ADRIAN II, POPE

Pontificate: Dec. 14, 867 to November or December 872; b. Rome, 792. He was of a distinguished Roman family, from which two previous popes had come— stephen iv (816–817) and sergius ii (844–847). In 842 Adrian was named cardinal priest of San Marco. He was elected pope as a compromise candidate in the struggle between those who favored and those who opposed the strong policies of his immediate predecessor, nicholas i (858–867). After approval by German emperor Louis II, Adrian was consecrated on Dec. 14, 867. Though he attempted to maintain the policies of Nicholas, the papal power declined during his reign, for conciliatory by nature and already advanced in age, he was confronted with serious conflicts. Great influence was exercised in papal affairs by the pontifical secretary and archivist, anastasius the librarian, a member of a powerful family with which Adrian had personal differences. The reason for this difficulty was his daughter, born to him in a marriage contracted before he was ordained a priest. Believing Anastasius to be in part responsible for the subsequent murder of both the daughter and her mother in 868, Adrian dismissed him under the severest ecclesiastical penalties. Not long afterward, however, the secretary was reinstated, and he continued to dominate.

Among Adrian's conflicts with the German princes was that over the attempted divorce of lothair ii, king of Lorraine, who sought to put away his wife, Theutberga, in order to marry his concubine, Waldrada. Adrian's efforts at reconciliation were unsuccessful, and the problem was resolved only upon the death of Lothair in 869. In the subsequent contention over the kingdom of Lorraine, Adrian supported the claims of Louis II against those of Charles II the Bald, who was supported by the redoubtable Bishop hincmar of reims. Louis II was excluded when the German princes, Charles the Bald and Louis the German, came to an agreement among themselves at the Treaty of Mersen in 870. Later efforts by Adrian to intervene in the civil and ecclesiastical disputes in the Carolingian domains met with strong rebuffs from Hincmar. Anastasius, then in control of the papal chancellery, was found to be the true author of these attempts at intervention although papal prestige was somewhat restored when Adrian reaffirmed Louis II's imperial title in 872, following a revolt in Benevento.

In his relations with the byzantine empire, Adrian was only partially successful. A synod held at Rome in June of 869 severely condemned photius and his partisans. Three papal legates were dispatched to the Council of Constantinople (see constantinople iv) in 869 and 870, where the position taken by Adrian and his predecessor, in regard to Photius, was upheld. Rome's claims to jurisdiction in the Balkan area were defeated, however, when ignatius, patriarch of Constantinople, accepted the invitation of boris i of bulgaria to evangelize his people. This defeat was to a degree offset by Adrian's sponsoring of the mission of cyril (Constantine) and Methodius among the Slovak people of Central Europe and his allowing the use of old Slavonic in the liturgy.

Bibliography: Patrologia Latina, ed. j. p. migne (Paris 1878–90) 122:1245–1320. p. jaffÉ, Regesta pontificum romanorum ab condita ecclesia ad annum post Christum natum 1198, ed. s. lÖwenfeld (Graz 1956) 368–375. a. noyon, Dictionnaire d'histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques, ed. a. baudrillart et al. (Paris 1912—) 1:619–624. a. fliche and v. martin, eds. Histoire de l'église depuis les origines jusqu'à nos jours (Paris 1935—) 6:395–412. f. dvornik, The Photian Schism (Cambridge 1948); The Patriarch Photius in the Light of Recent Research (Munich 1958). f. x. seppelt, Geschichte der Päpste von den Anfängen bis zur Mitte des 20. Jh. (Munich 1955) 2:289–306, 433–434. Archivium historiae pontificiae 1 (1963). l. bellingeri, Diziornario biografico delgi italiani 41 (Roma 1986), s.v. "Donato, tit. [vesc.]. di Ostia." a. guillou, "Invocation à la Vièrge pour le pape Hadrien II," Recueil des inscriptions grecques médiévales d'italia (Rome 1996). w. hartman, "Gespräche in der 'Kaffeepause'—am Rande des Konzils von Attingy 870," Annuarium Historiae Consiliorum (Paderborn 1995/1996) 137–145. p. ratkoŜ, "Les lettres disparues d'Adrien II aux princes slaves des années 867–870" Slovenskà Archivistica 19 (1984) 75–95. s. scholtz, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, (Freiburg 1995) ed. j. hofer and k. rahner 4:524. j.n.d. kelly, Oxford Dictionary of Popes (New York 1986) 109–110.

[a. j. ennis]