Laudabiliter (Ginnell)

by Adrian IV

For other English-language translations of this work, see Laudabiliter.

Adrian, Bishop, servant of the servants of God, to his dearest son in Christ, the illustrious King of the English, greeting and apostolical benediction.

Your Majesty quite laudably and profitably considers how to extend the glory of your name on earth and increase the reward of eternal happiness in Heaven, when, as a Catholic Prince, you propose to extend the limits of the Church, to announce the truth of the Christian faith to ignorant and barbarous nations, and to root out the weeds of vice from the field of the Lord ; and the more effectually to accomplish this you implore the counsel and favour of the Apostolic See. In which matter we are confident that the higher your aim, and the greater the discretion with which you proceed, the happier, with God's help, will be your success; because those things that originate in the ardour of faith and the love of religion are always wont to arrive at a good issue and end.

Certainly Hibernia and all the islands upon which Christ the Sun of Justice has shone, and which have accepted the doctrines of the Christian faith, of right belong, as your Highness doth acknowledge, to blessed Peter and the Holy Roman Church. Wherefore we the more willingly sow in them a faithful plantation and a seed pleasing to God, in as much as we know by internal examination that it will be strictly required of us. You have signified to us, dearest son in Christ, that you desire to enter the island of Hibernia to subject that people to laws, and to root out therefrom the weeds of vice; also that you desire to pay from every house an annual pension ,of one penny to blessed Peter, and to preserve ,the rights of the churches of that land inviolate and whole.

We, therefore, regarding with due favour your pious and laudable desire, and according a gracious assent to your petition, deem it pleasing and acceptable that, for the purpose of extending the limits of the Church, checking the torrent of wickedness, reforming evil manners, sowing seeds of virtue, and increasing the Christian religion, you should enter that island and execute whatever shall be conducive to the honour of God and the salvation of that land. And let the people of that land receive you honourably and reverence you as lord, the rights of the churches remaining indisputably inviolate and whole, and the annual pension of one penny from every house being reserved to blessed Peter and the Holy Roman Church.

If, therefore, you will carry to completion what with a mind so disposed you have conceived, study to form that people to good morals, and, as well by yourself as by those whom you shall find qualified for the purpose by faith, word, and conduct, so act that the Church may be adorned, that the religion of the Christian faith may be planted and may increase; and let all that concerns the honour of God and the salvation of souls be ordered in such manner that you may deserve to obtain from God a plentiful, everlasting reward, and on earth succeed in acquiring a name glorious for ages.