Pope Anastasius IV (1153-1154)

A Roman from the Suburra

The future Anastasius IV was born in Rome, probably around 1073, in the district — in Latin the regio — known as the Suburra (Suburra), the old popular district between the Quirinal, Viminal and Esquiline hills.^[10] The sources name his father as a certain Benedictus; one tradition, reported by the Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, makes him a relative — perhaps a nephew — of Pope Honorius II, but this relationship remains uncertain.^[11] His baptismal name, Corrado, is regularly Latinized as Conradus in papal acts.^[12]

He belonged to the Roman clerical aristocracy that supplied much of the Curia's personnel at the time. Trained as a secular cleric, he entered early into the service of the reformed papacy, in the years following the Concordat of Worms (1122) and the end of the Investiture Controversy.

A long career in the service of the Curia

Corrado's curial career was exceptionally long. The sources differ on exact dates but converge on the outline. He was created cardinal-priest — of the title of Santa Pudenziana (the ancient titulus Pastoris, that is, one of the old churches of Rome entrusted to a cardinal, then called a "title") — no later than the pontificate of Paschal II or Callixtus II, some notices mentioning him as early as 1114, others in 1121.^[13][14] Around 1126, Pope Honorius II promoted him to cardinal-bishop of Sabina, one of the seven dioceses neighboring Rome — the so-called "suburbicarian" sees — whose bishops formed the summit of the Sacred College.^[15]

From the late 1130s onward, he became its dean, that is, the first of the cardinal-bishops.^[16][17] When he was elected pope in 1153, he had held the episcopal see of Sabina for nearly thirty years and had sat in the Sacred College for over thirty years: he was its dean, aged about eighty.^[18][19]

Innocent II's vicar during the schism

The decisive episode of his career was the double election of 1130. At the death of Honorius II, a minority of cardinals elected Innocent II, while a majority, supported by the powerful Roman Pierleoni family, proclaimed the antipope Anacletus II. Rome fell into schism; Innocent II had to flee to France, where Bernard of Clairvaux rallied most of Christendom to his cause.^[20]

Corrado of Sabina resolutely sided with Innocent II. More than that: during the legitimate pope's exile, he was one of his vicars in Rome, exposed in the heart of a city held by the opposing party.^[21][22] The act required courage: to remain the vicar of a pope in flight, in a Rome controlled by the antipope, meant risking one's liberty. This fidelity under trial founded all his later legitimacy — and explains why, more than twenty years later, his election to the supreme pontificate took place without the slightest opposition, according to the New Catholic Encyclopedia.^[23]

Eugene III's death and a swift election

Eugene III — the first Cistercian pope, a disciple of Bernard of Clairvaux — died at Tivoli on July 8, 1153.^[24] In a papacy accustomed to contested elections and antipopes, the succession was settled this time within a few days. The old cardinal of Sabina, dean and consensual figure, was elected on July 8, 1153, the very day of Eugene III's death, without opposition according to the New Catholic Encyclopedia, then consecrated and crowned under the name Anastasius IV on July 12, 1153.^[25][26] (A few modern notices, including Treccani — "eletto papa [...] il 12 luglio 1153" — and the 1153 papal election page, give July 12 as the date of the election itself — it is also the day on which the Holy See's official list begins the pontificate, the date of the consecration; followed here is the chronology of the New Catholic Encyclopedia — verified text: "elected pope without opposition on the day of Eugene III's death and consecrated on July 12, 1153" — corroborated by Oxford Reference and by Baird: election on the 8th, consecration and enthronement at the Lateran on the 12th.)^[27][28]

The choice of name was not insignificant. By taking the name Anastasius — "resurrection", from the Greek anastasis — the new pope placed himself in an ancient pontifical line; he would be the last pope in history to bear that name.^[29]

The oldest pope of his time

Anastasius IV mounted the throne of Peter at a very advanced age, around eighty.^[30][31] This fact governs everything else: an octogenarian pontiff, elected for his experience and his capacity to appease, could hardly undertake long reforms or prolonged trials of strength. The programmed brevity of his reign — he would die less than seventeen months later — explains the systematic prudence of his decisions.

Rome in the hands of the Senate and Arnold of Brescia

Anastasius IV's pontificate belongs to the crisis opened by the Roman communal revolution of 1143. The Romans had restored the Senate on the Capitoline Hill and wrested the temporal government of the city from the papacy.^[32] The challenge became more radical with the arrival of Arnold of Brescia, a reforming preacher and former pupil of Abelard, who violently denounced the wealth of the clergy and the temporal power of the Church, calling the clergy back to evangelical poverty.

Eugene III had been forced to negotiate, compromise and sometimes flee. Anastasius IV, by contrast, managed to reside in Rome throughout his pontificate — no small thing — but without resolving the deeper issue: he failed to expel Arnold of Brescia, whose presence continued to poison the city.^[33] The pope chose cautious coexistence rather than a trial of strength. It would be his successor, Adrian IV, who placed Rome under interdict in 1155 and obtained Arnold's execution.

Frederick Barbarossa and the Treaty of Constance

On the imperial front, Anastasius IV inherited a dossier signed a few months before his election. In March 1153, Eugene III had concluded the Treaty of Constance with Frederick I Barbarossa: the emperor promised not to make peace with the Romans or with the Normans of Sicily without the pope's agreement, and to defend the rights of the papacy; in return, the pope promised the imperial crown and his support.^[34]

Anastasius IV continued this policy of good understanding. But the balance was unequal: Barbarossa was a young and ambitious ruler, determined to restore imperial authority in Italy and over the German Church. The first great affair of the pontificate would show precisely how far the old pope was prepared to bend before him.

The Magdeburg affair: the recognition of Wichmann

The most discussed case of the pontificate was the recognition of Wichmann of Seeburg as archbishop of Magdeburg. After the death of the archbishop of Magdeburg, Frederick Barbarossa had imposed his candidate, Wichmann, by having him transferred from the see of Naumburg-Zeitz, which he already occupied.^[35][36]

The problem was canonical: the transfer of a bishop from one see to another required papal approval. Eugene III had refused to validate this translation, seeing it as imperial interference in the Church's freedom. Anastasius IV, under pressure from an imperial embassy, yielded: he recognized Wichmann and conferred the pallium on him in Rome.^[37]

"Anastasius accepted Wichmann and bestowed the pallium on him in Rome. He was criticized for his overly compliant attitude." — Marshall W. Baldwin, New Catholic Encyclopedia, article Anastasius IV^[38]

Historians see in this the first major concession of the papacy to Barbarossa, and a symptom of weakness that would later be paid for, under Adrian IV and then Alexander III, by open confrontation with the Empire. For Anastasius IV, it was probably the price of peace with a ruler whose support still seemed indispensable against the Roman Commune and the Normans.

The end of the York dispute: William restored

In the opposite direction — that of a mercy which repaired an injustice — Anastasius IV ended one of the longest ecclesiastical controversies of his century: the dispute over the see of York, which had, in the words of the 1911 Britannica, "raged through four pontificates".^[39][40]

William Fitzherbert, nephew of King Stephen of England, had been elected archbishop of York in 1141, but his election was challenged by the Cistercians and by Bernard of Clairvaux, who accused him of simony and royal interference. Deposed under Eugene III in 1147 in favor of the Cistercian Henry Murdac, William withdrew. After Murdac's death, Anastasius IV restored him to the see of York and sent him the pallium: according to Treccani, he consecrated him himself on December 10, 1153^[41] — English historiography (Barlow) retains December 20, 1153 for the confirmation of the restoration.^[42][43] William returned to his city in 1154, died there shortly afterward — rumor attributed it to poisoning — and was canonized on March 18, 1226 by Honorius III as Saint William of York.^[44]

The York dispute illustrates the continuity of papal government: the same conflict passed through several reigns, and it fell to the oldest and briefest pope to close it.

Peter's Pence in Norway and Sweden

Anastasius IV's pontificate coincided with the great Scandinavian legation of Nicholas Breakspear — the future Adrian IV — who was charged with reorganizing the Church in the North. In this context, under Anastasius IV, the collection of Peter's Pence in Norway and Sweden was established, a contribution paid by the faithful to the Holy See.^[45][46] The piquant detail is this: the man who structured Scandinavian Christendom and bound the North more closely to Rome was precisely the man who, a few months later, would succeed Anastasius IV on the throne of Peter.

Charity, building works and privileges

Chroniclers credit Anastasius IV with real charity toward the Romans: during a famine, he distributed relief and eased the misery of the city.^[47] This material generosity, combined with his permanent residence in Rome, contributed to the relative peace of his reign.

His name remains especially attached to significant building activity. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, it was "during his pontificate and owing to his exertions that the Pantheon was restored".^[48] He arranged a papal residence near the Pantheon and devoted time and expense to the Lateran basilica and palace.^[49][50][51] He also granted privileges confirming the possessions of the Order of the Hospitallers of Saint John of Jerusalem.^[52]

"It was during his pontificate and owing to his exertions that the Pantheon was restored. He also granted special privileges to the Order of Knights Hospitalers." — Catholic Encyclopedia (1913), article Pope Anastasius IV^[53]

The harshest — and most famous — judgment on Anastasius IV came from outside Rome. The Rhenish Benedictine Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179), abbess, theologian and prophetess, corresponded with the great figures of her time, including four successive popes: Eugene III, Anastasius IV, Adrian IV and Alexander III.^[54]

Around 1153-1154, she addressed to Anastasius IV a letter of rare prophetic violence. Where one might expect deference, she reproached the old pope for his softness: through fear or weariness, he was allowing evil to prosper around him instead of uprooting it. The tone is that of the prophets of Israel rebuking kings.

"But you are not exercising this faculty when you do not root out the evil which seeks to choke the good. Rather, you are allowing evil to raise itself up arrogantly." — Saint Hildegard of Bingen, Letter to Pope Anastasius IV (around 1153)^[55]

She went further still, denouncing complacency toward corrupt men in the papal circle:

"Wherefore, O man, you who sit on the papal throne, you despise God when you embrace evil. For in failing to speak out against the evil of those in your company, you are certainly not rejecting evil. Rather, you are kissing it." — Saint Hildegard of Bingen, Letter to Pope Anastasius IV^[56]

Finally, the saint used the image of a moribund Rome, lying powerless for lack of government, no longer burning for Justice:

"And you, O Rome, lying as if at the point of death, [...] for you do not love the King's daughter, that is, Justice, with a blazing passion, but with a dull sloth." — Saint Hildegard of Bingen, Letter to Pope Anastasius IV^[57]

This indictment is not a doctrinal condemnation — Hildegard does not question either the faith or the legitimacy of the pope — but a pastoral warning: the Church needs firm government, and Anastasius IV's age no longer left him the strength for it. In its own way, it is the most vivid portrait we possess of this pontificate.

The accusation of softness

Three elements feed Anastasius IV's reputation for weakness: the capitulation over Magdeburg before Barbarossa, the inability to resolve the question of Arnold of Brescia and the Commune, and Hildegard's indictment. Added to this is the brevity of his reign, which left no great reform and no foundational act. The New Catholic Encyclopedia summarizes soberly: "He was criticized for his overly compliant attitude."^[58]

The defense: prudence and brevity

But to judge Anastasius IV by the measure of fighting popes would be anachronistic. Elected as an octogenarian, for his experience and capacity to appease, in an insurgent Rome and before a conquering Empire, he made the realistic choice of de-escalation. Measured by his means, his record is not negligible: he closed the York dispute, maintained his residence in Rome without a new exile, relieved the hungry, restored the Pantheon and the Lateran, and handed Adrian IV a stabilized situation. The concession over Magdeburg, though criticizable, belongs to a coherent policy of peace with the Empire inherited from Eugene III.

The truth probably lies between the two readings: Anastasius IV was a transitional pope, neither great nor unworthy, whose main historical function was to ensure continuity between the reign of Eugene III and that of the far more combative Adrian IV.

A death of old age

Anastasius IV died in Rome on December 3, 1154, after a pontificate of one year, four months and three weeks.^[59][60] (The 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia's Adrian IV notice gives "2 December, 1154" by a misprint; retained here is December 3, the concordant date of the Holy See, Treccani, the New Catholic Encyclopedia and the same Catholic Encyclopedia's Anastasius IV notice.^[61]) He was about eighty-one years old. His death, natural, opened no crisis: on December 4, 1154^[62], the cardinals elected without difficulty Nicholas Breakspear, who took the name Adrian IV — the only Englishman ever to ascend the throne of Peter.^[63]

The porphyry sarcophagus of Saint Helena

Destiny reserved for this modest pope the most spectacular of burials. Anastasius IV was buried at the Lateran, not in a new tomb, but in an ancient basin of imperial red porphyry — the most precious and difficult stone to work in antiquity, reserved for emperors.^[64]

This colossal sarcophagus, carved with Roman horsemen and barbarian prisoners, came from the mausoleum of Saint Helena, mother of the emperor Constantine, on the via Labicana outside the walls of Rome. Tradition made it the tomb of the empress, who died around 329-330; art historians note that its martial decoration would better suit a male member of the imperial family — perhaps Constantius Chlorus, or even Constantine himself.^[65] In the 12th century, it was transported to the Lateran to receive the body of Anastasius IV.

The monument remained there for more than six centuries. In 1777, Pope Pius VI had it transferred to the Vatican; it was restored by the sculptors Gaspare Sibilla and Giovanni Pierantoni and mounted on four lions carved by Francesco Antonio Franzoni. It is now one of the major pieces of the Hall of the Greek Cross (Sala a Croce Greca) in the Pio-Clementine Museum, in the Vatican Museums.^[66] Thus, of Pope Anastasius IV, the visitor to Rome no longer sees the body or the acts, but this imperial basin — the memory of an effaced pontificate housed in the purple of the Caesars.

The last pope named Anastasius

Anastasius IV is the last pope to have borne this name: since 1154, no successor of Peter has taken it again.^[67] In the long series of popes named Anastasius — from Anastasius I (399-401) to Anastasius II (496-498) — he closed a pontifical line almost a millennium old.

A hinge toward Adrian IV

The historian who measures Anastasius IV at the scale of his century sees him less as a great pope than as a necessary hinge. His prudence avoided a premature rupture with the Empire; his residence in Rome maintained the principle of a pope governing from his own city; his clemency closed the York dispute. He handed Adrian IV a stabilized papacy, which could then confront Arnold of Brescia, the Commune and Frederick Barbarossa with renewed firmness.

His memory has preserved few brilliant gestures. But it keeps, through the voice of Hildegard of Bingen, one of the most striking indictments ever addressed to a medieval pope — and, through Saint Helena's sarcophagus, one of the most beautiful funerary paradoxes in the history of the papacy.

• Pope Eugene III — Anastasius IV's predecessor, the first Cistercian pope and a disciple of Bernard of Clairvaux.
• Pope Adrian IV — Anastasius IV's successor and the only English pope in history; he would confront the Roman Commune and Frederick Barbarossa.
• Pope Anastasius II — another Roman pope of the same name, known for his doctrinal distinctions and controversial reception.
• Pope Saint Anastasius I — the first of the popes named Anastasius, contemporary of Saint Augustine and Saint Jerome.
• Saint Hildegard of Bingen — abbess, Doctor of the Church, whose letter to Anastasius IV remains a summit of prophetic frankness.