Pope Lucius III was born in Lucca as Ubaldo Allucingoli. He was appointed Cardinal in 1138 and in the following years he worked alongside Pope Alexander III during his pontificate before being elected Pope on 1 August 1181. His pontificate, although brief, was characterised by the clashes with Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa and then the subsequent break between the papacy and the empire. In Sicily, although he granted the Norman king the bishopric of Monreale in 1183, he attempted to impede the engagement of Roger II’s daughter and William II’s aunt, Constance of Hauteville, to Barbarossa’s descendant, Henry VI. The Pope and the Emperor at least reached an ethical agreement in their efforts against heretics, culminating in the issuing of the decretal Ad Abolendam in 1184.
