Adrian IV

“ But if you shall complete the work which you have conceived in your mind, study to mould that race to good morals, and exert yourself personally and by such of your agents as you shall find fit in faith, word and living, to honour the Church there, and to plant and increase the Christian faith, and strive to ordain what is for the honour of God and the safety of souls, in such a manner that you may deserve at God's hands a heap of everlasting treasure, and on earth gain a glorious name for ages yet to come. ”

“ As often as any thing is attempted in the church against the honour of God and the salvation of the faithful, it ought to be the care of our brothers and fellow bishops —and especially of those who are impelled by the spirit of God—to discover a means of correction pleasing to God for the evil things that have been done. In the present time, indeed,—a thing which we can not mention without extreme grief,—our most beloved son, Frederick emperor of the Romans, has done a thing such as we do not read to have ever been perpetrated in the times of our predecessors. ”

“ From the time when, God disposing as it pleased himself, we received the charge of the universal church, we have so taken care to honour thy Highness that, from day to day, thy mind ought to have been inflamed more and more with love for us and with veneration for the apostolic see. ”

“ In which, the maturer your deliberation, and the greater the discretion of your procedure, by so much the happier, we trust, will be your progress, with the assistance of the Lord ; as all things are used to come to a prosperous end and issue, which take their beginning from the ardour of faith and the love of religion. ”

“ On account of a certain word, indeed,—"beneficium," namely— thy mind is said to have been moved to anger; which word ought not by any means to have aroused the ire of so great a man, nor even of any lesser man. For although this word—namely, "beneficium"—is used by some in a sense different from that which it has by derivation, it should, nevertheless, have been accepted in that sense which we ourselves attributed to it and which it is known to retain from its origin. ”

“ You have signified to us, our well-beloved son in Christ, that you propose to enter the island of Ireland in order to subdue the people and make them obedient to laws, and to root out from among them the weeds of sin ”

“ He ought not, as ye know, to have entered upon so arduous a path without your advice; whence we believe that, hearing your warnings, like a discreet man and catholic emperor, he may most easily be recalled to the enjoyment of a more healthful pursuit. ”

“ In vengeance of which most violent crime, as one to whom, as we believe, good things are pleasing and evil ones displeasing, thou should' st have arisen with more steadfastness; and the sword, which was given thee by divine concession to punish evil-doers but to exalt the good, ought to have raged above the neck of the impious and most sternly to have destroyed the presumptuous. ”

“ And further, we do also strictly charge and require that the people of that land shall accept you with all honour, and dutifully obey you, as their liege lord, saving only the rights of the churches, which we will have inviolably preserved ”