ABSTRACT
One surviving fragment from the missing Register of Pope Adrian IV dramatically highlights the determination with which the English pope set about recovering and reorganizing those lost territories within the Patrimony, which were claimed to belong by right to St Peter and the Holy Roman Church. 1 This problem he faced directly on his election. Acting on Adrian’s personal instructions, an armed papal force under the command of Boso, cardinal deacon of SS. Cosma e Damiano, 2 mounted the siege of Acquapuzza, a strategic fortification or castrum near Sezze in Marittima. 3 Atenolfo, its lord, was in rebellion against the Church, and from his stronghold was threatening the free passage of travellers between Albano and Terracina, where the road deviated to pass above the Pontine Marshes to the west and skirted the foothills of the Monte Lepini to the east. On 27 September 1158, the end of this lengthy siege was marked when three of Adrian’s men compelled the defeated Atenolfo to hoist the papal banner, the vexillum sancti Petri, and fly it from the top of his tower. 4 Atenolfo was then marched off to Cardinal Boso’s tent where, in the presence of Peter, cardinal deacon of S. Eustachio, 5 Odo Frangipane, Geoffrey of Ceccano, and a host of knights and foot soldiers, he was obliged to concede the fortifications of Acquapuzza to the cardinals and to swear on the holy gospels that he would unreservedly place himself and his castrum in the custody and disposition of the pope himself.
