Second Crusade

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Second Crusade
Part of the Crusades and the Reconquista

Illustration of the Battle of Inab, by Jean Colombe from the Passages d'outremer by Sébastien Mamerot, c. 1473–1474.
Date1147–1150
Location
Iberia, Near East (Anatolia, Levant), Egypt
Result (see § Aftermath)
Territorial
changes
Belligerents
In the Holy Land
Western front (Reconquista)
Levantine states:
Western front:
Commanders and leaders
Eastern front:
Western front:
Eastern front:
Western front:

The Second Crusade (1147–1150) 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, and moreover Emperor Manuel had no political reason to do so.[1]
Louis and Conrad and the remnants of their armies reached Jerusalem and participated in 1148 in an ill-advised attack on Damascus, which ended in their retreat. In the end, the crusade in the east was a failure for the crusaders and a victory for the Muslims. It would ultimately have a key influence on the fall of Jerusalem and give rise to the Third Crusade at the end of the 12th century.

While the Second Crusade failed to achieve its goals in the Holy Land, crusaders did see victories elsewhere. The most significant of these came to a combined force of 13,000 Flemish, Frisian, Norman, English, Scottish, and German crusaders in 1147. Travelling from England, by ship, to the

Moorish
occupants.

The initial response to the new crusade bull was poor, and it in fact had to be reissued when it was clear that

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.[2]

Background

Fall of Edessa

Main article:
Fulk of Anjou died. Joscelin had also quarreled with the Count of Tripoli and the Prince of Antioch, leaving Edessa with no powerful allies.[4]

Meanwhile,

Usamah ibn Munqidh.[6]

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

Nur ad-Din.[7]

Papal bull and French plans

Main article: Quantum praedecessores

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 of that year, calling for a second crusade.[8] 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.[9] Eugene did not control Rome and lived instead at Viterbo,[10] 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 beforehand.[11]

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

Frederick Barbarossa, received the cross from the hand of Bernard.[13] Pope Eugene came in person to France to encourage the enterprise.[2]

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.[14]

Reconquista and capture of Lisbon, Almeria and Tortosa

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

Iberian peninsula, in the context of the Reconquista. He also authorized Alfonso VII of León and Castile to equate his campaigns against the Moors with the rest of the Second Crusade.[13] In May 1147, the first contingents of crusaders left from Dartmouth in England for the Holy Land. Bad weather forced the ships to stop on the Portuguese coast, at the northern city of Porto on 16 June 1147. There they were convinced to meet with King Afonso I of Portugal.[15]

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 Siege of Lisbon (1142).[16] The siege of Lisbon of 1147 lasted from 1 July to 25 October when, after four months, 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.[15] 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.

Elsewhere on the Iberian peninsula, almost at the same time, 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.[13]

Ramon Berenguer then invaded the lands of the

Segre and Ebro rivers fell to his army.[18]

Forces

Muslims

sharbush hat. Manuscript Kitab al-Aghani, 1218–1219, Mosul.[19]

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.[20]

The principal Islamic commander was

Nur ad-Din Zengi, the amir of Aleppo.[21]

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.[22]

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".[23]

Conrad III was considered to be a brave knight, though often described as indecisive in moments of crisis.[24] 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 of Aquitaine, than being interested in war or politics.[25]

Stephen, King of England did not participate in the second crusade due to internal conflicts in his kingdom.[26] Meanwhile, King David I of Scotland was dissuaded by his subjects from joining the crusade himself.[27]

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.[28]

German route

The German crusaders, accompanied by the

Asia Minor as quickly as possible.[29] 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.[30]

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

Sultanate of Rûm. Conrad split his army into two divisions. Much of the authority of the Byzantine Empire in the western provinces of Asia Minor was more nominal than real, with much of the provinces being a no-man's land controlled by Turkish nomads.[31] Conrad underestimated the length of the march against Anatolia, and anyhow assumed that the authority of Emperor Manuel was greater in Anatolia than was in fact the case.[32] Conrad took the knights and the best troops with himself to march overland while sending the camp followers with Otto of Freising to follow the coastal road.[32] The Seljuqs almost totally destroyed King Conrad's party on 25 October 1147 at the second battle of Dorylaeum.[33]

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.[34] 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.[35] The force led by Otto ran out of food while crossing inhospitable countryside and was ambushed by the Seljuq Turks near Laodicea on 16 November 1147. The majority of Otto's force were either killed in battle or captured and sold into slavery.[32]

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 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.[36]

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 Seljuqs and called for an alliance with Roger II and an attack on Constantinople, but Louis restrained them.[37]

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,

Iconium (Konya), but Manuel refused to give Louis any Byzantine troops. Roger II of Sicily had just invaded Byzantine territory, and Manuel needed all his army in the Peloponnese. Both the Germans and French therefore entered Asia without any Byzantine assistance, unlike the armies of the First Crusade. Following the example set by his grandfather Alexios I, Manuel had the French swear to return to the Empire any territory they captured.[38]

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.[39] The French fended off another Turkish ambush at the Battle of the Meander
in the same month.

They reached Laodicea on the Lycus early in January 1148, just after Otto of Freising's army had been destroyed in the same area.[40] Resuming the march, the vanguard under Amadeus of Savoy became separated from the rest of the army at the Battle of Mount Cadmus, where Louis's troops suffered heavy losses from the Turks (6 January 1148). Louis himself, according to Odo of Deuil, climbed a rock and was ignored by the Turks, who did not recognize him. The Turks did not bother to attack further and the French marched on to 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.[33] 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.[41]

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.[42]

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.[43] During this period, there were rumours of an affair between Raymond and Eleanor, which caused tensions in the marriage between Louis and Eleanor.[44]

Louis quickly left Antioch for

Count of Toulouse
.

Alfonso himself did not reach Jerusalem; he died at

King Baldwin III and of the Knights Templar was Damascus.[42]

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.[46]

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.[33][47]

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.[49] 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.[50]

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.

Saif ad-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.[42]

According to

Turkish archers who constantly harassed them.[51]

Aftermath

Map showing the countries surrounding the Mediterranean Sea. Along the west and southwest coasts is the Muwahid Caliphate. The Zangid Sultanate covers most of the southeast coast and the inland areas from the east coast, which is occupied by the Crusader States. The Byzantine Empire covers most of the northeast coast and inland areas. The center of the north coast is held by the Holy Roman Empire and the northwest coast is held by the kingdoms of France and Aragon.
The Mediterranean world after the Second Crusade in 1173

Each of the Christian forces felt betrayed by the other.[33] 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 Asia Minor. 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 the amir Abu Sa'id Mujir al-Din Abaq Ibn Muhammad finally began to rule. 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.[56] The in-fighting within Damascus was to lead to the end of the Burid state within five years.[57] 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.[59]

Notes

  1. ^ Magdalino 1993, p. 52.
  2. ^ a b Tyerman 2006, pp. 275–281.
  3. ^ Riley-Smith 2005, pp. 50–53.
  4. ^ a b Tyerman 2006, pp. 185–189.
  5. ^ Runciman 1952, pp. 227–228.
  6. ^ Ousâma ibn Mounkidh, un émir syrien au premier siècle des croisades, p.182 (in BnF)
  7. ^ Runciman 1952, pp. 225–244.
  8. ^ Tyerman 2006, pp. 273–275.
  9. ^ Runciman 1952, p. 247.
  10. ^ Tyerman 2006, p. 289.
  11. ^ Tyerman 2006, p. 298.
  12. ^ Father Marie Gildas (1907). "St. Bernard of Clairvaux". In Catholic Encyclopedia. 2. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
  13. ^ a b c Riley-Smith 1991, p. 48.
  14. ^ Tyerman 2006, pp. 281–288.
  15. ^ a b Runciman 1952, p. 258.
  16. ^ Villegas-Aristizábal (2013), pp. 7–20.
  17. ^ Villegas-Aristizabal (2009), 97–80
  18. ^ Riley-Smith 1991, p. 126.
  19. ISSN 0007-6287
    .
  20. ^ Nicolle 2009, pp. 28–30.
  21. ^ Nicolle 2009, pp. 19–21.
  22. ^ Nicolle 2009, p. 24.
  23. ^ Nicolle 2009, pp. 26–27.
  24. ^ Nicolle 2009, p. 17.
  25. ^ Nicolle 2009, p. 18.
  26. ^ Schmieder & O'Doherty 2015, pp. 121–138.
  27. ^ Cowan, Mackay & Macquarrie 1983, p. 18.
  28. ^ Runciman 1952, pp. 257, 259.
  29. ^ Nicolle 2009, pp. 42.
  30. ^ Runciman 1952, pp. 259–267.
  31. ^ Nicolle 2009, pp. 43.
  32. ^ a b c Nicolle 2009, pp. 46.
  33. ^ a b c d e f g Riley-Smith 1991, p. 50.
  34. ^ Nicolle 2009, pp. 47.
  35. ^ Runciman 1952, pp. 267–270.
  36. ^ Runciman 1952, pp. 259–263.
  37. ^ Runciman 1952, pp. 268–269.
  38. ^ Runciman 1952, p. 269.
  39. ^ Runciman 1952, pp. 270–271.
  40. ^ Riley-Smith 1991, p. 51.
  41. ^ Runciman 1952, pp. 272–273.
  42. ^ a b c d e Brundage 1962, pp. 115–121.
  43. ^ a b Nicolle 2009, p. 54.
  44. ^ Nicolle 2009, pp. 18, 54.
  45. ^ Riley-Smith 1991, pp. 49–50.
  46. ^ Nicolle 2009, p. 55.
  47. ^ 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.".
  48. ^ Nicolle 2009, pp. 54–55.
  49. ^ Nicolle 2009, pp. 37–38.
  50. ^ Runciman 1952, pp. 228–229.
  51. ^ Baldwin & Setton 1969, p. 510.
  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. ^ a b Nicolle 2009, pp. 78.
  57. ^ Nicolle 2009, pp. 81.
  58. ^ Riley-Smith 1991, p. 56.
  59. ^ Riley-Smith 1991, p. 60.

References

Further reading

Primary sources

Secondary sources

External links

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