Pope Adrian III
head of the Catholic Church
820 CE to 885 CE
Pope Adrian III (Latin: Adrianus III; died July 885), is the head of the Catholic Church from 17 May 884 to his death in 885.
He was born at Rome.
He dies in July 885 at San Cesario sul Panaro (Modena) not long after embarking on a trip to Worms, in modern Germany.
The journey’s purpose had been to attend an Imperial Diet after being summoned by the Frankish King Charles III, the Fat, to settle the succession to the Holy Roman Empire and discuss the rising power of the Saracens.
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Pope Marinus I, born the son of a priest, had been ordained as a deacon by Pope Nicholas I.
Before his election as Pope in December 882, he had served as Bishop of Caere, which made his election controversial, because, at this stage of history, a bishop is expected never to leave office to move to another see.
On three separate occasions he had been employed by the three popes who preceded him as legate to Constantinople, his mission in each case having reference to the controversy started by Photius, Patriarch of Constantinople.
Among his first acts as pope had been the restitution of Formosus as Cardinal Bishop of Portus and the anathematizing of Patriarch Photios.
Due to his respect for Alfred the Great, he frees the Anglo-Saxons of Rome from tribute and taxation.
He dies in May or June 884, his successor being Adrian III.
Charles, childless by his marriage to Richgard, tries to have his illegitimate son by an unknown concubine, Bernard, recognized as his heir in 885, but meets the opposition of several bishops.
He has the support of Pope Adrian III, whom he invites to an assembly in Worms in October 885, but who dies on the way, just after crossing the river Po.
Adrian was going to depose the obstructing bishops, as Charles doubted he could do this himself, and legitimize Bernard.
Based on the unfavoring attitude of the chronicler of the Mainz continuation of the Annales Fuldenses, the chief of Charles's opponents in the matter was probably Liutbert, Archbishop of Mainz.
Because Charles had called together the "bishops and counts of Gaul" as well as the pope to meet him at Worms, it seems likely that he planned to make Bernard King of Lotharingia.