and of all nations the most ignorant of the rudiments of the faith." In support of this severe censure, he accuses the Irish of "despising matrimony, of being addicted to incest, of refusing to pay t.i.thes, and of totally neglecting attendance at Church." In another place he writes, that the people in many districts continued still to be pagans, through the indifference of the clergy. St. Bernard draws a picture not less darkly shaded. In his life of St. Malachy, [4]

adverting to the state of the Irish church on the promotion of that saint to the episcopacy, he describes how the new bishop soon found out that he had to do with "brutes and not with men; how that nowhere he had met with such barbarism of every sort; nowhere found a race so perverse in their morals, so savagely opposed to religious rites, so impious towards the faith, so headstrong against discipline, so barbarous towards the laws, so filthy in their habits of life; a people, Christians in name, but heathens in practice, who paid no t.i.thes, who contracted no lawful marriages, who never confessed their sins, who had hardly any one among them to ask or give a penance, in whose churches neither the voice of the preacher nor the chorus of the chanters was ever heard."