Second Crusade

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Second Crusade
Part of the
Iberia, Near East, Egypt
Result See § Aftermath
Territorial
changes
Belligerents
Commanders and leaders

The Second Crusade (1147–1149) was the second major

Crusader state
to be founded, it was also the first to fall.

The Second Crusade was announced by

Syriac Christian sources claim that the Byzantine Emperor Manuel I Komnenos secretly hindered the crusaders' progress, particularly in Anatolia, where he is alleged to have deliberately ordered Turks to attack them. However, this alleged sabotage of the Crusade by the Byzantines was likely fabricated by Odo, who saw the Empire as an obstacle; moreover, Emperor Manuel had no political reason to do so. Louis and Conrad reached Jerusalem in 1148, where the remnants of their armies participated in an ill-advised attack on Damascus that ended in their retreat. Crusader efforts were successful in Iberia, where several territories—including Lisbon, the future capital of the Portuguese Empire
—were conquered.

The initial response to the new

Abbot Suger and other nobles were not in favour of Louis's plans, as he would be gone from the kingdom for several years. Louis consulted Bernard of Clairvaux, who referred him back to Eugene. By now Louis would have definitely heard about the papal bull, and Eugene enthusiastically supported Louis's crusade. The bull was reissued on 1 March 1146, and Eugene authorized Bernard to preach the news throughout France.[1]

Background

Fall of Edessa

Main article:
King Fulk of Jerusalem died. Joscelin had also quarreled with the Count of Tripoli and the Prince of Antioch, leaving Edessa with no powerful allies.[3]

Meanwhile,

Aleppo to his rule in 1128, the key to power in Syria, contested between Mosul and Damascus. Both Zengi and Baldwin II of Jerusalem turned their attention towards Damascus; Baldwin was defeated outside the great city in 1129.[3] Damascus, ruled by the Burid dynasty, later allied with King Fulk when Zengi besieged the city in 1139 and 1140;[4] the alliance was negotiated by the chronicler Usama ibn Munqidh.[5]

In late 1144, Joscelin II allied with the Artuqids and marched out of

Nur ad-Din.[6]

Papal bull and French plans

The news of the fall of Edessa was brought back to Europe first by pilgrims early in 1145, and then by embassies from Antioch, Jerusalem and Armenia. Bishop Hugh of Jabala reported the news to Pope Eugene III, who issued the bull Quantum praedecessores on 1 December, calling for a second crusade.[7] Hugh also told the Pope of an eastern Christian king, who, it was hoped, would bring relief to the crusader states: this is the first documented mention of Prester John.[8] Eugene did not control Rome and lived instead at Viterbo,[9] but nevertheless the Second Crusade was meant to be more organized and centrally controlled than the First: the armies would be led by the strongest kings of Europe and a route would be planned.[10]

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux

Stained glass image of a kneeling man with a halo holding an open book and a staff
St Bernard in stained glass, from the Upper Rhine, c. 1450

The Pope commissioned French abbot

Vezelay in Burgundy in 1146, and Bernard preached before the assembly on 31 March. Louis VII of France, his wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine, and the princes and lords present prostrated themselves at the feet of Bernard to receive the pilgrims' cross. Bernard then passed into Germany, and the reported miracles which multiplied almost at his every step undoubtedly contributed to the success of his mission. At Speyer, Conrad III of Germany and his nephew, later Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, received the cross from the hand of Bernard.[12] Pope Eugene came in person to France to encourage the enterprise.[1]

For all his overmastering zeal, Bernard was by nature neither a bigot nor a persecutor. As in the First Crusade, the preaching inadvertently led to attacks on Jews; a fanatical French monk named

Archbishop of Mainz, were vehemently opposed to these attacks, and so Bernard traveled from Flanders to Germany to deal with the problem and quiet the mobs. Bernard then found Rudolf in Mainz and was able to silence him, returning him to his monastery.[13]

Reconquista in Iberia

Main articles: Siege of Lisbon and Siege of Tortosa (1148)
Painting of a group of men clustered around a seated man in armor wearing a crown. Kneeling before the seated man is another man, with a third man standing between the two men and pointing at the kneeling man.
The Siege of Lisbon by D. Afonso Henriques by Joaquim Rodrigues Braga (1840)

In the spring of 1147, the Pope authorized the expansion of the crusade into the

Bishop of Porto.[14]

The crusaders agreed to help the king attack Lisbon, with a solemn agreement that offered to them the pillage of the city's goods and the ransom money for expected prisoners. However, some of the crusader forces were hesitant to help, remembering a previous failed attempt on the city by a combined force of Portuguese and northern crusaders during the earlier siege of Lisbon in 1142.[15] The 1147 siege of Lisbon lasted from 1 July to 25 October, when the Moorish rulers agreed to surrender primarily due to hunger within the city. Most of the crusaders settled in the newly captured city, but some of them set sail and continued to the Holy Land.[14] Some of them, who had departed earlier, helped capture Santarém earlier in the same year. Later they also helped to conquer Sintra, Almada, Palmela and Setúbal, and they were allowed to stay in the conquered lands, where they settled down and had offspring.

Almost at the same time on the peninsula, King

Ramon Berenguer IV of Barcelona, and others led a mixed army of Catalan, Leonese, Castilian and French crusaders against the rich port city of Almería. With support from a Genoese–Pisan navy, the city was occupied in October 1147.[12]

Ramon Berenguer then invaded the lands of the

Segre and Ebro rivers fell to his army.[17]

Forces

Muslims

Zengid soldiers, armed with long swords and wearing Turkic military dress: the aqbiya turkiyya coat, tiraz armbands, boots and sharbush hat. Manuscript Kitab al-Aghani, 1218–1219, Mosul.[18]

The professional soldiers of the Muslim states, who were usually ethnic

Kurdish auxiliaries, who could be called upon in times of war, though these forces were prone to indiscipline.[19]

The principal Islamic commander was Mu'in ad-Din Unur, the atabeg of Damascus from 1138 to 1149. Damascus was supposedly ruled by the Burid dynasty of Damascus, but Anur, who commanded the military, was the real ruler of the city. The historian David Nicolle described Anur as an able general and diplomat, also well known as a patron of the arts. Because the Burid dynasty was displaced in 1154 by the Zengid dynasty, Anur's role in repulsing the Second Crusade has been largely erased with historians and chroniclers loyal to the Zengids giving the credit to Anur's rival, Nur al-Din Zengi, the emir of Aleppo.[20]

Crusaders

The German contingent comprised about 20,000 knights; the French contingent had about 700 knights from the king's lands while the nobility raised smaller numbers of knights; and the Kingdom of Jerusalem had about 950 knights and 6,000 infantrymen.[21]

The French knights preferred to fight on horseback, while the German knights liked to fight on foot. The Byzantine Greek chronicler John Kinnamos wrote "the French are particularly capable of riding horseback in good order and attacking with the spear, and their cavalry surpasses that of the Germans in speed. The Germans, however, are able to fight on foot better than the French and excel in using the great sword."[22]

Conrad III was considered to be a brave knight, though often described as indecisive in moments of crisis.[23] Louis VII was a devout Christian with a sensitive side who was often attacked by contemporaries like Bernard of Clairvaux for being more in love with his wife Eleanor than he was interested in war or politics.[24]

Stephen, King of England did not participate in the second crusade due to internal conflicts in his kingdom.[25] Meanwhile, King David I of Scotland was dissuaded by his subjects from joining the crusade himself.[26]

In the East

Map of Second Crusade

Joscelin II retook the town of Edessa and

Abbot Suger was elected by a great council at Étampes (and appointed by the Pope) to act as one of the regents during the king's absence on crusade. In Germany, further preaching was done by Adam of Ebrach, and Otto of Freising also took the cross. The Germans planned to set out at Easter, but did not leave until May.[27]

German route

The German crusaders, accompanied by the

Frederick I Barbarossa. To make matters worse, some of the German soldiers were killed in a flood at the beginning of September. On 10 September, however, they arrived at Constantinople, where relations with Manuel were poor, resulting in the Battle of Constantinople, after which the Germans became convinced that they should cross into Anatolia as quickly as possible.[28] Manuel wanted Conrad to leave some of his troops behind, to assist in defending against attacks from Roger II, who had taken the opportunity to plunder the cities of Greece, but Conrad did not agree, despite being a fellow enemy of Roger.[29]

In Anatolia, Conrad decided not to wait for the French, but marched towards

second battle of Dorylaeum.[32]

In battle, the Turks used their typical tactic of pretending to retreat, and then returning to attack the small force of German cavalry which had separated from the main army to chase them. Conrad began a slow retreat back to Constantinople, his army harassed daily by the Turks, who attacked stragglers and defeated the rearguard.[33] Conrad himself was wounded in a skirmish with them. The other division of the German force, led by the King's half-brother, Bishop Otto of Freising, had marched south to the Mediterranean coast and was similarly defeated early in 1148.[34] The force led by Otto ran out of food while crossing inhospitable countryside and was ambushed by the Seljuks near Laodicea on 16 November 1147. The majority of Otto's force were either killed in battle or captured and sold into slavery.[31]

French route

Louis VII of France

The French crusaders had departed from

Lorraine, Brittany, Burgundy and Aquitaine. A force from Provence, led by Alphonse of Toulouse, chose to wait until August, and to cross by sea. At Worms, Louis joined with crusaders from Normandy and England. They followed Conrad's route fairly peacefully, although Louis came into conflict with King Géza II of Hungary, when Géza discovered that Louis had allowed a failed Hungarian usurper, Boris Kalamanos, to join his army. Relations within Byzantine territory were also grim, and the Lorrainers, who had marched ahead of the rest of the French, also came into conflict with the slower Germans whom they met on the way.[35]

Since the original negotiations between Louis and Manuel I, Manuel had broken off his military campaign against Rûm, signing a truce with his enemy Sultan Mesud I. Manuel did this to give himself a free hand to concentrate on defending his empire from the crusaders, who had gained a reputation for theft and treachery since the First Crusade and were widely suspected of harbouring sinister designs on Constantinople. Nevertheless, Manuel's relations with the French army were somewhat better than with the Germans, and Louis was entertained lavishly in Constantinople. Some of the French were outraged by Manuel's truce with the Seljuks and called for an alliance with Roger II and an attack on Constantinople, but Louis restrained them.[36]

A standing male, dressed in elaborate robes with a fancy hat. He has a halo around his head and is holding a long staff in one hand.
Emperor Manuel I

When the armies from Savoy,

Alexios I, Manuel had the French swear to return to the Empire any territory they captured.[37]

The French met the remnants of Conrad's army at

Lopadion, and Conrad joined Louis's force. They followed Otto of Freising's route, moving closer to the Mediterranean coast, and arrived at Ephesus in December, where they learned that the Turks were preparing to attack them. Manuel also sent ambassadors complaining about the pillaging and plundering that Louis had done along the way, and there was no guarantee that the Byzantines would assist them against the Turks. Meanwhile, Conrad fell sick and returned to Constantinople, where Manuel attended to him personally, and Louis, paying no attention to the warnings of a Turkish attack, marched out from Ephesus with the French and German survivors. The Turks were indeed waiting to attack, but in at the Battle of Ephesus on 24 December 1147, the French proved victorious.[38] The French fended off another Turkish ambush at the Battle of the Meander
in the same month.

They reached

Attalia, continually harassed from afar by the Turks, who had also burned the land to prevent the French from replenishing their food, both for themselves and their horses. Louis no longer wanted to continue by land, and it was decided to gather a fleet at Attalia and to sail for Antioch.[32] After being delayed for a month by storms, most of the promised ships did not arrive at all. Louis and his associates claimed the ships for themselves, while the rest of the army had to resume the long march to Antioch. The army was almost entirely destroyed, either by the Turks or by sickness.[40]

Journey to Jerusalem

Painting of two men meeting in front of a city gate. Both men are in front of crowds of other people. The one on the left is bareheaded and holds his hat in one hand while he bows to the other figure, who is dressed in blue embroidered robes and wears a crown.
Raymond of Poitiers welcoming Louis VII in Antioch

Though delayed by storms, Louis eventually arrived in Antioch on 19 March; Amadeus of Savoy had died in Cyprus along the way. Louis was welcomed by Eleanor's uncle Raymond of Poitiers.

Raymond expected him to help defend against the Turks and to accompany him on an expedition against Aleppo, the Muslim city that functioned as the gateway to Edessa, but Louis refused, preferring instead to finish his pilgrimage to Jerusalem rather than focus on the military aspect of the crusade.[41]

Eleanor enjoyed her stay, but her uncle implored her to remain to enlarge family lands and divorce Louis if the king refused to help what was assuredly the military cause of the Crusade.[42] During this period, there were rumours of an affair between Raymond and Eleanor, which caused tensions in the marriage between Louis and Eleanor.[43]

Louis quickly left Antioch for

Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, was sent to invite Louis to join them. The fleet that had stopped at Lisbon arrived around this time, as well as the Provençals who had left Europe under the command of Alfonso Jordan, Count of Toulouse
.

Alfonso himself did not reach Jerusalem; he died at

King Baldwin III and of the Knights Templar was Damascus.[41]

In response to the arrival of the crusaders, the regent of Damascus, Mu'in ad-Din Unur, started making feverish preparations for war, strengthening the fortifications of Damascus, ordering troops to his city and having the water sources along the road to Damascus destroyed or diverted. Unur sought help from the Zangid rulers of Aleppo and Mosul (who were normally his rivals), though forces from these states did not arrive in time to see combat outside of Damascus. It is almost certain that the Zangid rulers delayed sending troops to Damascus out of the hope that their rival Unur might lose his city to the crusaders.[45]

Council of Palmarea

Main article: Council of Acre

The nobility of Jerusalem welcomed the arrival of troops from Europe. A council to decide on the best target for the crusaders took place on 24 June 1148, when the

Acre, a major city of the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem. This was the most spectacular meeting of the Court in its existence.[32][46]

In the end, the decision was made to attack the city of Damascus, a former ally of the Kingdom of Jerusalem that had shifted its allegiance to that of the Zengids, and attacked the Kingdom's allied city of

Nur ad-Din. Since Unur was clearly the weaker of the two Muslim rulers, it was believed that it was inevitable that Nur ad-Din would take Damascus sometime in the near future, and thus it seemed better for the crusaders to hold that city rather than the Zangids.[48] In July their armies assembled at Tiberias and marched to Damascus, around the Sea of Galilee by way of Banias. There were perhaps 50,000 troops in total.[49]

Siege of Damascus

Main article: Siege of Damascus (1148)
Siege of Damascus

The crusaders decided to attack Damascus from the west, where orchards would provide them with a constant food supply.[32] They arrived at Darayya on 23 July. The following day, the Muslims were prepared for the attack and constantly attacked the army advancing through the orchards outside Damascus. The defenders had sought help from Sayf al-Din Ghazi I of Mosul and Nur ad-Din of Aleppo, who personally led an attack on the crusader camp. The crusaders were pushed back from the walls into the orchards, leaving them exposed to ambushes and guerrilla attacks.[41]

According to William of Tyre, on 27 July the crusaders decided to move to the plain on the eastern side of the city, which was less heavily fortified but had much less food and water.[32] It was recorded by some that Unur had bribed the leaders to move to a less defensible position, and that Unur had promised to break off his alliance with Nur ad-Din if the crusaders went home.[41] Meanwhile, Nur ad-Din and Sayf al-Din had arrived. With Nur ad-Din in the field it was impossible for the crusaders to return to their better position.[41] The local crusader lords refused to carry on with the siege, and the three kings had no choice but to abandon the city.[32] First Conrad, then the rest of the army, decided to retreat to Jerusalem on 28 July, though for their entire retreat they were followed by Turkish archers who constantly harassed them.[50]

Aftermath

The crusaders were victorious in the west, where they conquered several territories—including Lisbon, which would later became the capital of Portugal and thus the Portuguese Empire.[51]

In the east, each of the Christian forces felt betrayed by the other.[32] A new plan was made to attack Ascalon and Conrad took his troops there, but no further help arrived, due to the lack of trust that had resulted from the failed siege. This mutual distrust would linger for a generation due to the defeat, to the ruin of the Christian kingdoms in the Holy Land. After quitting Ascalon, Conrad returned to Constantinople to further his alliance with Manuel. Louis remained behind in Jerusalem until 1149. The discord also extended to the marriage of Louis and Eleanor, which had been falling apart during the course of the Crusade. In April 1149, Louis and Eleanor, who were barely on speaking terms by this time, pointedly boarded separate ships to take them back to France.[52]

Back in Europe, Bernard of Clairvaux was humiliated by the defeat. Bernard considered it his duty to send an apology to the Pope and it is inserted in the second part of his Book of Consideration. There, he explains how the sins of the crusaders were the cause of their misfortune and failures. When his attempt to call a new crusade failed, he tried to disassociate himself from the fiasco of the Second Crusade altogether.[53] He would die in 1153.[53]

The cultural impact of the Second Crusade was even greater in France, with many troubadours fascinated by the alleged affair between Eleanor and Raymond, which helped to feed the theme of courtly love. Unlike Conrad, the image of Louis was improved by the Crusade with many of the French seeing him as a suffering pilgrim king who quietly bore God's punishments.[54]

Relations between the Eastern Roman Empire and the French were badly damaged by the Crusade. Louis and other French leaders openly accused the Emperor Manuel I of colluding with Turkish attacks on them during the march across Anatolia. The memory of the Second Crusade was to colour French views of the Byzantines for the rest of the 12th and 13th centuries. Within the empire itself, the crusade was remembered as a triumph of diplomacy.[55] In the eulogy for the Emperor Manuel by Archbishop Eustathius of Thessalonica, it was declared, "He was able to deal with his enemies with enviable skill, playing off one against the other with the aim of bringing peace and tranquility".[55]

In the East the situation was much darker for the Christians. In the Holy Land, the Second Crusade had disastrous long-term consequences for Jerusalem. In 1149, the atabeg Anur died, at which point Abu Sa'id Mujir al-Din Abaq Ibn Muhammad began to rule as emir. The ra'is of Damascus and commander of the ahdath military Mu'ayad al-Dawhal Ibn al-Sufi feel that since his ahdath had played a major role in defeating the Second Crusade that he deserved a greater share of the power, and within two months of Anur's death was leading a rebellion against Abaq. The in-fighting within Damascus was to lead to the end of the Burid state within five years. Damascus no longer trusted the crusader kingdom and was taken by Nur ad-Din after a short siege in 1154.[56]

Baldwin III finally

Amalric I of Jerusalem allied with the Byzantines and participated in a combined invasion of Egypt in 1169, but the expedition ultimately failed. In 1171, Saladin, nephew of one of Nur ad-Din's generals, was proclaimed Sultan of Egypt, uniting Egypt and Syria and completely surrounding the crusader kingdom. Meanwhile, the Byzantine alliance ended with the death of Emperor Manuel I in 1180, and in 1187, Jerusalem capitulated to Saladin. His forces then spread north to capture all but the capital cities of the Crusader States, precipitating the Third Crusade.[58]

Notes

  1. ^ a b Tyerman 2006, pp. 275–281.
  2. ^ Riley-Smith 2005, pp. 50–53.
  3. ^ a b Tyerman 2006, pp. 185–189.
  4. ^ Runciman 1952, pp. 227–228.
  5. ^ Ousâma ibn Mounkidh, un émir syrien au premier siècle des croisades, p. 182 (in BnF)
  6. ^ Runciman 1952, pp. 225–244.
  7. ^ Tyerman 2006, pp. 273–275.
  8. ^ Runciman 1952, p. 247.
  9. ^ Tyerman 2006, p. 289.
  10. ^ Tyerman 2006, p. 298.
  11. ^ Father Marie Gildas (1907). "St. Bernard of Clairvaux". In Catholic Encyclopedia. 2. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
  12. ^ a b c Riley-Smith 1991, p. 48.
  13. ^ Tyerman 2006, pp. 281–288.
  14. ^ a b Runciman 1952, p. 258.
  15. ^ Villegas-Aristizábal 2013, pp. 7–20.
  16. ^ Villegas-Aristizábal 2009, pp. 80–97.
  17. ^ Riley-Smith 1991, p. 126.
  18. JSTOR 871101
    .
  19. ^ Nicolle 2009, pp. 28–30.
  20. ^ Nicolle 2009, pp. 19–21.
  21. ^ Nicolle 2009, p. 24.
  22. ^ Nicolle 2009, pp. 26–27.
  23. ^ Nicolle 2009, p. 17.
  24. ^ Nicolle 2009, p. 18.
  25. ^ Schmieder & O'Doherty 2015, pp. 121–138.
  26. ^ Cowan, Mackay & Macquarrie 1983, p. 18.
  27. ^ Runciman 1952, pp. 257, 259.
  28. ^ Nicolle 2009, p. 42.
  29. ^ Runciman 1952, pp. 259–267.
  30. ^ Nicolle 2009, p. 43.
  31. ^ a b c Nicolle 2009, p. 46.
  32. ^ a b c d e f g Riley-Smith 1991, p. 50.
  33. ^ Nicolle 2009, p. 47.
  34. ^ Runciman 1952, pp. 267–270.
  35. ^ Runciman 1952, pp. 259–263.
  36. ^ Runciman 1952, pp. 268–269.
  37. ^ Runciman 1952, p. 269.
  38. ^ Runciman 1952, pp. 270–271.
  39. ^ Riley-Smith 1991, p. 51.
  40. ^ Runciman 1952, pp. 272–273.
  41. ^ a b c d e Brundage 1962, pp. 115–121.
  42. ^ a b Nicolle 2009, p. 54.
  43. ^ Nicolle 2009, pp. 18, 54.
  44. ^ Riley-Smith 1991, pp. 49–50.
  45. ^ Nicolle 2009, p. 55.
  46. ^ William of Tyre, Babcock & Krey 1943, vol. 2, bk. 17, ch. 1, pp. 184–185: "it seems well worth while and quite in harmony with the present history that the names of the nobles who were present at the council... should be recorded here for the benefit of posterity ... to name each one individually would take far too long.".
  47. ^ Nicolle 2009, pp. 54–55.
  48. ^ Nicolle 2009, pp. 37–38.
  49. ^ Runciman 1952, pp. 228–229.
  50. ^ Baldwin & Setton 1969, p. 510.
  51. ^ Baldwin & Setton 1969, p. 466.
  52. ^ Nicolle 2009, p. 77.
  53. ^ a b Runciman 1952, pp. 232–234, 277.
  54. ^ Nicolle 2009, pp. 81–84.
  55. ^ a b Nicolle 2009, p. 84.
  56. ^ Nicolle 2009, pp. 78, 81.
  57. ^ Riley-Smith 1991, p. 56.
  58. ^ Riley-Smith 1991, p. 60.

References

Further reading

Primary sources

Secondary sources

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