ADRIAN I (774)

Pope from 772 to 795 whose relationship with Charlemagne symbolized the medieval ideal of union of church and state in a united Christendom. An aristocrat by birth and having served popes Paul and Stephen III (IV), he was elected on February 1 with the support of the Frankish party at Rome.


As pope he invoked Frankish aid against the Lombard king Desiderius, who had attacked the papal possessions and was threatening Rome. By Easter 774, Charlemagne was in Rome, having conquered the Lombard kingdom. Thenceforth, Adrian´s policies were determined by the Frankish alliance rather than by Constantinople. Amicable rivalry marked the relations between Charlemagne and Adrian. Charlemagne used the church to hold his empire together and to enforce overlordship on the Papal States, while Adrian fought firmly but adroitly for ecclesiastical autonomy and painstakingly pieced together a papal domain that was lost only in the 19th century.


Adrian strongly opposed Adoptionism (the doctrine of the dual sonship of Christ), and condemned the teaching of Archbishop Elipandus of Toledo, Spain. Constantinople was conciliated by Adrian´s cooperation in opposing the Iconoclasts in the second Council (787) of Nicaea. Adrian confirmed the council´s decrees, but, partly because of faulty translation, they were attacked by Charlemagne. Despite their difference of opinion, the rulers remained in rapport. Charlemagne commemorated Adrian in an epitaph composed by the scholar Alcuin and preserved at St. Peter´s in Rome.