The ‘Life’ and Death of Pope Hadrian I

Abstract The chapter reviews the evidence and the historiography for the life and career of Pope Hadrian I over the course of his exceptionally long pontificate (772–95). Especially important are the letters contained in the Codex Carolinus, collated at the Carolingian court in 791, and in the biography of his career contained in the Liber Pontificalis, compiled in Rome, during and soon after his period of rule. It argues that the epithet ‘magnus’ (the Great) was first applied to Charlemagne in a papal source, and that Frankish sources recorded the king’s reactions to the news of Hadrian’s death. It discusses the embassy that was sent to Rome in early 796, and the gifts that had been prepared in advance, including Dagulf’s Psalter, and compares the diction of the poem that opened that manuscript with the verses composed for Hadrian by Theodulf of Orléans. The annalistic evidence from Francia and England is analysed, including the entry in the Northumbrian annals, probably from York that are embedded in the Historia Regum, and the Lorsch Annals, that survive in a contemporary manuscript, which describe the making of the epitaph in Francia and the mourning for the pope. Letters from Alcuin enrich the evidence base for understanding reactions within and beyond Rome to the death of Pope Hadrian.