Barbarossa and The Death of Adrian IV
At the diet of Besançon in October 1157, the legates presented to Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor a letter from Adrian IV which alluded to the beneficia or "benefits" conferred upon the Emperor, and the German chancellor translated this beneficia in the feudal sense of the presentation of property from a lord to a vassal (benefice). Frederick was infuriated by the suggestion that he was dependent on the Pope, and in the storm which ensued the legates were glad to escape with their lives, and the incident at length closed with a letter from the Pope, declaring that by beneficium he meant merely bonum factum or "a good deed," i.e. the coronation. The breach subsequently became wider, and the Emperor was about to be excommunicated when Adrian died at Anagni on 1 September 1159, reputedly choking on a fly in his wine, but probably of quinsy.
His biography was first written by Cardinal Boso in his extension to the Liber Pontificalis.
Read more about this topic: Pope Adrian IV
Famous quotes containing the words death and/or adrian:
“Do but consider this small dust, here running in the glass,
By atoms moved.
Could you believe that this the body was
Of one that loved?
And in his mistress’ flame playing like a fly,
Turned to cinders by her eye?
Yes, and in death as life unblest,
To have’t expressed,
Even ashes of lovers find no rest.”
—Ben Jonson (1572–1637)
“My beautiful, my own
My only Venice—this is breath! Thy breeze
Thine Adrian sea-breeze, how it fans my face!
Thy very winds feel native to my veins,
And cool them into calmness!”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)