age, the place of our Saviour's passion, to absolve the people from
their sins and preach to them, the Hospitallers invariably set all
their bells a-ringing with such violence, as plainly proved that they
meant to drown his voice and interrupt him in the performance of his
duty; that when he had often complained to the citizens of this
misconduct, and these had expostulated with the perpetrators, the
latter only replied, that they would yet play him worse turns; that
they had, in fact, kept their word; for they had shot arrows at him in
the church itself, while celebrating there the divine offices. These
arrows he (the patriarch) had caused to be picked up, and exposed in a
bundle on Mount Calvary as a memorial." [2]

With these charges the patriarch, attended by other oriental prelates,
set out for Italy, to lay his case before the pope. After running many
perils by reason of the war, then going on between the pope and the
king of Sicily, the party at last reached Beneventum. The trial that
took place lasted several days; when the result of the pleadings for
and against was, that Adrian became convinced of the hollowness of the
accusations, laid by the patriarch against the knights of St. John,
and, therefore, refused to grant the redress sought for,--namely, to
annul the patent of privileges conferred by Anastasius. William of
Tyre,--who describes the transaction as a partisan of the
patriarch,--plainly says that the pope took bribes to decide as he
did. But Pagi [3] denies this flatly, and affirms that Adrian
proceeded in this, as well as in every other act of his authority,
conscientiously and disinterestedly. Indeed, it is rather unfortunate
for William of Tyre, that of the three cardinals, whom he alone
excepts from the charge of bribery, two, namely, Octavian, and John
of St. Martin,--afterwards figured as principal actors in the
scandalous schism which rent the Church after Adrian's death: the
first as Frederic Barbarossa's anti-pope, under the name of Victor
IV. in opposition to Alexander III. the lawful pope; the second as
Victor's legate, and as chief supporter, after his death, of
Anacletus III., whom the emperor next started against Alexander.
Peter of Blois, too, in his letter [4] to cardinal Papiensis,
describes Octavian as having passed his whole life in amassing
riches wherewith to disturb the Church, and as having been but
too successful in corrupting a powerful party in the Roman curia
to his views.