Part 10 (1/2)

? Baron. Ann. ecdes. ann. 1154.-Pagi. Act. ann. 1154, n. 4.

? Lib. 18. c. 2. et segg.

? Ann.eccles. ann 1166.-Concilior vol. 10. pa. 1151.

From the commencement of his pontificate Adrian had been relieved of Amauld of Brescia. An interdict launched for the first time against the churches of Rome, terrified the people, and compeled the senators to exile Arnauld, who scarcely out of the city, was delivered to the sovereign pontiff by Frederick Barbarossa, and buried alive at the break of day, without the knowledge of the people. His ashes were thrown into the Tiber, for fear, says Fleury?4 that the people should collect them as those of a martyr. But this service rendered by Frederick to Adrian did not prevent their becoming enemies. From the year 1155, when Frederick came to Rome to receive the imperial crown, the first germs of their discord were perceptible.?5 Frederick, after having refused to hold the stirrup for the pope, acquitted himself of it with a very bad grace. He observed in the palace of the Lateran a picture, in which the Emperor Lothaire was represented on his knees before the pontif with the well known inscription:

Rex venit ante fores, jurans prim urbis honores; Post h.o.m.o, fit paps, sumit, quo dante, coronam:-

that is to say, ”the king presents himself at the gates; and after having recognised the rights of the city, becomes the va.s.sal of the pope, who bestows on him the crown.” Frederick complained of these two verses, as well as of the emblems they explained, and obtained but the vague promise of their future suppression. They still subsisted when, in the month of April, 1157, the pope's legates presented themselves before the emperor, who held a court at Besancon?6 and placed in his hands a letter from Adrian. It had for its purport an attack committed in the emperor's states on the person of the Bishop of Lunden.:

”How, said the pope, can ”the impunity of such a crime be explained? Is it ”negligence? Can it be indifference? Can the ”emperor have forgotten the benefits conferred on ”him by the Holy See? Has not the sovereign ”pontiff willingly conferred on him the imperial ”crown? Are there not other favours still which ”he may be disposed to confer?”

This language highly displeased the princes by whom Frederick was surrounded; they murmured, they menaced; and when one of the legates replied to them, ”of whom then does the emperor hold the crown, if he holds it not from the pope?” one of the princes no longer restrained his indignation; he drew his sword, and he had infallibly cut off the legate's head, if Frederick had not hastened to oppose his imperial authority to this violence, and to have the envoys of the Holy See conducted to their residences, directing them to depart very early the following morning, and to return to Rome by the shortest road, without resting at the houses of either bishops or abbots.?7

?4 Hist, eccles. 1. 70, n. 4.-Otho Frising. de Gert. Frider. An.o.borb.

1. 2, c. 21.-Vit. Adrioni ed a card. Arrag.

?5 Otho Frising. de Oert. Frid. 1.2, c. 14,15,20.-Radev. de Gert.

Frid. 1.1, c. 11.-Bossnet's Def. Gull Church. 1.3, e 18.

?6 Radevic. 1. 1, c. 8, 9, 10.

?7 Concilior. vol. x. p. 1144.

Adrian took the step of addressing the bishops of Germany; he exhorted them to neglect no means of bringing Frederick back to more humble sentiments.?8 We have the reply of these prelates;?? it is judicious and firm:

”Your ”words, they say to the holy fathers, have shocked ”the whole court, and we cannot approve them.- ”The emperor can never suppose, that he holds ”from you his dignity: he swears that when the ”Church wishes to subject thrones, such ambition ”comes not from G.o.d; he speaks of figures and ”inscriptions which you possess, and which outrage ”his authority; he will not suffer, he says, such ”gross attempts. We invite you to destroy these ”movements of hostility between the empire and ”the priesthood; we adjure you to pacify a chris- ”tian sovereign, in addressing to him henceforth a ”language more conformable to the Gospel.”

At the same time that the bishops wrote this epistle, Frederick prepared to pa.s.s into Italy.! Adrian called to mind William of Sicily and perceived that it was time to shew some deference to the emperor.

Legates more skilful and more complying, came to Augsburgh, and presented Frederick with another epistle from Adrian The pope explained in it the terms of his first letter, and the explanation amounted to a retraction. ”By the word 'beneffcium,' he says, we understand not a benefice or a fief, but a benefit or a service. In speaking of your crown, we do not pretend having conferred it on you; we refer only to the honour we have had of placing it on your august head; 'contulimus' that is to say, imposuimus.” This commentary, which by no means pleases Baronius, satisfied the emperor, and produced between this prince and the pope a reconciliation which was not of long duration.

In the month of October 1150, Frederick held at Roncaille, between Parma and Placentia, an a.s.sembly, in which the bishops and abbots acknowledged that they held from him their royal privileges.

Dissatisfied with this declaration, and with the asperity with which the officers of the emperor a.s.serted the right of forage over the lands of the Roman Church, Adrian wrote an epistle to Frederick which has not been preserved; but Radevic, who gives us a relation of it,4 says, that it concealed, under humble and gentle terms, much bitterness and hauteur. In replying to it, Frederick affected to place, in the inscription, his own name before that of the sovereign pontiff.5 It was to revert to an ancient custom, to which were subst.i.tuted for some time past forms supposed to be more respectful. This bagatelle nettled the holy, father; and history relates, that letters were intercepted which he wrote to the Milanese, and other subjects of Frederick, to invite them to revolt. We do not possess those letters; but the reply of Adrian to the emperor has been transmitted to us.6

”To place your name before ours, says the servant ”of the servants of Christ, is arrogance, is insolence; ”and to cause bishops to render homage to you, ”those whom the Scriptures call G.o.ds, sons of the ”Most High, is to want that faith which you ”have sworn to St. Peter, and to us. Hasten then ”to amend, lest that in taking to yourself that which ”does not belong to you, you lose the crown with ”which we have gratified you.”

This epistle7 did not remain unreplied to; the minds of both became inflamed, and in despite of the negociations attempted in an a.s.sembly at Bologna in 1159, war was going to break out, had not the pope died the first of September of the same year, at the very moment, says an historian8 at which he p.r.o.nounced the excommunication of Frederick.

?8 Concilior, vol. 10, p. 1145.

?? Radev. Gest. Frider. 1.1, c. 16.

Radev. 1. 17, c. 23.

Concilior. vol. 10, p. 1147.

Ana. eccles. ann. 1158. 76.-According to Bossuet, this letter of Adrian IV. alone, is requisite to annihilate all the conclusions which the Ultramontanes pretend to deduce from the ceremony of the coronation of kings.

Radev.l. 2. c. 1-15.