Adrian IV

Adrian IV (c. 1100-1159), pope (1154-1159), the only Englishman to ascend to the papacy.

Born Nicholas Breakspear near St Albans, Hertfordshire, he entered the monastery of St Rufus near Avignon, France. He was successively appointed abbot of the monastery (1137), cardinal bishop of Albano (1150), and papal legate to Scandinavia (1152-1154), where he reorganized the Church hierarchy. When he returned to Rome, he was unanimously elected pope upon the death of Anastasius IV (pope 1153-1154).

Adrian almost immediately confronted Arnold of Brescia, the Italian monk and reformer who opposed the temporal power of the papacy. At Adrian's request, the German king Frederick I seized Arnold and turned him over to the Roman Curia for trial as a political rebel. After Arnold's execution in 1155, Adrian crowned Frederick Holy Roman emperor.

Adrian is said to have been called upon by Henry II of England to grant permission for the subjugation of Ireland. Because the popes claimed the “islands of the sea” by virtue of the Donation of Constantine, Adrian denied Henry absolute possession, but permitted him to occupy the island as a papal fief. The facts of the matter are uncertain, but the papal bull Laudabiliter, attributed to Adrian, may have been a forgery. The term Vicar of Christ began to be used to describe the pope during Adrian's brief pontificate.