Also known as the Lisbon Letter; a Latin eyewitness account of the capture of Lisbon (October 1147). It narrates the only real success of the Second Crusade (1147-1149), when crusaders from the Rhineland participated in a fleet that assisted the king of Portugal, Afonso I Henriques (1128-1185), in taking the city from the Moors.
The source started existence as a letter from a priest named Winand to Archbishop Arnold I of Cologne. Two fellow participants copied the letter and sent versions as their own. The same text was used for entries in the annals of Cologne and Magdeburg, and an unfinished draft appears in a Trier manuscript (MS Trier, Stadtbibliothek, 1974/641).
The source relates the departure of the Cologne contingent in April 1147, its rendezvous with the rest of the fleet off Dartmouth (England), and its voyage to Lisbon. It includes interesting details of siege warfare. The final, successful assault is vividly described, and the original letter finishes abruptly with a doxology. Another version reveals that the crusaders wintered in Lisbon before continuing their journey to Outremer.
-Susan B. Edgington
Bibliography
Edgington, Susan B., “The Lisbon Letter of the Second Crusade,” Historical Research 69 (1996), 328-339.
-, “Albert of Aachen, St Bernard and the Second
Crusade,” in The Second Crusade: Scope and Consequences, eds. Martin Hoch and Jonathan Phillips (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2001), pp. 54-70.
World History
