Laudabiliter

After almost four centuries of the Lordship, the declaration of the independence of the Church of England from papal supremacy and the rejection of the authority of the Holy See required the creation of a new basis to legitimise the continued rule of the English monarch in Ireland.

A competing, Catholic claim to sovereignty in Ireland was issued in 1555, through Pope Paul IV's bull Ilius, per quem Reges regnant, which bestowed the crown of the Kingdom on Philip II of Spain and Mary I of England.

Sane Hiberniam et omnes insulas quibus sol iustitie Christus illuxit et que documenta fidei Christiane ceperunt ad ius beati Petri et sacrosancte Romane ecclesie quod tua etiam nobilitas recognoscit non est dubium pertinere.

Unde tanto in eis libentius plantationem fidelem et germen gratum Deo inserimus quanto id a nobis interno examine districtius prospicimus exigendum.

Significasti siquidem nobis, fili in Christo carissime, te Hibernie insulam ad subdendum illum populum legibus et vitiorum plantaria inde extirpanda velle intrare et de singulis domibus annuam unius denarii beato Petro velle solvere pensionem et iura ecclesiarum illius terre illibata et integra conservare.

Si ergo quod concepisti animo effectu duxeris prosequente complendum, stude gentem illam bonis moribus informare et agas tam per te quam per illos quos ad hoc fide, verbo et vita idoneos esse prospexeris ut decoretur ibi ecclesia, plantetur et crescat fidei Christiane religio et que ad honorem Dei et salutem pertinent animarum per te taliter ordinentur ut a Deo sempiterne mercedis cumulum conseque merearis et in terris gloriosum nomen valeas in seculis obtinere.

In right praiseworthy fashion, and to good purpose, your magnificence is considering how to spread abroad the glorious name of Christ on earth, and thus store up for yourself in heaven the reward for eternal bliss, while striving as a true Catholic prince should, to enlarge the boundaries of the Church, to reveal the truth of the Christian faith to peoples still untaught and barbarous, and to root out the weeds of vice from the Lord's field; and the more expeditiously to achieve this end, you seek the counsel and favour of the Apostolic See.

That Ireland, and indeed all islands on which Christ, the sun of justice, has shed His rays, and which have received the teaching of the Christian faith, belong to the jurisdiction of blessed St. Peter and the holy Roman church is a fact beyond doubt, and one which your nobility recognises.

You have indeed indicated to us, dearly beloved son in Christ, that you wish to enter this island of Ireland, to make that people obedient to the laws, and to root out from there the weeds of vices, that you are willing to pay St. Peter the annual tax of one penny from each household, and to preserve the rights of the churches of that land intact and unimpaired.

Therefore, if you wish to bring to a successful conclusion the design which you have thus conceived, take particular care to instruct that people in right behaviour and, both in person, and acting through those whom you consider well-suited for this purpose by reason of their strong faith, eloquence and Christian religion may be planted and grow, and that everything pertaining to the honour of God and the salvation of men's souls may be so ordered that you may be deemed worthy to win from God that crowning reward of everlasting life, and may obtain on earth glorious name for all ages.

Citing Professor Jungmann, who in the appendix to his Dissertationes Historiœ Ecclesiasticœ, in the fifth volume says, "it is well known from history that everywhere towards the close of the 12th century there were forged or corrupted Papal Letters or Diplomas.

[7]: 60 The twenty-one-year old Henry FitzEmpress came to the throne of England on 19 December 1154, after almost twenty years of civil war between his mother, the Empress Matilda and her cousin, Stephen of Blois.

[9] Henry, had his hands full of domestic troubles with the refractory barons in England, with the Welsh, and with the discordant elements in his French dominions, and could not undertake a military operation like the invasion of Ireland.

[21] According to L. F. Rushbrook Williams, Abbot Robert of Gorham evidently saw with the elevation of Adrian IV an opportunity of acquiring privileges for St. Albans with the ostensible object of assisting in the settlement of some royal business which was in progress at the curia.

The mistake may be due to the fact that the King, hearing John intended to visit the Pope, sent messages and letters through him in addition to employing a regular messenger, in the person of Robert the Abbot.

With Bernard of Clairvaux's Life of Malachy and its description of the Irish as little more than savages, John of Salisbury found a ready audience in Rome when he spoke about the barbaric and impious people of Ireland.

[7] Salisbury finished his work called Polycraticus, written before Metalogicus he dedicated it to Thomas Becket, then Chancellor of England and later a saint, who at this time was with Henry at the siege of Toulouse.

[25] According to Stephen J. McCormick, the date that Metalogicus was written is fixed according to the author himself, pointing to the fact that John of Salisbury immediately before he tells us that the news of Pope Adrian's death had reached him his own patron, Theobald of Bec, Archbishop of Canterbury, though still living, was "weighed down by many infirmities."

[28] J. Duncan Mackie writes that those who desire to do away altogether with Laudabiliter, find in the last chapter of the sixth book of the Metalogicus, an account of the transaction between John and Pope Adrian and in this passage is an almost insurmountable difficulty.

Henry did not refer to it when authorising his vassals to join Dermot MacMurrough in 1167, or when he himself set out for Ireland to receive the homage of the Irish princes and not even after he assumed his new title and accomplished the purpose of his expedition.

[28][36] McCormick says that it is extremely difficult, in any hypothesis, to explain in a satisfactory way this silence, nor is it easy to understand how a fact so important to the interests of Ireland could remain so many years concealed, including from those in the Irish Church.

Throughout this period he says, Ireland numbered among its Bishops one who held the important office of Legate of the Holy See, and that the Church had had constant intercourse with England and the continent through St Laurence O'Toole and a hundred other distinguished Prelates, who enjoyed in the fullest manner the confidence of Rome.

Although the author of the article in the Analecta does not agree with Dr. Moran as to the authentic character of these documents, he admits that they, at least, form some very powerful arguments against the genuineness of Pope Adrian's grant.

[50] Irish historians who have accepted John of Salisbury's account of Laudabiliter suggest that Adrian was purposely deceived as to the state of Ireland at the time thus giving rise to the necessity of the English interference by the king, and have regarded the "Bull" as a document granted in error as to the real circumstances of the case.

Professor Duggan demonstrated that arranging the paragraphs in a more conventional manner, reveals a more cautious statement that "fits very closely with a known letter of Adrian IV, advising the kings of France and England not to go forward with a planned crusade to Spain unless they consulted the 'princes, churches and people of the region'".

[57] Another argument, again assuming the authenticity of Laudabiliter, is that it would be tantamount to the Pope having made a shockingly bad choice of an instrument in Henry II for reducing Ireland to law and order.

[59] Gerald of Wales asserts the Bulls of Adrian and Alexander were read at a meeting of Bishops in Waterford in 1175, during which Laudabiliter was used by the Papacy as evidence showing the clergy of England and Ireland were solely under papal supremacy.

He warned Edward II that: ... the kings of England ... have in direct violation of [Laudabiliter], for a long period past kept down that people [of Ireland] in a state of intolerable bondage, accompanied with unheard-of hardships and grievances.

Led by Domnall mac Brian Ó Néill and Tír Eógain, their petition was refused: ... in the year of the Lord 1155, at the false and wicked representation of King Henry of England, under whom and perhaps by whom St. Thomas of Canterbury, as you know, in that very year suffered death for justice and defence of the church, Pope Adrian, your predecessor, an Englishman not so much by birth as by feeling and character, did in fact, but unfairly, confer upon that same Henry (whom for his said offence he should rather have been deprived of his own kingdom) this lordship of ours by a certain form of words, the course of justice entirely disregarded and the moral vision of that great pontiff blinded, alas!

Henry VIII of England was excommunicated by Pope Paul III on 17 December 1538, causing his opponents to question his continuing claim to be Lord of Ireland, which was based ultimately on Laudabiliter.