ABSTRACT
On Saturday 4 December 1154 Nicholas Breakspear was elected pope with the name of Adrian IV. Boso, the papal biographer, records that Adrian was chosen with the unanimous consent of the clergy and the Roman people, who forced him ‘against his will’ into the chair of St Peter. 1 It was a convention, often observed by the authors of the papal vitae when describing elections, to insist that a new pontiff had been created with the consent of the Romans, 2 but on this occasion such support was clearly lacking. Rome was currently controlled by the republican commune which, since taking on institutional form in 1144, had competed with the popes in attempting to govern the city under the leadership of a Senate. 3 In December 1154 hostility to papal rule was so fierce that it was evidently deemed expedient for the election to take place outside Rome at St Peter’s. 4 The Petrine basilica was located in the Leonine city to the northwest of Rome, beyond the urban boundaries 5 and thus safe from the intervention of the commune. 6 Compelled to remain in the Leonine city for the first four months of his pontificate, Adrian was unable to complete the traditional inauguration procedure. Indeed, Boso and 50the other sources are unusually taciturn on the matter of the papal accession ritual and, on the whole, we can only surmise what may have happened. It was only on Maundy Thursday (23 March) 1155, and after the Romans had finally submitted to him, that Adrian was able to enter the city for the first time as pope and make the customary progress to the Lateran, the cathedral of Rome. 7
