Bernard was also a passionate speaker, and in the Second Crusade, he combined the roles formerly played by Urban II and Peter the Hermit. After the Muslims captured Edessa in 1144, Pope Eugenius III, a former student of Bernard, called on his help. On March 31, 1146, Bernard made his first crusade sermon in France, and as was the custom, he handed out wooden crosses to those who volunteered to go. So many men "took up the cross" that he ran out of wooden ones, and in an extremely dramatic move, he began cutting his own garments into crosses and passing them out to the crowd.
Among the royal leaders of the crusade were Conrad III, founder of the Hohenstaufen dynasty (hoh-un-SHTOW-fun), which was destined to rule Germany for a century, and Louis VII of France. This Crusade even included a woman, one of the most extraordinary figures of the Middle Ages:
Bernard of Clairvaux, a powerful church leader, called for the Second Crusade in a famous sermon on March 31, 1146.
Reproduced by permission of Archive Photos, Inc.
Louis's wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine (c. 1122-1204).
The Crusade itself was a devastating failure, largely due to the treachery of the crusaders' supposed allies in the Holy Land. On their way through Anatolia, the crusaders suffered heavy losses, but they were determined to take Edessa. Then the Europeans controlling Jerusalem convinced them to attack Damascus—one of the only Muslim cities in the area still on good terms with the Christians—instead. In
Damascus, the Muslims dealt the crusaders a heavy blow; meanwhile the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem negotiated a separate peace with the enemy and withdrew from the fight.
World History
