Pope Adrian IV - Adrian IV and The Norman Invasion of Ireland

Adrian IV and The Norman Invasion of Ireland

In 1155, three years after the Synod of Kells, Adrian IV published the Papal Bull 'Laudabiliter', which was addressed to the Angevin King Henry II of England. He urged Henry to invade Ireland to bring its Celtic Christian Church under the Roman system and to conduct a general reform of governance and society throughout the island. The authenticity of this grant, the historian Edmund Curtis says, is one of "the great questions of history." He states that the matter was discussed at a Royal Council at Winchester, but that Henry's mother, the Empress Matilda, had protested. In Ireland however, nothing seems to have been known of it, and no provision appears to have been made to defend against the prospect of Angevin Norman aggression, despite their westward expansion throughout England and Wales. Ernest F. Henderson states that the existence of this Bull is doubted by many while, in noting that its authenticity has been questioned without success, P. S. O'Hegarty suggests that the question is now purely an academic one. It is notable that decisions of Pope Alexander III, his successor, Pope Lucius III, and King Henry VIII in proclaiming the Crown of Ireland Act 1542 were predicated on this document. The Normans did in fact invade Ireland, beginning with a small landing of Norman knights in 1169, followed by Henry's landing with a much larger force in 1171.