all who were present testify as to this same fact. For the rest we humbly beg and beseech your holiness to spare our weakness, to soothe like a good pastor your high-souled son by writings which shall sweeten your former writings with honeyed suavity; so that both the church of God may rejoice in tranquil devotion, and that the empire may be raised still higher in its lofty position, He himself mediating and helping—Jesus Christ, who, as mediator between God and men, was made man.
(e.) Letter of Adrian IV. to the Emperor, Feb., 1158.
From the time when, God disposing as it pleased himself, we received the charge of the universal church, we have so taken care to honour thy Highness that, from day to day, thy mind ought to have been inflamed more and more with love for us and with veneration for the apostolic see. Wherefore we can not hear without great astonishment that when—having heard from the suggestions of certain men that thy anger was somewhat aroused against us—in order to learn thy will we sent to thy presence two of our best and greatest brothers, the chancellor Roland, namely, of the title of St Mark, and Bernard of the title of St Clement, cardinal presbyters, who had always been most concerned for the honour of thy Majesty in the Roman church: they were treated otherwise than was becoming to the imperial magnificence. On account of a certain word, indeed,—"beneficium," namely— thy mind is said to have been moved to anger; which word ought not by any means to have aroused the ire of so great a man, nor even of any lesser man. For although this word—namely, "beneficium"—is used by some in a sense different from that which it has by derivation, it should, nevertheless, have been accepted in that sense which we ourselves attributed to it and which it is known to retain from its origin. For this word is derived from "bonus" and "factum," and a " beneficium " is called by us not "a fief" but a "bonum factum." It is found in this signification in the whole body of Holy Scripture, where it speaks of the "beneficium" of God not as of a fief but as a benediction and good deed of His by which we are said to be governed
