HADRIAN III.

A.D. 884-885.

 

 

EMPEROR OF THE EAST.                                       EMPERORS OF THE WEST.

Basil I (The Macedonian), 867-886.                      Louis II, 850-875.

                                                                                         Charles II. (The Bald), 875-877.

                                                                                         Charles III. (The Fat), 881-888.

 

ACCORDING to the chronology, more or less probable but not certain, of Duchesne, Hadrian, a Roman and the son of Benedict, became Pope, May 17, 884. Of what he did, however, either before or after he became Pope we know but little. He seems to have maintained an impartial but firm attitude towards the party of Roman nobles which had  been proscribed by John VIII. For if he blinded the notorious George of the Aventine, he retained in the service of the Holy See George’s father-in-law, Gregory, who figures as “missus” and  “apocrisiarius of the Holy Apostolic See”, dignities he had enjoyed under John VIII.

He is also said to have caused Mary, the superistana, the widow of Gregory, the superista, who was murdered in the paradise or atrium of St. Peter’s, to be whipped “naked through all Rome”. We may conjecture that this was for some disgraceful intrigue with that scoundrel George of the Aventine. Although we are ignorant of the causes of these terrible events, still such horrible assassinations and barbarous punishments cannot fail to warn us that we are entering on the darkest period of the history of the papacy.

If full reliance could be placed upon the testimony Photius, it might be concluded that Hadrian resumed amicable relations with that patriarch. “Hadrian”, he said, “sent us a synodical letter in accordance with ancient custom”. Comparing this assertion with that of the inscription, previously cited, which states that Hadrian condemned Photius equally with Marinus and the rest, we may conclude that the truth probably is that Hadrian addressed a friendly letter to Constantinople to or about Photius with a view to bringing him to a sense of his duty. This failing, Hadrian renewed the condemnation passed on him by his predecessors.

Two decrees have been attributed to this Pope which have given rise to no little discussion. They are often quoted on the authority of Sigomus, a sixteenth-century writer who, on earlier Italian history, used to be a good deal more frequently cited than he is now. He was cited in the belief that he had access to much earlier writers, whose works have been since lost. But there is little doubt that an authority often consulted by Carolus Sigonius was his own imagination, and that his style is much more admirable than his facts are reliable. The earliest testimony which can be adduced in support of these decrees is the uncritical chronicle of the Dominican Martinus Polonus, who died in 1278. According, then, to Sigonius, the Italian nobility, disgusted with the weakness and discords of the Carolingian sovereigns, and grieved at the destruction caused by the Saracens, went to the Pope and begged him to consult for the safety of the state. In consequence of this appeal Hadrian issued two decrees. One had in view the liberty of the Romans, and laid down that “the pontiff elect could be consecrated without waiting for the presence of the emperor or his ambassadors”. The other, consulting for the dignity of Italy, decided that “if the emperor Charles died without male issue, the kingdom of Italy with the title of emperor should both be placed in the hands of the princes of Italy, who should confer them on one of their own number”. The only points that can be urged in behalf of the authenticity of either of these decrees is that, as a matter of fact, Stephen VI was consecrated without any information being sent to the emperor, and that some of the princes of Italy will soon be seen contending for the imperial crown. In fact, Lambert of Spoleto had already entertained the idea of making himself emperor. But the biography of John VIII shows how little the princes of Italy cared either about the ravages of the Saracens, or about unity of any kind, imperial or regal.

It only remains to note that Fulk of Rheims continued his correspondence with Hadrian on the subject of the intruder Erminfrid, that the Pope ordered Sigibod of Narbonne to see that Girbert, bishop of Nimes, ceased to annoy the monastery of St. Giles, and that, in a synod (April 17, 885), he took under his protection and confirmed the privileges of the monastery of S. Sixtus at Piacenza, built by the empress Engelberga.

The Annals of Fulda tell us of the last acts of Hadrian. The emperor, Charles the Fat, now master of Gaul also, sent to invite the Pope to France, to attend a diet he was about to hold at Worms. Though we may conjecture that Charles wanted the Pope to come that he might consult with him on the state of the empire, nothing is known for certain on the matter. The annalist states that report had it that the emperor wanted to depose certain bishops without good cause and to name his natural son, Bernhard, his heir. And because he suspected that he could not effect these measures by his own power, he hoped to accomplish them “by apostolic authority, as it were, through the Pope. But these schemes were dissipated by the finger of God”. For the Pope, after appointing “John the venerable bishop of Pavia and missus of the most excellent emperor Charles”, to rule the city during his absence, fell ill on his journey to Worms, and died at a villa on the Panaro, which Stephen’s biographer calls Viulzachara, afterwards S. Cesario, and the monk of Nonantula “Lambert’s thorn”, at any rate Spinum Lamberti, near Nonantula. The monk assigns July 8 as the date of the Pope’s death; Duchesne, the middle of September.

He was buried in the monastic Church of St. Silvester at Nonantula. Under the biography of Hadrian I. it has already been told how the monks afterwards opened the Pope’s tomb for the sake of his rich vestments, and how his chasuble was still to be seen at the monastery, when the anonymous monk unwittingly wrote about two Hadrians instead of one.

With the exception of St. Martin I, whose remains were  finally laid to rest in S. Martino ai Monti, Hadrian III was the first Pope since the days of Gregory I whose body was not buried in St. Peter’s; and, indeed, he was one of the very few since the time of St. Leo I who died out of Rome. In the days of persecution the tombs of the Popes were in the Catacombs. S. Melchiades, who died (AD. 314) on the eve of the Church’s freedom, was the last one to be interred therein. At first they were buried around the body of St. Peter on the Vatican. This custom, which ceased with S. Zephyrinus (AD. 218), was resumed after Constantine had given peace to the Church. And from St. Leo I (AD. 461) to the destruction of the old basilica of St. Peter in the sixteenth century, by far the greater number  of the Popes, some eighty-seven in all, were buried in its vestibule between the Porta Argentea and the south-west corner, occupied by the secretarium or sacristy.

During this period, the old Petrine-basilica period, “the pontifical graves were mostly ancient sarcophagi or bathing basins from the thermae accompanied by an inscription in verse, and, as the Renaissance was approached, by canopies of Gothic or Romanesque style”. Whereas in the Catacomb period of papal interments, the simple loculi of the Popes were closed by a slab of marble marked only with their names, in what we may call the third or new-Petrine-basilica period, which reaches down to the present day, the place in which they are now buried (S. Peter’s) has been “transformed into a papal mausoleum which is worthy of being compared in refinement of art, in splendour of decoration, in richness of material, in historical interest, with the Pantheons of ancient Rome.”

Passing over what Frodoard, in his History of the Church of Rheims, repeats about Fulk, its archbishop, we may quote as an epitaph of Hadrian, as no real epitaph of his is forthcoming, what that author sings of him elsewhere. From these verses we learn that Hadrian adopted, or authorised the adoption of, as his spiritual son, the king of France, Carloman (December 12, 884), and was a kind father to his fellow-bishops.