Anastasius IV, playing the part of a…
December 1154 CE
Anastasius IV, playing the part of a peacemaker, comes to terms with the Emperor Frederick I in the vexed question of the appointment to the see of Magdeburg and closes the long quarrel, which has raged through four pontificates, about the appointment of William Fitzherbert (d. 1154)—commonly known to posterity as St. William of York—to the see of York, by sending him the pallium, in spite of the continued opposition of the powerful Cistercian order.
his pontificate is brief: Anastasius dies on December 3, 1154, and is succeeded by Cardinal Nicholas of Albano as Pope Adrian IV.
Born Nicholas Breakspear or Breakspeare, he is the first and the only Englishman to occupy the papal chair.
Moving from his native St. Albans to Paris and finally becoming a canon regular of the cloister of St. Rufus monastery near Arles, he had risen to be prior and soon thereafter had been unanimously elected abbot.
This election has been traditionally dated to 1137, but evidence from the abbey's chronicles suggests it has occurred only about 1145.
His reforming zeal as abbot had led to the lodging of complaints against him at Rome; but these had merely attracted to him the favorable attention of Pope Eugene III, who had created him cardinal bishop of Albano in December 1149.
Nicholas has been in Scandinavia as papal legate from 1152 to 1154, organizing the affairs of the new Norwegian archbishopric of Nidaros (now Trondheim), creating the diocese at Hamar, and making arrangements which are to result in the recognition of Gamla Uppsala (later moved to Uppsala) as seat of the Swedish metropolitan in 1164.