Pope Alexander III (c. 1100/1105 – 30 August 1181), bornRoland (Italian:Rolando), was head of theCatholic Church and ruler of thePapal States from 7 September 1159 until his death in 1181.
Rolando was born inSiena. From the 14th century, he was referred to as a member of the aristocratic family ofBandinelli, although this has not been proven.[1] He was long thought to be the 12th-century canon lawyer and theologian Master Roland of Bologna, who composed the "Stroma" or "Summa Rolandi"—one of the earliest commentaries on theDecretum ofGratian—and the "Sententiae Rolandi", a sentence collection displaying the influence ofPierre Abélard, but John T. Noonan and Rudolf Weigand have shown this to be another Rolandus.[2][3]
Pope Adrian IV died 1 September 1159.[9] On 7 September 1159, Rolando Bandinelli waselected pope and took the name Alexander III.[10] A minority of the cardinals, however, elected the cardinal priest Octavian, who assumed the name ofVictor IV and became Frederick'santipope.[10]
By 1160, faced with a papal schism, Alexander, and Victor, were summoned by Emperor Frederick to a council in Pavia.[11] Alexander refused, stating a pope can only be judged by God.[12] The council of Pavia met from 5 to 11 February and recognized Victor IV's election as pope.[13] On 13 February, Victor IV excommunicated Alexander.[14] Upon receiving the news on 24 March 1160, Alexander, who was at Anagni, excommunicated both Victor and Frederick.[14]
In 1161, KingGéza II of Hungarysigned an agreement and recognised Alexander III as the rightful pope and declared that the supreme spiritual leader was the only one who could exercise the rite ofinvestiture.[15] This meant that Alexander's legitimacy was gaining strength, as soon proved by the fact that other monarchs, such as the king of France and KingHenry II of England, recognized his authority. Because of imperial strength in Italy, Alexander was forced to reside outside Rome for a large part of his pontificate.[4] When news reached him of the death of Victor in 1164, he openly wept, and scolded the cardinals in his company for rejoicing at the end of the rival antipope.[16]
However, the dispute between Alexander III,Victor IV and Victor's successorsPaschal III andCalixtus III (who had the German imperial support) continued until Frederick Barbarossa's defeat at theLegnano in 1176, after which Barbarossa finally (in thePeace of Venice of 1177) recognized Alexander III as pope.[5] On 12 March 1178, Alexander III returned to Rome, which he had been compelled to leave twice: the first time between 1162 and 23 November 1165. When Alexander was arrested by supporters of the imperialistVictor IV, he was freed byOddone Frangipane, who sent him to safety in theCampania. Alexander again left Rome in 1167, travelling first toBenevento and later moving to various strongholds such as those ofAnagni,Palestrina,Ferentino,Tusculum, andVeroli.[4]
Alexander III was the first pope known to have paid direct attention to missionary activities east of the Baltic Sea. He had created theArchbishopric of Uppsala in Sweden in 1164,[17] probably at the suggestion of his close friend ArchbishopEskil of Lund – exiled inClairvaux, France, due to a conflict with the Danish king. The latter appointed a Benedictine monkFulco as a bishop inEstonia. In 1171, Alexander became the first pope to address the situation of the Church inFinland, with Finns allegedly harassing priests and only relying on God in time of war.[18] In the bullNon parum animus noster, in 1171 or 1172, he gave papal sanction to ongoingcrusades against pagans in northern Europe,[19] promising remission of sin for those who fought there. In doing so, he legitimized the widespread use offorced conversion as a tactic by those fighting in the Baltic.[20]
In 1166, Alexander received an embassy from theByzantine emperorManuel I. The Byzantine ambassador, thesebastosJordan relayed that Manuel would end theGreat Schism of the eastern and western churches if Alexander would recognize him as emperor. As emperor, Manuel would supply the pope with men and money to restore his authority in Italy. Alexander gave an evasive answer, but in 1168 he rejected outright the same proposal from a second Byzantine embassy. His stated reason amounted to it being too difficult. He appears to have feared Byzantine domination of Italy if the pope owed his position to its support.[21][22]
Besides checkmating Barbarossa, Alexander humbled King Henry II of England for the murder ofThomas Becket in 1170, to whom he was unusually close, latercanonizing Becket in 1173.[23] This was the second English saint canonized by Alexander, the first beingEdward the Confessor in 1161.[23] Nonetheless, he confirmed the position of Henry asLord of Ireland in 1172.
Manifestis Probatum.
Through thepapal bullManifestis Probatum, issued on 23 May 1179, Alexander recognized the right of CountAfonso Henriques to proclaim himselfking of Portugal – an important step in the process of Portugal becoming a recognized independent kingdom. Afonso had been using the title of king since 1139.[24]
In 1163 Alexander summoned clergy and prelates from England, France, Italy, and Spain to the Council of Tours to address, among other things, the unlawful division of ecclesiastical benefices, clerical usury, and lay possession of tithes.[4]
In March 1179, Alexander held theThird Council of the Lateran, one of the most important mediaeval church councils, reckoned by the Catholic Church as the eleventhecumenical council. Its acts embodied several of the Pope's proposals for the betterment of the condition of the Church, among them the law requiring that no one could be elected pope without the votes of two-thirds of the cardinals.[25] The rule was altered slightly in 1996, but was restored in 2007. The period from 1177, which saw the submission of both emperor Frederick and anti-pope Calixtus III, and this synod/council marked the summit of Alexander III's power.[26]
Nevertheless, soon after the close of the synod, theRoman Republic forced Alexander to leave the city, which he never re-entered, and on 29 September 1179, some nobles set up theAntipope Innocent III. By the judicious use of money, however, Alexander got him into his power, so that he was deposed in January 1180. In 1181, Alexanderexcommunicated KingWilliam I of Scotland and put the kingdom under aninterdict.[27]
Throughout his pontificate, Alexander elevated68 cardinals in fifteen consistories which included two of his successors,Urban III andClement III, anda cardinal whom he would later canonize as a saint.
Alexander died atCivita Castellana on 30 August 1181.[28] It was one week short of twenty-two years since his election, the longest papacy sinceAdrian I in the 8th century.
^Maleczek, W. (1984).Papst und Kardinalskolleg von 1191 bis 1216 (in German). Wien. p. 233 note 168.ISBN978-3-7001-0660-9.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
^SeeNoonan, John T. (1977). "Who was Rolandus?". In Pennington, Kenneth; Somerville, Robert (eds.).Law, Church, and Society: Essays in Honor of Stephan Kuttner. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. pp. 21–48.ISBN978-0-8122-7726-5.
^Weigand, Rudolph (1980). "Magister Rolandus und Papst Alexander III".Archiv für Katholisches Kirchenrecht.149:3–44. Reprinted in idem,Glossatoren des Dekrets Gratians [Goldbach: Keip, 1997], pp. 73*–114*,ISBN3-8051-0272-0.
^Winroth, Anders (2002). "Papal Letters to Scandinavia and their Preservation". In Adam J. Kosto; Anders Winroth (eds.).Charters, Cartularies and Archives: The Preservation and Transmission of Documents in the Medieval West. Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies. p. 178.ISBN9780888448170.
^Tolstoy, Jonathan Harris Dmitri (2012). "Alexander III and Byzantium". In Anne J. Duggan; Peter D. Clarke (eds.).Pope Alexander III (1159–81): The Art of Survival. Ashgate. pp. 301–314.ISBN978-0-7546-6288-4.
^Rowe, John G. (1993). "Alexander III and the Jerusalem Crusade: An Overview of Problems and Failures". In Maya Shatzmiller (ed.).Crusaders and Muslims in Twelfth-Century Syria. Brill. p. 122.ISBN978-90-04-09777-3.
^abNorton, Christopher (2006).St. William of York. Rochester, NY: Boydell Press. p. 193.ISBN978-1-903153-17-8.
Christiansen, Eric (1997).The Northern Crusades. London: Penguin Books. p. 71.ISBN978-0140266535.
Duggan, Anne J. (2016). "Alexander ille meus: The Papacy of Alexander III". In Duggan, Anne J.; Clarke, Peter D. (eds.).Pope Alexander III (1159–81): The Art of Survival. Routledge. pp. 13–50.
Freed, John (2016).Frederick Barbarossa: The Prince and the Myth. Yale University Press.
Fonnesberg-Schmidt, Iben (2007).The Popes and the Baltic Crusades: 1147-1254. Brill. p. 58.
Hamilton, Bernard (2000).The Leper King and His Heirs: Baldwin IV and the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem. Cambridge University Press.ISBN9781316347638.
Logan, F Donald (2002).A History of the Church in the Middle Ages. Routledge.
Morris, Colin (1989).The Papal Monarchy: The Western Church from 1050 to 1250. Oxford University Press.
Suger (2018).Selected Works of Abbot Suger of Saint Denis. Translated by Cusimano, Richard; Whitmore, Eric. The Catholic University of America Press.
Myriam Soria Audebert, "Pontifical Propaganda during the Schisms: Alexander III to the reconquest of Church Unity", inConvaincre et persuader: Communication et propagande aux XII et XIIIe siècles. Ed. par Martin Aurell. Poitiers: Université de Poitiers-centre d'études supérieures de civilisation médiévale, 2007,
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