Background
| Wikisource has original text related to this article: Privilege of Pope Alexander III to Henry II |
| Wikisource has original text related to this article: Treaty of Windsor |
Pope Adrian IV, the only English pope, in one of his earliest acts issued a papal bull in 1155, giving Henry authority to invade Ireland as a means of ensuring reform by bringing the Irish Church more directly under the control of the Holy See. Little contemporary use, however, was made of the bull Laudabiliter since its text enforced papal suzerainty not only over the island of Ireland but of all islands off of the European coast, including England, in virtue of the Constantinian Donation. The relevant text reads:
There is indeed no doubt, as thy Highness doth also acknowledge, that Ireland and all other islands which Christ the Son of Righteousness has illumined, and which have received the doctrines of the Christian faith, belong to the jurisdiction of St. Peter and of the holy Roman Church.References to Laudabiliter become more frequent in the later Tudor period when the researches of the Renaissance humanist scholars cast doubt on the historicity of the Donation. But even if the Donation was spurious, other documents such as Dictatus papae (1075–87) reveal that by the 12th century the Papacy felt it had political powers superior to all kings and local rulers.
Pope Alexander III, who was Pope at the time of the invasion, mentioned and reconfirmed the effect of Laudabiliter in his "Privilege" of 1172.
Read more about this topic: Anglo-Norman Invasion Of Ireland
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