adultery 13adolescence SeeAGING.
adoptionism A heresy that appeared in the Iberian
Peninsula in the early 780s, adoptionism maintained that
Christ was only the adoptive son of GOD. Elipandus
(717–800), archbishop of Toledo, established the basis of
adoptionism in opposition to the views on the Trinity of
the cleric Migetius. According to Elipandus, God had
chosen Jesus to bear his message. But only the Word
emanated from God, and thus Christ was only the adop-
tive son of God the Father, a son “by appellation” only.
This claim was taken up and spread in ASTURIASand in
Iberian GALICIA, then in the southwest of modern France
through the activities of a bishop of Urgel. But it also
encountered the strong opposition of Beatus of Liébana
(d. 798) and his disciples.
The ensuing debate soon attracted the attention of
the religious and political authorities of the Christian
West. In 785, Pope Adrian I sent the prelates of Iberia a
doctrinal letter denouncing such views. At the same time
Charlemagne looked into the case of Felix of Urgel (d.
818), a subordinate of the metropolitan of Narbonne.
Called before a synod at Regensburg in 792, Felix recant-
ted, and later officially did so again at Rome. As soon as
he was freed, he returned to Toledo and again proclaimed
his adherence to the ideas condemned at Regensburg.
CHARLEMAGNEcalled another council at Frankfurt in 794.
Adoptionism was declared heretical and, at Charle-
magne’s request, Pope Adrian I wrote another letter
threatening EXCOMMUNICATIONof all those who rejected
the council’s conclusions. ALCUINthen became the cham-
pion of orthodoxy against the heretical ideas emanating
from Toledo.
In 799 Pope Leo III proclaimed yet another anath-
ema against Felix of Urgel. Felix claimed to be con-
vinced by the arguments and again retracted his views at
AACHENin 800. Charlemagne refused to allow him to
return to Urgel and imprisoned him at Lyon, where he
died in 818. Elipandus continued, despite Alcuin’s
efforts, to refuse to retract his position even until his
death in about 807. Though adoptionism was sup-
pressed, it remained of importance in the isolated
Mozarabic Church, or the Christian community in Spain
that was subject to Muslim rule.
Further reading:John C. Cavadini, The Last Christol-
ogy of the West: Adoptionism in Spain and Gaul, 785–820
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993);
Roger Collins, Early Medieval Spain: Unity in Diversity,
400–1000(London: Macmillan, 1983).
Adrian IV(Hadrian, Nicholas Breakspear)(ca. 1100–
1159)English pope
Nicholas Breakspear was born at Abbot’s Langley near
Saint Albans about 1100 and educated at Paris. He
later served as an abbot of a monastery near Avignon in
southern France. Pope Eugenius III appointed him cardi-
nal bishop of Albano before 1150 and charged him with a
mission to SWEDENin 1152. Elected pope on December
4, 1154, he took the name Adrian IV. After extracting
concessions on papal temporal authority, in 1155 he
crowned as emperor FREDERICKI Barbarossa, who then
helped him to eliminate the heretical and political threat
to papal control of Rome presented by Arnold of Brescia
(d. 1155). Without imperial help, he later created a coali-
tion against the Normans, who dominated southern Italy
and threatened papal control over central Italy. Despite
military failure, the Treaty of Benevento on June 18,
1156, concluded with the Norman William I’s recogniz-
ing papal sovereignty over the Norman Kingdom in
SICILY and southern Italy. After the Diet of Besançon
in 1157 and the Constitutions of Roncoglia in 1158, the
pope was again obliged to lead a new coalition among
the Lombard towns, the Byzantine emperor, and the
Normans to protect the rights of the Holy See against
imperial threats. In the middle of this crisis, Adrian IV
died, on September 1, 1159.
Further reading:Richard W. Southern, “Pope Adrian
IV,” in Medieval Humanism and Other Studies(New York:
Harper & Row, 1970), 234–252; Walter Ullmann, “The
Pontificate of Adrian IV,” Cambridge Historical Journal 11
(1953–1955): 233–252.Adrianople (Edirne)This city was the most important
BYZANTINEtown in Thrace and later was temporary capi-
tal of the OTTOMANSin Europe. Adrianople’s position on
the main military road from Bulgaria to CONSTANTINOPLE
left it open to frequent attacks by invaders from the
north, including the AVARS,BULGARS,SERBS, and Petch-
enegs. At the famous Battle of Adrianople in 378, the
Goths killed the emperor Valens and routed his army. The
city’s vulnerability to attacks from BULGARIA, whose khan
KRUMoccupied the city briefly, turned it into a strategic
center for military expeditions against Bulgaria. FREDER-
ICKI Barbarossa seized Adrianople briefly in 1190 during
the Third Crusade, and after the Fourth Crusade BALD-
WINof Flanders was defeated there in 1205. The emperor
John III Vatatzes (r. 1222–54) occupied the city from
1242 to 1246. It was finally lost to Byzantium in 1361,
when the Ottomans captured it. Soon thereafter it became
their capital, remaining so until the Ottoman conquest of
Constantinople in 1453.
Further reading:F. T. Dijkema, ed., The Ottoman His-
torical Monumental Inscriptions in Edirne(Leiden: E. J.
Brill, 1977); Martinus Johannes Nicasie, Twilight of
Empire: The Roman Army from the Reign of Diocletian until
the Battle of Adrianople(Amsterdam: J. C. Gieben, 1998).adultery In ecclesiastical law adultery was a serious sin,
a lapse of conjugal faith by one or other of the spouses.
Secular law primarily blamed infidelity on the wife, who