At Bristol they take the shore.
****
THE BULL OF POPE ADRIAN IV.
EMPOWERING HENRY II. TO CONQUER IRELAND, A.D. 1155.
Source.—Historical Documents of the Middle Ages, p. 10. Henderson. Bohn's Libraries. G. Bell & Sons.
Bishop Adrian, servant of the servants of God, sends to his dearest son in Christ, the illustrious King of the English, greeting and apostolic benediction. Laudably and profitably enough thy magnificence thinks of extending thy glorious name on earth, and of heaping up rewards of eternal felicity in heaven, inasmuch as, like a good catholic prince, thou dost endeavour to enlarge the bounds of the Church, to declare the truth of the Christian faith to ignorant and barbarous nations, and to extirpate the plants of evil from the field of the Lord....
There is indeed no doubt, as thy Highness doth also acknowledge, that Ireland and all other islands which Christ the Sun of Righteousness has illumined, and which have received the doctrines of the Christian faith, belong to the jurisdiction of St. Peter and of the Holy Roman Church....
Thou hast signified to us, indeed, most beloved son in Christ, that thou dost desire to enter into the island of Ireland, in order to subject the people to the laws and to extirpate the vices that have there taken root, and that thou art willing to pay an annual pension to St. Peter of one penny from every house, and to preserve the rights of the churches in that land inviolate and entire....
[This bull was not thought to be genuine by the majority of historians, but Mr. Orpen in Ireland under the Normans, 1912, successfully proves its authenticity.]