It was an old and gross abuse of the age, that the nobles asserted the right to seize the effects of a bishop on his death. This abuse did not escape severe censure, from several synods. But Pope Adrian, it was, who condemned it the most effectually, by his bull to Berengarius, archbishop of Narbonne, (A. D. 1156,) on occasion of Ermengarda, Viscountess of Narbonne, renouncing the abuse in favour of that prelate, which renunciation, the papal bull was issued to confirm. In the year 1150, Raymond, count of Barcelona, made a similar renunciation by charter, when about to go on a distant and perilous journey. In it he says: "I hereby promise to God, to abolish the detestable custom which has hitherto prevailed in my states,--to wit, the custom whereby my bailiffs plundered the goods of a bishop when he died:--a proceeding which I own to be contrary to divine and human laws; wherefore, I renounce the said custom, and order that for the future, if any thing be found in the house or grounds of a bishop deceased, it shall be reserved for his successor." [6] [1] Polycraticus, &c. lib. 6, cap, 24, and lib. 8, cap. 23. [2] William of Tyre, lib. 18. cap. 3 & 7. [3] Brev. Pontif. Rom. Annus 1154. [4] No. 48. [5] Pagi, ibid. [6] Fleury, Livre 76. VIII. The peace, which Adrian had concluded with the king of Sicily, was soon seized by Frederic Barbarossa as the pretext for a new quarrel with the Church. The grounds on which the German despot professed to be aggrieved were as follow: a predecessor of his, Lothair II., had in his Italian war, in the foregoing century, obliged the king of Sicily to own the feudal superiority of Germany over Apulia. Pope Innocent II., who protested against this proceeding as a violation of his rights, could only so far induce Lothair to respect them, as to agree to let their lawful owner for the future jointly exercise them with their lawless usurper. So that, when the Sicilian King, as Duke of Apulia, should be presented, at the ceremony of his installation, with a flag, the Pope was to hold the pole with one hand, and the Emperor with the other. Frederic Barbarossa renewed this right of joint lordship over Apulia by a concordat with Eugenius III., in which he expressly stipulated not to make any treaty with the king of Sicily, without the previous consent of the Pope, who, however, was not required to enter into any such obligation towards the German monarch. And yet Frederic now put on the face of an injured man, declaring that what had not been stipulated, had yet always been taken for granted; and that Adrian, by making peace with King William, unknown to the emperor, had flagrantly violated the concordat. In the height of his ill-will, an incident fell out which gave free vent to his animosity against the pope.