Boso

BOSO: Third English cardinal; d. after 1178. His name was Boso Breakspear and he was a nephew of Pope Adrian IV (Nicholas Breakspear). He belonged to the Benedictine monastery of St. Albans, but went to Rome probably under Eugenius III. From Nov. 6, 1149, to May 3, 1152, he calls himself Romanæ ecclesiæ scriptor. Adrian IV made him his chamberlain early in his pontificate, probably therefore in 1154, and later made him cardinal deacon of Sts. Cosmas and Damian; under Alexander III he became cardinal priest of St. Pudentiana. With the latter title his signature appears to a number of papal bulls from March 18, 1166, to July 10, 1178, soon after which he appears to have died. He was a strong supporter of the policy of Adrian and Alexander. He wrote nine poetical lives of female saints, which are still in manuscript and was a poet of considerable merit. For the papal biographies composed by him see Liber Pontificalis.

Bibliography: The sources for a life are in Thietmar of Merseburg, Chronicon, MGH, Script., iii (1839), 750. Consult Migne, Encyclopédie théologique, vol. xxxi, Dictionnaire des Cardinaux, s.v.; T. Greenwood, Cathedra Petri, London, 1856; DNB, v, 421; KL, ii, 1129–30. Consult also the biographies of Adrian IV and Alexander III.