ABSTRACT
With patriotic pride William Stubbs described Adrian IV as ‘a great pope; that is, a great constructive pope, not a controversial one, like those who preceded and followed; a man of organizing power and missionary zeal; a reformer, and, although he did not take a wise way of showing it, a true Englishman.’ 1 This is quite a claim for a pontificate of 4 years 8 months and 28 days, which was dominated by disputes with the city of Rome, the German emperor, and the Norman king of Sicily, and whose principal legacies, some would say, were the English domination of Ireland, and the fatal breach with Frederick I, which led to a nineteen-year schism and permanently damaged relations between the empire and the papacy. But although the political and territorial problems were complex and time-consuming, 2 they did not determine the course of papal relations with the rest of the Church. Most of the West only heard rumours, if it heard anything at all, about what was going on in Rome and Italy; and only if there was a prolonged schism in the papacy were there likely to be wider repercussions. What systematically built up papal primacy and maintained a sense of law and discipline were the routine contacts between Curia and local institutions maintained by legates, letters, privileges, and adjudications.
