page_title: Pope Adrian IV
section_title: Normans, Greeks and Apulians
hierarchical_section_title: Pope Adrian IV / Normans, Greeks and Apulians
caption_attribution_description: English: Map of 12th century Italy showing the Norman, Imperial and Papal lands.
context_page_description: Pope Adrian IV, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 4 December 1154 to his death in 1159. Born in Hertfordshire, England, his father may have been a clerk and a monk called Robert, but his mother is unknown, and he may have been illegitimate. Although he does not appear to have received a great degree of schooling, while still a youth he travelled to France where he was schooled in Arles, studying law. He then travelled to Avignon, in the south, where he joined the abbey of St Ruf. There he became a canon regular and was eventually appointed abbot. He travelled to Rome several times, where he appears to have caught the attention of Pope Eugenius III. Eugenius sent him on a mission to Catalonia, where the Reconquista was attempting to reclaim land from the Muslim Al-Andalus. Around this time his abbey complained to Eugenius that Breakspear was too heavy a disciplinarian, and in order to make use of him as a papal legate as well as to pacify his monks, the Pope appointed Breakspear Bishop of Albano some time around 1149.
  As Bishop, Breakspear was soon sent on another diplomatic mission, this time to Scandinavia.
context_section_description: Probably as a result, he responded positively to overtures from the Byzantine Emperor Manuel I, and also the native barons of Southern Italy, who saw in Adrian's support a chance for them to overthrow William, whom Adrian had recently excommunicated for invading the Papal patrimony. The rebellion had started off promisingly, with rebel victories at Bari, Trani and Andria. They had already found themselves a powerful ally in Manuel, the Byzantine Emperor, and welcomed anyone—including Adrian—who was hostile to William. Their leader, Count Robert of Loritello, had been charged with treason by William but had managed to escape north. William was temporarily struck down with an unknown illness, as the scholar Joshua C. Birk explains, "this brought the enemies of the kingdom of Sicily out of the woodwork"; among them, Adrian excommunicated William. By 1154, William had captured important towns in the Patrimony. In summer 1155 rebellion broke out in southern Italy by the native nobility against their lord, the King of Sicily. One group of rebels, having gained the support of Emperor Manuel, overran Ancona. By winter 1155, suggests Norwich, few contemporaries "would have held out much hope for the future of the Sicilian monarchy". According to Boso, the rebels asked Adrian to come to them as their feudal lord, to act as their spiritual advisor and bless them in their endeavours. Adrian, believing that William's kingdom would collapse imminently, tried to exploit William's weakness and allied with the rebels in September. As it turned out, this was a miscalculation. William had already asked Adrian for a peace conference, which the Pope had ("scornfully") rejected.
caption: Map of 12th-century Italy, illustrating the respective boundaries between the Papal States and Patrimony and those claimed by King William and Emperor Frederick
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