Adrian VI
Pope Adrian VI, born Adrian Boeyens in 1459 in the Low Countries, rose from humble beginnings in a middle-class family to become a significant figure in the Catholic Church. He was educated at Leuven University, where he excelled in theology and philosophy, ultimately becoming a prominent theologian and professor. Adrian's early career included teaching and serving as rector at Leuven, and he held various ecclesiastical positions, including Inquisitor General and cardinal, before his papacy. Elected pope in 1522, Adrian faced complex political tensions in Italy and sought to maintain neutrality while addressing threats from the Ottoman Empire.
His papacy marked a notable recognition of the Lutheran reforms, and he aimed to initiate reforms within the Roman Curia, although his efforts were complicated by his lack of familiarity with contemporary Renaissance culture and art. Despite his intentions, his tenure was short-lived, as he died in 1523 after only a year in office. Adrian's papacy is significant for highlighting the cultural and religious shifts of the time, representing a critical moment before the full-scale conflicts of the Reformation era. His life and work exemplify the clash between late medieval Northern European ideals and the burgeoning Renaissance in Italy.
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Adrian VI
Dutch pope (1522-1523)
- Born: March 2, 1459
- Birthplace: Utrecht, Bishopric of Utrecht (now in the Netherlands)
- Died: September 14, 1523
- Place of death: Rome, Papal States (now in Italy)
The last non-Italian pope before John Paul II, Adrian was the most important theologian of Leuven University and governor of Spain for Charles V. He was elected pope when Lutheranism began to have considerable success, and he worked for reforms in response to the Lutheran challenge.
Early Life
Adrian (AY-dree-an) was born the son of a middle class couple, Floris Boeyens, master carpenter, and Geertruyt. Earlier attempts to fabricate a noble descent for him have failed. The pope’s later coat of arms has been compared with that of the family Dedel (understood as D’Edel, “the noble”), but without any reason or justification: Adrian’s family name was not “Dedel.” After his first education in Utrecht itself, he may have gone to one of the more famous Latin schools at Zwolle or Deventer (to the east of Utrecht), but this speculation is not proven.
If he did attend one of these schools, he went to the best schools in the area. They thoroughly imbibed in the religious climate of the Devotio moderna, a teaching that strove after true piety and brotherhood, and that had considerable success in the Low Countries, especially in the valley of the Ijssel River. Whether Adrian visited one of these schools or not, he appeared later, as a pope, to be in line with this Devotio moderna.
On June 1, 1476, he matriculated at Leuven University (now in Belgium), the only university of the Low Countries at the time. In 1478, he passed the examinations for magister artium as primus, first of his year, after which he continued to study theology. In 1490, he was ordained a priest and, in 1491, promoted to a doctor in theology. Meanwhile, he had started teaching philosophy in one of the Leuven colleges.
Life’s Work
After his promotion, Adrian also started teaching theology as a university professor. In fact, he was to become one of the main theologians at Leuven University. Apart from some sermons, two of his academic works were published in Leuven and republished after his election as pope (Quaestiones quotlibeticae XII , Leuven, 1515, 1518; Paris, 1522, 1523, 1527, 1531; and Quaestiones in quartum sententiarum praesertim circa sacramenta , Paris, 1516, 1530; Rome, 1522; Venice, 1522), in which he proved himself to be an adherent of Scholastic methods. Another, perhaps more interesting work by him is a letter to the Leuven divines in reaction to their questions regarding the theological teachings of Martin Luther (Epistola Reverendissimi Domini Cardinalis Dertusensis ad facultatem theologiae Lovaniensem, 1520).
Although he persuaded the Leuven city magistrates to offer a chair to the Humanistic philosopher Erasmus at his first visit to Leuven in 1502 (which Erasmus, however, declined), Adrian did not seem to be in close contact with Humanism. Adrian was rector of Leuven University from February 28 to August 31, 1493, and from August 31, 1500, to February 28, 1501. More important was his appointment as dean of St. Peter’s church (since 1497), which made him chancellor of the university as well (and responsible for degrees). In 1507, Adrian was appointed as one of two teachers of the young duke Charles of Burgundy, the future Charles V , Holy Roman Emperor.
In 1515, when Charles’s grandfather, Ferdinand of Aragon, lay on his deathbed, Adrian was sent to Spain to secure the young prince’s inheritance. He fulfilled this mission successfully, and after Ferdinand’s death in January, 1516, he was appointed regent of Spain for the time of Charles’s absence. Although Adrian personally made a favorable impression on the Spaniards by his ascetic and honest way of life, the attitude of the other representatives of the new king finally led to the Comunero Revolt, which was subdued in 1522. In the meantime, Adrian was appointed to the See of Tortosa (on the Spanish east coast) on August 18, 1516, and he was made inquisitor general for Aragon, Valencia, and Navarra on November 14, 1516, and for Castilia and Leon on March 4, 1518. This series of high ecclesiastical nominations came to its peak when he was nominated cardinal on July 1, 1517, with SS. Giovanni e Paolo as his primary church.
After the death of Pope Leo X in December, 1521, the conclave could not come to a decision on his successor. In the end, it decided to elect an unknown cardinal without any political ties to the existing Roman factions. In this way, Adrian was elected pope on January 9, 1522. He was still in Spain at the time, and significant time passed before he could be informed. At last, he entered Rome at the end of August, 1522, and was crowned pope on August 31.
The situation in which Adrian found himself was highly complicated. On a worldly level, tensions in Italy ran high between Charles V and the king of France, Francis I , and their respective allies. Charles had supposed that his former tutor would defend his interests without a second thought, but Adrian tried to retain a neutral position in order to establish a coalition of all major Christian princes against the threat of the Ottoman Turks, who were to take Rhodes in December, 1522. When this policy failed, Adrian eventually joined a large coalition of Venice, Charles V, and Henry VIII of England against France.
In religious matters, he was the first pope to understand the importance of Lutheran reforms. He expressed his intention to reform the Roman Curia and thus heal the Church from the top, but his acknowledgment of mistakes at the Diet of Nuremberg in 1523 bewildered Catholics. Lutherans, conversely, seized the opportunity to interpret this acknowledgment as a sign of papal weakness. Although Adrian tried to make a serious start on reform at the top, his early death prevented him from achieving much.
His position in Rome was made more difficult because he had no understanding of contemporary Renaissance art or the love of antiquity that characterized contemporary Italian and Roman culture. On the contrary, his ascetic way of life and his piety made him an easy target for Roman popular caricatures. Major orders for works of art in the Vatican were brought to a standstill. However, the depleted treasury after the lavish pontificate of Leo X was the main cause for this lack of commissions. Moreover, Adrian appointed mostly fellow countrymen at high places because they were the only people he found trustworthy. Among these appointments were cardinal Willem van Enckenvoirt (who would order Adrian’s tomb) and Theodoricus Hezius.
On September 14, 1523, Adrian died after a short illness. His tomb can be found in the Flemish-German church of S. Maria dell’Anima in central Rome.
Significance
Adrian is a primary example of the clash between the worlds of northern European late medieval culture and the Italian Renaissance at the beginning of the Lutheran reform. He was the first pope to realize the significance of what was happening, but he failed to take any measures to stop it; this failing was partly due to a lack of time. Polarization was running high in Europe, and his pontificate was perhaps the last to avoid a complete breaking up of European Christendom. The fact that this chance was tragically lost eventually led to the wars of religion that devastated large parts of Europe in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.
Bibliography
Coppens, J., and M. E. Houtzager. Paus Adrianus VI, Herdenkingstentoonstelling: Gedenkboek, Catalogus. Utrecht, the Netherlands: Central Museum, 1959. Exhibition catalog (with illustrations and some contributions in French) of the fourth centennial of Adrian’s birth, held in Utrecht and Leuven.
McNally, R. E. “Pope Adrian VI (1522-1523) and Church Reform.” Archivum Historiae Pontificiae 7 (1969): 253-285. Discusses the attempts and difficulties of Adrian with regard to the reform of the Catholic Church.
Zimmermann, T. C. Price. Paolo Giovio: The Historian and the Crisis of Sixteenth Century Italy. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1995. Explores the writing of history, particularly the writing of the sixteenth century Italian historian Paolo Giovio, with a chapter on Adrian VI.