Laudabiliter - Evidence For The Bull

Evidence For The Bull

That an actual bull was sent is not doubted by many and its authenticity has been questioned without success according to P. S. O'Hegarty who suggests that the question now is purely an academic one. According to Edmund Curtis great controversy has raged, with some writers saying its a pure forgery, others that it as a touched-up version of a genuine document, while others believing in its authenticity.

The following summary of the evidence cited by McCormick in favour of the authenticity of Pope Adrian's letter, appeared he says in the Irishman newspaper and was compiled by J. C. O Callaghan, who was editor of the Macariae Excidium, and author of a number of works on Irish history. This list also appears in Alfread H. Tarleton's Nicholas Breakspear (Adrian IV.) Englishman and Pope, with the additional evidence of the Norman Chronicles that testify to the fact he suggests that the bull and the ring were deposited at Winchester.

• Firstly the testimony of John of Salisbury, Secretary to the Archbishop of Canterbury, who relates his having been the envoy from Henry to Adrian, in 1155, to discuss matters of Papal and Royal separation of powers and during which he was ordered by the Papacy to press for an invasion of Ireland under terms favorable to the Papacy.

• Secondly, the grant or Bull of Adrian, in extenso, in the works of Giraldus Cambrensis, and his contemporary Radulfus de Diceto, Dean of London, and those of Roger de Wendover and Mathew Paris in which the Laudabiliter is cited as a Bull.

• Thirdly, the Bulls of Adrian's successor, Pope Alexander III which cite the Laudabiliter Bull in a number of documents as precedent for extending Papal control over the German Kings of the Holy Roman Empire.

• Fourthly, the recorded public reading of the Bulls of Adrian and Alexander, at a meeting of Bishops in Waterford in 1175, during which the Laudabiliter is used by Papacy as evidence showing the clergy of England and Ireland were solely under Papal Supremacy.

• Fifthly, after Robert the Bruce of Scotland defeated King Edward II of England at Bannockburn and secured Scottish independence from England, his brother Edward launched the Bruce campaign in Ireland. Edward's Irish allies enclosed a copy of Laudabiliter prefixed to a 1317 Remonstrance sent to Pope John XXII asking him to recognize Edward Bruce as King of Ireland (see section below). This method of complaint was similar to Scotland's 1320 Declaration of Arbroath.

• Sixthly, from Caesar Baronius, in his work, the Annales Ecclesiastici, under Adrian IV includes a copy of this grant of Ireland in full, or, excodice Vaticano, diploma datum ad Henricum, Anglorum, Regem. A copy of the Bull was contained in the Bidlarium Romanum, as printed in Rome in 1739. Finally the text appeared in the official Vatican compendium of "Great Roman Bulls", which was also published in Rome in 1739.

McCormick might also have mentioned these aspects:

• In 1185, before John's first visit to Ireland, his father Henry wanted him crowned king of Ireland and wrote to Pope Lucius III for his consent, which was refused. His successor Pope Urban III approved later in the year, but the coronation never happened. Without Laudabiliter and the Church's claim to precedence in Ireland Henry would not have needed to seek Papal approval. Papal authority was based on its fairly recent claim to have a superior jurisdiction over Europe's monarchs, in line with the Gregorian Reforms and Dictatus Papae.

• In 1331 the Justiciar and Council of Ireland wrote to Pope John XXII asking him to proclaim a crusade against some Irish clans, basing their request on their understanding that: "... the holy apostolic see in the time of Pope Adrian of blessed memory conceded the land to the illustrious king of the English...". The request was refused.