was a bull issued in 1155 by Pope Adrian IV, the only Englishman to have served in that office. Existence of the bull has been disputed by scholars over the centuries; no copy is extant but scholars cite the many references to it as early as the 13th century to support the validity of its existence. The bull grants the right to the Angevin King Henry II of England to invade and govern Ireland and to enforce the Gregorian Reforms on the semi-autonomous Christian Church in Ireland. Richard de Clare ("Strongbow") and the other leaders of the Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland (1169–1171) claimed that authorised the invasion. These Cambro-Norman knights were retained by Diarmait Mac Murchada, the deposed King of Leinster, as an ally in his fight with the High King of Ireland, Ruaidrí Ua Conchobair.
Successive kings of England, from Henry II (1171) until Henry VIII (1542), used the title Lord of Ireland and claimed that it had been conferred by Adrian's successor, Pope Alexander III (c. 1100/1105 – 1181).
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. In 1542, the Crown of Ireland Act was passed by both the English and Irish parliaments. The Act established a sovereign Kingdom of Ireland with Henry as King of Ireland. English rule of Ireland was effectively reaffirmed by the Catholic Church in 1555, through Pope Paul IV's bull , which bestowed the crown of the kingdom on Philip II of Spain and Mary I of England.
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Papal bull
A bull is a papal letter that takes its name from the leaden seal attached to it. The original bulla was a lump of clay moulded around a cord and stamped with a seal. When dry, the container could not be violated without visible damage to the bulla, thereby ensuring the contents remain tamper-proof until they reach their destination.
Stephen J. McCormick, in his preface to The Pope and Ireland, notes that it was well known that the forgery of both papal and other documents was fairly common in the 12th century. 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. That such was the case frequently in England is inferred from the Letters of John Sarisbiensis and of others."
Currently, any attempt at sourcing the original document is impossible as the Vatican says the original Laudabiliter is no longer in existence.
Background
In 1148, Malachy of Armagh died at Clairvaux while on his way to Rome. Shortly thereafter Bernard wrote the Life of Malachy. As an exercise in hagiography rather than history, Bernard presented his friend as a reforming Archbishop, and exaggerated the obstacles Malachy had to overcome: "Never before had he known the like, in whatever depth of barbarism; never had he found men so shameless in regard of morals, so dead in regard of rites, so stubborn in regard of discipline, so unclean in regard of life. They were Christians in name, in fact pagans."Lawlor, H.J., St. Bernard of Clairvaux's Life of St. Malachy of Armagh, The Macmillan Company, London, 1920 Bernard's characterization did much to form the general view of European clerics towards the Irish.
The 21-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. Less than three weeks earlier, an Englishman, Nicholas Breakspear had become Pope taking the name Adrian.
The following September the royal council met at Winchester and discussed invading Ireland and giving it to Henry's youngest brother William. Theobald of Bec was Archbishop of Canterbury. In 1148, he secured from Pope Eugene III, Canterbury's jurisdiction over the bishops of Wales.Duggan "From the Conquest to the Death of John" English Church and the Papacy pp. 101–102 Theobald exercised a theoretical claim to jurisdiction over Irish sees in consecrating the Bishop of Limerick in 1140. But in 1152, in conjunction with the Synod of Kells, the papal legate appointed the Archbishop of Armagh primate of Ireland. With his metropolitan aspirations frustrated, Theobald was likely one of Henry's advisors who urged the conquest of Ireland.Martin, Francis Xavier. "Dairmait Mac Murchada and the coming of the Anglo-Normans", A New History of Ireland, Volume II, (Art Cosgrove, ed.) Oxford University Press, 2008
However, the plans were put aside for the time being when Henry's mother, the Empress Matilda, spoke against it. 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.
In May 1169, Cambro-Norman mercenaries landed in Ireland at the request of Dermot MacMurragh, the ousted king of Leinster, who had sought help in regaining his kingdom. Henry authorised Diarmait to seek help from the soldiers and mercenaries in his kingdom in exchange for an oath of allegiance. In October 1171, Henry landed a large army in Ireland to establish control over both the Cambro-Normans and the Irish.
Bull Laudabiliter Historians such as Laurence Ginnell, believe the letters written in the 12th century relating to Ireland were never sealed with any seal and are not correctly called bulls but rather privilegia or privileges. J. H. Round says that the grant of Ireland by Adrian is erroneously styled "the Bull Laudabiliter". It has been so long spoken of as a bull, he says, that one hardly knows how to describe it. He suggests that as long as it is realised that it was only a commendatory letter no mistake can arise.
In 1155, Pope Adrian IV issued the papal bull Laudabiliter. The document supposedly commissioned the King Henry II to intervene in Ireland to assist in the reform of the governance of the Irish Church and the Irish system of governance according to the Latin Church ecclesiastical system. This followed the structural reform of the Church in Ireland as defined shortly before at the 1152 Synod of Kells. The bull derives its title from the Latin word laudabiliter (meaning laudably or in a praiseworthy manner), which is the opening word in the bull, the usual manner in which bulls are named.
John of Salisbury writes, "I recollect a journey I once made into Apulia for the purpose of visiting his Holiness, Pope Adrian IV. I stayed with him at Beneventum for nearly three months".John of Salisbury, Polycraticus, VI, 24; P.L. CXCIX, 623 In English Misrule in Ireland: A Course of Lectures in Reply to J. A. Froude, Burke states that Pope Adrian was elected on 3 December 1154 and suggests that it must have taken at least a month in those days before news of the election would have arrived in England, and at least another before John of Salisbury arrived in Rome making his arrival there around March 1155.
In his 1159 Metalogicon, John of Salisbury states that on the occasion of his visit to Adrian IV at Benevento between November 1155 and July 1156, the latter, at his request, granted to Henry II of England the "hereditary possession" of Ireland; he mentioned documentation as well as a ring of investiture, preserved in the public treasury, which he, John, had conveyed from the pope to the king.Ua Clerigh, Arthur. "Pope Adrian IV." The Catholic Encyclopedia Vol. 1. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1907. 21 July 2015 Alfread H. Tarleton in Nicholas Breakspear (Adrian IV.) Englishman and Pope, suggests that the letter and the ring were deposited at Winchester.
Giraldus Cambrensis incorporated what was purported to be a copy of Laudabiliter in his 1189 Expugnatio Hibernica ("Conquest of Ireland").Wright, T. The Historical works of Giraldus Cambrensis (1913) London
Authenticity debate
According to Edmund Curtis, for the text of the Laudabiliter we only have Giraldus Cambrensis' Conquest of Ireland written around 1188, though in it his dating is not accurate, he says he must have had some such "genuine document before him". He suggests that better evidence for the grant of Ireland can be found in John of Salisbury's Metalogicus, written about 1159.
John of Salisbury At the beginning of his reign, Henry II sent Rotrodus, Bishop of Evreux, Arnold, Bishop of Lisieux, the Bishop of Le Mans and Robert of Gorham, Abbot of St. Albans as ambassadors to Adrian IV. The date of this mission is the same as that claimed by Salisbury for his visit, 1155. Alfread H. Tarleton gives the date of 9 October, St. Dionysius's day, when the ambassadors set out. L. F. Rushbrook Williams also gives 9 October 1155.Williams, L. F. Rushbrook. History of the Abbey of St. Alban, Longman's Green & Co. London 1917, pp.70–71 While both mention Robert of Gorham assisting in some royal business and being a part of deputation including three bishops selected by Henry neither mention John of Salisbury. However, John D. Hosler thinks "It is clear that John of Salibury did indeed travel to Rome as part of Henry's first embassy to Pope Adrian.Hosler, John D., Henry II: A Medieval Soldier at War, 1147-1189, BRILL, 2007
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. Alfread H Tarleton suggests that some historians have stated that John of Salisbury accompanied this mission but this is a mistake, based on a confusion of the fact that John had many interviews with the Pope at Beneventum. 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.
Gasquet suggests that there is almost conclusively evidence, that while a request of the nature described by Salisbury was made about this time to the Pope, Salisbury was not the envoy sent to make it. John of Salisbury, he notes, claims in Metalogicus to have been the ambassador for Henry II and obtained Laudabiliter for him and gives the year 1155 as the date when it was granted. 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.
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. This was in 1159; and in that year, Salisbury was presented to Henry apparently for the first time, by Thomas.
Metalogicus and Polycraticus 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." Pope Adrian died in 1159 he says and the death of Archbishop, Theobald of Bec occurred in 1161. Gile and other editors of John of Salisbury's works, without a dissent, refer the Metalogicus to the year 1159, a view shared by Curtis.