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CHAPTER XVI.

THE SECOND CRUSADE

In histories of the crusading movement the Second Crusade generally figures briefly as a fiasco, modeled slavishly on the First Crusade, but without its mystic power, and lacking the vigorous secular quality of the Third and Fourth Crusades. This estimate is partly deserved; but existing records show that the Second Crusade had a complicated character of its own and formed a turning point in the development of the crusades. Without doubt its leaders followed the example of Urban and Godfrey of Bouillon in that they tried to adapt and regularize the phenomena of the First Crusade without changing its essential character. Eugenius's bull with its careful attention to the status and privileges of the crusaders; the insistence on authorized preachers; the reliance on experienced military leaders; the desire for the orderly departure of the crusade through territories whose rulers had been consulted beforehand—all are facts which show an extension and clarification of concepts present in the First Crusade. This interest in organization and rcgularization is a sign of the times which had given rise to the orders of the Templars and the Hospitallers in the interval between the two crusades.

For direction the Second Crusade looked to the papacy in the main, although it was not as peculiarly the work of Eugenius as the First Crusade had been of Urban. The pope, of course, formulated the crusade. St. Bernard, with all his personal prestige and eloquence, was his deputy. Louis and the other rulers implemented his plan, while the papal legates exerted considerable weight in the crusading armies. Far more than in the First Crusade, however, lay rulers like Louis of France and Conrad of Germany cooperated in planning and negotiations, and Louis's determination to aid the east did much to make the first stages of the crusade possible.

In scope the Second Crusade was never duplicated in medieval times. Besides the great allied armies that wont east for the Palestinian crusade, there were expeditions against the Moors in Portugal and Spain and against the Wends in Pomerania, all in all a grandiose conception far surpassing the aims of the First Crusade and pointing to later adaptations of the crusading idea.

As in the First Crusade, however, the combination of pilgrimage and military expedition proved troublesome. The armies, made unwieldy by many noncombatants, were slow, difficult to provision, and sometimes unruly; while religious goals and military objectives were not always identical. Then, too, the Palestinian expeditions proved to be too predominantly land-based. Fleets from Scandinavia, Genoa, Pisa, southern France, and the Iberian peninsula were engaged in the Wendish and Spanish crusades; while the Sicilians, Venetians, and part of the Byzantine fleet were occupied by a war outside the crusade and extremely detrimental to it. In both the Wendish and Palestinian armies the crusaders displayed little realistic knowledge of the conditions they were to meet. Preparations against the Wends were particularly hasty; but the Jerusalem crusaders, in spite of more thorough and efficient planning, did not understand the situation in the east, which was far more complicated than in 1096-1097. Fifty years after the First Crusade, the Turks were stronger and more unified. The Greeks looked for harm rather than aid from the westerners; and Palestine had changed from a land of opportunity which could be wrested from the Moslems to a loosely knit feudal kingdom as various in interests and alliances as its European prototypes and without the black-and-white view of Moslem-Christian relations entertained in the west. Thus the ill-informed crusaders were often disappointed and embittered by the confusing and contradictory conditions which they encountered; and they failed to unite under strong leadership or to bring their great coalitions to a successful outcome in the east or Pomerania. The conquests of the Second Crusade were Lisbon, Almeria, Tortosa, Lerida, and Fraga, far removed from the Palestinian theater and the central plans for the crusade. In the east the crusaders actually harmed the Latin states when the Moslems learned how easily their armies could be vanquished; and the friction between French and Germans, French and Greeks, Germans and Syrians, and newly-arrived crusaders and inhabitants of Outremer made cooperation on a grand scale impossible for a long time to come.

Like the First Crusade, the Second received its impetus from the east. As early as the summer of 1145 pilgrims and travelers coming home from Jerusalem had spread the sad news of the fall of Edessa in the preceding December, and the Armenian bishops who came shortly afterward to consult pope Eugenius about the possible union of the Roman and Armenian churches must have enlarged the pope's information about affairs in the east. In addition, messengers were sent west to appeal for help. We have no record of any from count Joscelin of Edessa; but Raymond of Antioch, the suzerain of Edessa and the Latin prince whose lands lay next in the path of the Moslems, apparently recognized that his troops and Joscelin's were not sufficient for the reconquest and asked for aid from the Franks or other parts of Europe. The Chronicle of Morigny speaks of emissaries from both Antioch and Jerusalem, "begging with supplication that the unconquerable force of the Franks should dispel the danger that had come and drive away future harm"; and Otto of Freising heard bishop Hugh of Jabala, a city in the principality of Antioch, at the papal curia in November 1145, "bewailing in tearful fashion the peril of the church beyond the sea after the capture of Edessa and on account of this wishing to cross the Alps to the king of the Romans and the Franks to stir up aid".

We do not know whether Hugh of Jabala made his journey to France and Germany, but his pleas and those of the Armenian bishops apparently helped to influence Eugenius III to call for a new crusade by issuing the bull Quantum praedecessores from Vetralla on December 1, 1145. The pope had been moved by the plight of Edessa. Like Urban, he also hoped that the crusade would further the union of the Christian churches. Although leaning heavily on the example of Urban and other popes, Eugenius's Quantum praedeccssores, the first crusading bull ever issued, is a virtual charter of the crusade rather than a letter or appeal and as such is of great importance not only to the Second Crusade but to those which followed. Addressing "his dear son Louis, the illustrious and glorious king of the Franks, and his cherished sons the princes and all the faithful living throughout Gaul", Eugenius recalled Urban's summons to the First Crusade, which resulted in the conquest of Jerusalem and other sites in the Holy Land and the retention of those places and additions to their number until the sins of the faithful had brought about the recent capture of Edessa; and he exhorted the Franks and Italians, and especially the powerful nobles among them, to emulate their fore­fathers and "gird themselves courageously to oppose the multitude of unbelievers which is rejoicing that it has obtained a victory over us, ... to defend the eastern church... to snatch from their hands the many thousands of captives who are our kinsmen". To those vowing to go on the crusade he promised remission of penance, protection of wives, children, and possessions, freedom from legal action from the time of taking the cross until their return or death, cancellation of the obligation to pay interest on debts, and permission to mortgage property in order to gain funds for the journey.

A strange silence concerning Quantum praedecessores follows. The next plan for succor of Edessa comes from another quarter—the Christmas court Louis VII of France held at Bourgcs a few weeks later. There the king "revealed for the first time to the bishops and magnates of the realm, whom he had purposely summoned in greater numbers than usual for his coronation, the secret in his heart" (i.e. his desire to go to the aid of the east) and Godfrey, bishop of Langres, gave an address "concerning the devastation of Edessa, the oppression of the Christians, and the arrogance of the heathen, and admonished all that together with their king they should fight for the King of all in order to succor the Christians." There is no allusion to the pope nor to a crusade, with its inducements of pardon and other privileges for those taking the crusading vow. Instead Odo of Deuil and Otto of Fraising seem to describe a desire for a military expedition to aid Edessa as an answer to the pleas from the east, similar in character to the forces raised by Hugh of Payens in 1129 for an attack on Damascus. To this plan the assembly did not respond favorably; and abbot Suger of St. Denis, the senior statesman of the court, openly opposed the king's participation- Finally Louis and his nobles agreed to meet again at Easter and meanwhile to ask the opinion of St. Bernard, "as if he were a divine oracle". This decision, too, suggests that the papal bull had not reached Louis; for if it had, a direct appeal to Eugenius would have been in order.

When consulted St. Bernard refused to make a decision, saying that such an important matter should be referred to the pope; and so an embassy went to Eugenius, and the early months of 1146 were given over to negotiations which can be considered the starting point of the actual organization of the Second Crusade. The pope granted Louis's wish to go to the east by enlisting the young king in the papal crusade. Since he was busy coping with the political situation in Rome, where Arnold of Brescia was fomenting discord against him, Eugenius authorized St. Bernard to preach the crusade in his place. On March 1, 1146, he reissued Quantum praedecessores to emphasize his guidance of the movement from its inception.

Despite this marked papal guidance, however, it is well to notice that without the support of Louis VII Quantum praedeceessores might have come to nothing. No popular response to the bull has been recorded. As we have seen, the French nobles at Bourges, who were most likely to offer aid to the east, were apathetic or opposed to such an expedition when first approached and apparently ignorant of the pope's wishes. Unlike the First Crusade this movement, then, was not entirely the work of the pope. Although Eugenius alone could establish it as a crusade, Louis's initial persistence in desiring to aid the east and Bernard's inspired preaching made the crusade an actuality.

At Vézclay on March 31 Louis met again with his court, fortified by the pope's approval and three months of preparation, which were far more effective than the sudden revelation of his project at Bourges. Since there was no building large enough to contain the crowd, the assembly met in the fields. Wearing the cross sent him by the pope, Louis accompanied St. Bernard onto the platform. The abbot of Clairvaux read the papal bull and delivered an eloquent address. Immediately the audience responded with fervor and cried out for crosses until Bernard had exhausted his supply and had to rip pieces of cloth from his own garments in order to satisfy the demands. Among those who enrolled were Louis's queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine, a niece of Raymond of Antioch; the bishops of Noyon, Langres, and Lisieux; Thierry of Alsace, count of Flanders, a kinsman of the king of Jerusalem; Henry, son of count-palatine Theobald of Blois; Robert count of Perche and Dreux, Louis's brother; count Alfonso Jordan of Toulouse, son of Raymond, who had led an army on the First Crusade; the counts of Nevers, Tonnerre, Bourbon, Soissons, and Ponthieu; William of Warenne, earl of Surrey; barons like Enguerrand of Coucy, Geoffrey of Rancon, Hugh of Lusignan, and William of Courtenay; Everard of Barres, later grand master of the Temple, with a group of Templars; many other nobles and knights and throngs of lesser folk. Recruiting had begun most successfully.

Before leaving Vézelay the leaders decided that they must have a year for preparation before the crusade could depart. Since it was necessary to enter into diplomatic negotiations with the rulers of the countries through which the crusaders might pass on their way to Anatolia, Louis VII wrote to Roger of Sicily, the Byzantine emperor Manuel, Conrad of Germany, and Géza of Hungary describing the plans for the large army of crusaders being recruited and asking for the privilege of securing food supplies and free passage through their lands. The pope also wrote to Manuel (and most likely to the other rulers involved) announcing the expedition and its purpose. Favorable replies were not slow in coming. Conrad and Géza assented. Roger sent Louis an embassy "which pledged his realm as to food supplies and transportation by water and every other need and promised that he or his son would go along on the journey." These promises were very attractive because they held out the possibility of avoiding the difficult overland ronte. Furthermore, Roger had been successful in expeditions against the Arabs in North Africa and knew the ways of the Moslems. Yet Roger's great political ambitions made an alliance with him a delicate matter. As pretender to the throne of Antioch he was the enemy of Raymond, queen Eleanor's uncle, who had solicited aid for Edessa, while the expansion of his power in the so-called kingdom of Sicily had alienated his interests from those of Conrad, the pope, and Manuel.

Manuel's reply was a partial answer, more cautious in essence than Roger's. While he indicated willingness to assist the crusaders in preparation of the route, crossing over to Asia Minor, and market privileges, he had detained two Templars from the embassy while he prepared a more detailed answer, "since the matter is great and demands consideration". Recalling the throng of soldiers who came to Constantinople during the First Crusade and the agreements which Alexius had exacted then, Manuel wanted time to draw up the conditions on which he would fulfil Louis's requests. He also held out some hope that he would join in the fight against the Turks, since they had been the aggressors at Edessa. Manuel wrote to Eugenius, too, saying that he would consent to receive the crusaders well, but wanted them to agree to honor him "just as the Franks who formerly came honored my famous grandfather", that is, by taking an oath of homage to him; and he asked Eugenius to strive for this and to write to him again.

In other words, the Greeks, too, wanted to profit from their experiences in the First Crusade and in 1101 and to control the movements of the crusaders while they were in the Byzantine empire. The situation of the Greeks had altered greatly, to the disadvantage of the crusaders. At the time of the First Crusade Alexius had asked for help from the west to start an offensive against the Turks, who had been turned back from Constantinople only recently and still occupied land formerly held by the Byzantine empire. Manuel had made no such appeal. In 1146 the Greeks did not dread the Moslems nor see such a pressing need to regain lost territory, since the First Crusade had helped to re­establish them in some of their territories in Asia Minor and had created the Latin states which served as buffers between the Greeks and Moslems. Talk of a new crusade revived memories of previous armies from the west and made the Greeks fear that the crusaders would turn their attack against Constantinople as Bohemond had done in 1107. Furthermore, the appeal for the crusade had stemmed in part from Raymond of Antioch and was suspect to Manuel as a device to strengthen Raymond until he would not need Byzantine help and could put the Greek protectorate over northern Syria into question once more. Louis and his advisors apparently did not sense these ramifications. They saw only that Manuel had expressed willingness to help them.

In addition to the negotiations with foreign rulers, undertaken together with the pope, Louis had many domestic matters to look after. He needed to raise money to maintain himself and his followers during the crusade. The pope had authorized the crusaders to cease paying interest on debts and to mortgage their property to gain funds for the journey. The king needed additional resources and apparently employed something like a forced loan or an extension of the feudal aids to collect considerable sums of money before he left. The details and nature of the levy are not clear from the evidence at hand, but it may have foreshadowed the famous Saladin Tithe of the Third Crusade.

While the pope and the king of France were looking after the ways and means of the crusade, Bernard plunged at once into additional recruiting by letter and by word of mouth. Eloquently he pictured the Turkish conquest of Edessa as the prelude to an attack on Jerusalem and the very shrine of the Christian religion unless his hearers worked to prevent it. "What are you brave men doing? What are you servants of the cross doing? Will you thus give a holy place to dogs and pearls to swine?" he demanded. Declaring that God was making a trial of the Christians and giving them an opportunity for salvation in his service, Bernard exhorted his audience to receive the blessed arms of the Christian zealously.

Wherever St. Bernard went he excited great reverence because of his impassioned preaching and the many miracles of healing which he performed. Everywhere, too, his preaching and letters were accompanied by the papal bull, with its official appeals and promises. The combination of the pontifical appeal and the inspired preacher was extremely successful. Bernard was soon able to write to Eugenius: "You have commanded and I have obeyed, and the authority of him who gives the command has made my obedience fruitful; whenever I have announced and spoken of the crusade, the crusaders have been multiplied beyond number. Cities and castles are emptied..."

Unfortunately news soon came of uprisings stirred against the Jews by the unauthorized preaching of the crusade in northern France around Sully and Carentan by a Cistercian monk named Radulf. As in the First Crusade it had proved all too easy to heighten the propaganda for fighting the enemies of the Holy Land in Palestine to include the Jews and then to encourage persecution of the Jews close at hand. Anti-Semitic feeling in France was widespread, but St. Bernard set himself against this sentiment and sent a message to northern France asking the inhabitants to follow the teachings of Christ and abstain from persecution. When his letter went unheeded, Bernard set out for northern France and Flanders, intent on preaching the crusade there and utilizing the excitement aroused by Radulf for more orderly preparations. But at the same time he continued to widen the scope of the entire movement by letter, sending one to Manfred of Brescia in mid­summer and another soon after to England, where the Flemish enthusiasm for the crusade had spread.0

St. Bernards journey to the north was highly successful. Radulf fled before him, and countless numbers were enrolled in the crusade. On his return, however, Bernard again received complaints about Radulf, this time from the archbishop of Mainz. Escaping Bernard's orbit, the monk had gone into Germany in August to continue his inflammatory preaching and to arouse the people of Cologne, Mainz, Worms, and Speyer against the Jews. Once more Bernard attempted to quell Radulf by a letter of condemnation to be read in public. When this made little impression the abbot of Clairvaux widened the scope of his enlistment by writing directly to the affected groups in Speyer and Cologne in an effort to incorporate them into an orderly and useful army. Complimenting them on their zeal for the work of God, he called on them to abjure their private wars and the persecutions of the Jews in order to take the cross and participate in the spiritual rewards of the army of Christ. With his customary desire for an orderly expedition, he recalled Peter the Hermit and his ill-fated army as a horrible example and told the Germans not to listen to unauthorized preachers, not to set out before the main army was ready to go, and not to choose leaders unless they were experienced military men who could keep the army strong and well-disciplined.

Letters, however, continued to be less effective than Radulf's fiery harangues. In late October St. Bernard went to Germany to preach the crusade in person and to stop Radulf's activities once and for all. As enrollment in the crusade had spread, St. Bernard's ideas of its scope had widened, too, and while following and encouraging the popular demand he apparently began to hope to unite all Christendom against the Moslems. Hence, after encountering Radulf in Mainz and sending him back to the cloister, Bernard went on to Worms and other cities, arriving at the end of November in Frankfurt, where Conrad III of Germany was holding court. Ostensibly he came to discuss a truce between Albero of Trier and Henry of Namur with a view to their participation in the crusade; but he was also eager to enlist Conrad, since in Bernard's expanding plans the emperor was the logical strong leader for the Germans then being recruited. Conrad refused. Momentarily discouraged, Bernard thought of returning to Clairvaux and the French phase of the crusade, but the bishop of Constance prevailed upon him to preach the crusade to the Swiss, a course approved by the other bishops and by Conrad, who was not hostile to the idea of raising recruits in German territory.

Accordingly, St. Bernard set out on still another journey for the crusade. Although he had to speak through an interpreter, people flocked to hear him wherever he went, eager to witness the miracles which he performed and to join the crusade he advocated. While in Constance he was near the south German seat of the Welfs and apparently made his influence felt in the Welf circle through the medium of count Conrad of Zähringen. Fresh from these new achievements Bernard returned to Speyer on December 24 and after several days succeeded in gaining Conrad's promise that he would consult his nobles about the advisability of his going on crusade. Bernard saw that Conrad showed signs of weakening. At the daily mass held for the court the abbot unexpectedly insisted on preaching a sermon and directed his closing remarks to Conrad, not as a king but as a man. Dramatically he pictured Conrad standing before Christ to be judged and Christ saying, "O man, what is there that I should have done for you and did not do?". During the enumeration of kingship, wealth, wisdom, active courage, and bodily strength which Conrad possessed, the emperor cried out in acknowledgment of the divine gifts which he had received and in revulsion from his own ingratitude, "I am ready to serve Him". Those present also called out in witness of the glory of God, and Bernard received Conrad as a crusader and gave him the banner from the altar for his use in the army of God. Frederick of Swabia, Conrad's nephew, and countless others of all ranks enrolled in the army.

When Conrad took the cross Bernard felt that his dearest wish concerning the preaching of the crusade had been accomplished. He called it "the miracle of miracles". Certainly it was a turning point; the crusade was no longer a French expedition under Louis, with auxiliary forces from Italy, Britain, and other parts of the west, but a joint movement on the part of the two mightiest sovereigns of Europe. In magnitude it had far surpassed the original request for aid and the plans which Eugenius and Louis had formed. St. Bernard had inspired such enthusiasm as had not been felt since the First Crusade and had raised it to such a pitch that it seemed as if most of Europe would be affected; but he had also enlisted two princes whose royal rank and conflicting diplomatic interests were to weaken the papal dream of strong leadership.

Eugenius did not share St. Bernard's extreme enthusiasm for Conrad's decision. He apparently had not thought that the emperor would go to the east and had hoped that Conrad would soon help to establish him in Rome. The news overtook him in northern Italy, where he was preaching the crusade before going to France to participate in the final plans before the crusaders departed. For nearly two months he delayed answering Conrad and concentrated on the Italian aspects of the crusade, which also had expanded and taken a different turn. Recruiting for the Palestinian crusade had been relatively slow there, even though Eugenius had sent a special bull in the previous October exhorting the clergy to recruit their parishioners. The colonies in Syria and Palestine seemed to have lost some of their importance to commercial cities like Genoa and Pisa, partly because the second generation of crusaders showed much less friendliness to them than the first generation had done and partly because of similar opportunities closer home. Hence interest had shifted to another sector of the battle against the Moslems: Spain and North Africa.

Sometime after the launching of the crusade at Vézelay, however, Eugenius had received and granted a request from Alfonso VII, king of Castile, for an extension of the crusaders' indulgence to Spaniards undertaking a campaign against the Moslems in their part of the world. In so doing the pope had followed the example of his predecessors. When the First Crusade began to draw knights from the "holy war" in Spain, Urban had pressed them not to abandon their enterprise at home, since it was as meritorious as the Palestinian crusade, by promising them indulgences and participation in life eternal; and Paschal II, a former legate in Spain, wrote in 1101 a letter to Castile, saying, "Do not abandon the war against the Moors to go to the east; go back home, and in combat there you will accomplish your penance." Thus Spain became the first country in Europe to keep knights at home to combat the Moslem instead of joining the great crusades to the east.

In 1146-1147 the Spaniards were not the only ones involved in this new development of the Second Crusade. The pope permitted the Genoese to join the campaign in Spain, and forces from the sea-faring towns of southern France were also to make up part of the expedition. During the early part of 1147 the pope worked to establish peace in Tuscany, so that the crusaders could rely on the support of the Pisan fleet. By no means all his efforts, however, were directed towards the Spanish phase of the crusade. Most out­standing of those whom Eugenius enrolled in the Palestinian crusade at this time was count Amadeo III of Savoy and Maurienne, who was to be the leader of the Lombard pilgrims.

At last the pope wrote to Conrad reproaching him for undertaking such a great project as the crusade without papal advice and warned and exhorted him to make careful plans for the regulation of his realm daring the crusade. He must have pointed out Conrad's unstable position in Germany and Italy and expressed the fear that a long absence during his son's minority would weaken that position still further; but Cosack's theory that the pope urged Conrad to set aside his crusading oath does not seem tenable.

In the same period St, Bernard was spurred on to even greater activity as the time for the departure of the crusading armies drew near. Instead of going directly from Speyer to France he went via Cologne, preaching the crusade along the lower Rhine. On February 2 he arrived at Chalons-sur-Marne, where Louis VII was conducting interviews with French and German nobles and messengers from Conrad and Welf. For two days they discussed the conduct of the crusade. It was a time for pooling information, drafting final arrangements, and altering the general plan of the crusade to accommodate the participation of Conrad and others recruited during Bernard's absence in Germany and Switzerland. One of the main problems discussed must have been the route or routes which the armies would follow. Since Conrad and Roger of Sicily were enemies, the German army never considered going to the east via Sicily, and so had already decided on the land route through Hungary and the Balkan peninsula. Now the French and their allies had to decide whether to follow the same plan or to strike out independently. It was necessary also to consider the business to be introduced at the general meeting to be held at Etampes in two weeks, the choice of regents for the realm, and a change in the date of departure so that the French and German armies would not overlap during the journey and overtax the provisions and other facilities available. Conrad's messengers must have received information as to the present state of affairs and an indication of what remained to be done in the next few months.

The large general meeting of the French crusaders and magnates took place at Etampes on February 16, 1147. They heard St. Bernard's report on the splendid progress of enrollment in the crusade and then turned their attention to the letters and envoys from different countries involved in the expedition or from those guaranteeing passage and markets for the crusaders. Next they chose the route which Louis's army would follow. There can be no doubt that the debate was long and heated. Among the French there was a party, including Godfrey of Langres, with strong sympathy for Roger of Sicily and a distrust of the Greeks which had been fostered either by experience in the east or by reading prejudicial accounts of the First Crusade and the period since then. To them the sea route seemed far preferable; but Conrad's example and the tradition of Godfrey of Bouillon's army carried the day. At this the disappointed Sicilian envoys departed with dire predictions about the future, and there was no further talk of Roger or his son participating in the crusade. Finally the assembly chose Suger and count William of Nevers as regents during the king's absence and decided to postpone their departure from Easter to June 15.

After Etampes St, Bernard had to attend another important meeting, the great assembly at Frankfurt on March 13. Busy with affairs at Chalons and Etampes, he had not been able to attend the court Conrad had held at Regensburg a month earlier and hence had entrusted the preaching of the crusade there to the Cistercian abbot, Adam of Ebrach. After reading the papal bull and Bernard's letter to the East Franks and Bavarians, Adam had signed a multitude of crusaders ranging in rank from Conrad's half-brother, bishop Otto of Freising, to a vast crowd of robbers who had repented of their sins. Despite the huge numbers already enlisted further efforts were still being made. To bishop Henry of Olmütz, who took the cross at that time, were probably entrusted a copy of the papal bull and Bernard's recruiting letter addressed to Vladislav of Poland, couched in the usual terms and pointing out that a large army of the Lord which was going to set out at Easter planned to pass through Hungary.

As at Etampes the assembly at Frankfurt had much business to settle. The pope's exhortations for the security of the realm and whatever advice he offered may have had some influence on Conrad when he received them during the diet. Certainly he, too, wanted to leave the empire in as strong a position as possible. Peace was ordained and confirmed mutually through all the empire, and Conrad's ten-year-old son was elected and acclaimed king and successor to his father, with the archbishop of Mainz as his guardian and regent and Wibald of Stavelot (later of Corvey) as another guardian. Messengers from Louis were present to preserve the rapport between the two kings. The route through Hungary was announced. Also the German crusaders set mid-May as the date of their departure, so that they could precede the French army by several weeks on the overland march and join forces only at Constantinople.

Once again events took an entirely new turn. A portion of the crusaders, composed mainly of Saxons, declared that they wanted to go on crusade against their pagan Slavic neighbors east of the Elbe rather than against the Moslems in Palestine. The circumstances of the movement are not at all clear, but it appears to have been of popular origin (though not from the actual border country) and to have been countenanced by St. Bernard as analogous to the Spanish part of the crusade which had already been authorized by the pope. A special sign, the cross on the orb, was selected for this Wendish crusade and the feast of Saints Peter and Paul indicated as the date for the participants to set out from Magdeburg. Many joined at once.

Conrad's envoys to Eugenius, the bishops of Worms and Havelberg and abbot Wibald, left the diet to meet the pope at Dijon on March 30 and probably acquainted the pontiff with the situation. Those conversations and a meeting with St. Bernard at Clairvaux a week later apparently satisfied the pope in regard to the Wendish crusade. His bull Divini dispensatione issued on April 13, established the expedition as a crusade coexisting with the Palestinian and Spanish ones. He granted the crusaders' indulgence to participants if they had not enrolled in the Jerusalem crusade previously, if they retained their devout purpose throughout, and if they did not allow the Wends to buy their freedom from conversion. Conversion or destruction was to be the watchword. As papal legate he designated Anselm of Havelberg, one of the messengers whom Conrad had sent from Frankfurt.

Although friendly relations now existed between him and Conrad, Eugenius did not go to Strasburg to confer on German matters. Instead he went to Paris with Louis and helped to convince Suger that he should overcome his reluctance to act as regent of the kingdom, then celebrated Easter at St. Denis, and took pan in much of the business relating to the final arrangements for the crusade. At this time the pope received a second letter and embassy from Manuel, embodying the emperor's considered conclusions concerning the passage of the French army through his realm. He indicated that the routes and supplies requested had been readied for the French, but that Louis and his magnates for their part would have to guarantee not to harm the Byzantine empire in any way during their passage and would have to promise to return to the Byzantines any cities captured from the Turks which had originally belonged to the empire. This latter provision was further defined by a list of cities involved, which had been sent along with the messengers. Manuel asked the pope for cooperation in inducing Louis to agree to these provisions. To show his assent Eugenius was to send a cardinal with the French army and some other sign which would be unmistakable to the French, and by these means to restrain irresponsible members of the army from harming Byzantine territory. Finally Manuel asked for more news from the pope and touched on the attractive possibility of union between the papacy and the eastern church.

Eugenius did appoint cardinals as legates to accompany the two main armies to Palestine. They were probably chosen before Manuel's letter arrived; Eugenius had already designated a legate for the Wendish crusade in April and would not have neglected the opportunity of doing likewise for the longer established Palestinian expeditions. He chose two of the most illustrious members of his curia as his representatives: Theodwin, cardinal-bishop of Porto, to accompany the Germans, and Guido of Florence, the cardinal-priest of San Chrysogono, to go with the French. Eugenius envisaged their powers on a grand scale; they were to keep the sovereigns in peace and amity and to provide for their well-being in both spiritual and temporal matters. Without doubt the cardinal Guido was told of the pope's correspondence with Manuel and urged to preserve the peace between the Greeks and the westerners. In addition the pope later named bishop Henry of Olmütz as a special legate to aid and advise the cardinals and to work particularly for the union of the churches. This proved impossible, however, because the bishop had decided to join the Wendish crusade instead. Even so the crusading army was rich in ecclesiastics of official position, since Arnulf of Lisieux and Godfrey of Langres claimed legatine authority over the Anglo-Norman and French contingents respectively. Although their position was nominally subordinate to that of the cardinal legates, the two bishops, who were very uhlike in temperament and sympathies, were more suited to dissipate the unity of the legatine authority than to augment it."

Almost all Europe was now engaged in last-minute preparations for the crusade. In France and Germany crusaders from all parts of the west had been gathering since February and March. The Castilian king and his allies were preparing to attack the Moslem town of Almeria. Recruiting for the expedition against the Wends continued; both Bernard's letter and the papal bull were sent to Moravia, and the papal legate Hubald carried the bull to Denmark, with the result that the Danes who might have taken an active part in the eastern crusade found this an easy and accessible way to accomplish their vows and expiate their crimes.

On April 27 the first party of crusaders had begun their journey. Men from Flanders, Frisia, Normandy, and Cologne set out for England, where they were joined by Scottish and English crusaders. In general these were sea-faring men, accustomed to dealing with other lands in their voyages. No princely leader directed the expedition; but before they left Dartmouth on May 19, they had set up a very strict code of behavior, which has been recorded by the author of De expugnatione Lyxbonensi as follows: "Among these people of so many different tongues the firmest guarantees of peaces and friendship were taken; and furthermore, they sanctioned very strict laws, as, for example, a life for a life and a tooth for a tooth. They forbade all display of costly garments. Also they ordained that women should not go out in public; that the peace must be kept by all, unless they ahould suffer injuries recognized by the proclamation; that weekly chapters should be held by the laity and the clergy separately unless some great emergency should require their meeting together; that each ship should have its own priest and keep the same observances as are prescribed for parishes; that no one retain the seaman or the servant of another in his employ; that everyone make weekly confession and communicate on Sunday; and so on through the rest of the obligatory articles with separate sanctions for each. Furthermore they constituted for every thousand of the forces two elected members who were to be called judges or coniuraty through whom the cases of the constables were to be settled in accordance with the proclamation and by whom the distribution of moneys was to be carried out."

After suffering stormy weather in the first part of the voyage they proceeded along the north coasts of Spain and Portugal and arrived at Oporto on June 16. There they were met by the bishop of the city, who explained that his sovereign, Alfonso I of Portugal, was warring against the Moors and had succeeded in capturing the city of Santarem three months before; and that when he had heard that the crusaders were coming by sea he went further south to besiege Lisbon, leaving the bishop of Oporto to welcome the crusaders and to induce them to help in the siege. Reaction to this proposal was mixed. Since the struggle against the Saracens in Portugal was not part of the crusade on which they were bound, some thought that they should not interrupt their journey to the Holy Land for this enterprise; but since they would be combating the Moors at Lisbon, too, and would also replenish their coffers with booty and ransom, they finally decided to go to Lisbon and negotiate with the king. There they agreed to take part in Alfonso's plans, with the understanding that they would have the right of plundering and that the plundered city would then belong to the king. Operations began July 1; and shortly afterwards the attacking army gained control of the suburbs outside the city and set up the siege. The crusaders suffered several setbacks when the Moslems destroyed their siege machinery, but the city had great difficulty in gaining supplies and was not able to secure aid from neighboring Moorish chiefs. At last the walls were breached, and on October 24, 1147, the city capitulated. The crusaders realized their hope of rich booty; then Alfonso occupied Lisbon and the neighboring castles of Cintra and Palmela. An Englishman, Gilbert of Hastings, was made bishop and some others of the men decided to remain as settlers. Most of those on the expedition, however, were to spend the winter only and to leave for the east on February 1. With the conquest of Lisbon they had already attained the high point of their expedition and had made one of the few territorial acquisitions of the Second Crusade.

By a coincidence the Spanish crusaders, who were entirely separate from the Portuguese in their efforts against the Moslems, succeeded in capturing Almeria on October 17, just a week before Lisbon fell. In this enterprise the Genoese took the main initiative. Alfonso of Castile and Raymond Berengar of Aragon-Catalonia directed soldiers from Christian Spain, and boats and troops from the ports of Languedoc fought under the leadership of count William of Montpellier. At the end of the following year Raymond Berengar, William of Montpellier, the Genoese, Narbonnese, and Bérarnaise went on to capture Tortosa; and in 1149 they consolidated this victory by gaining possession of Fraga and Lerida, the last remnants of Moslem domination in Catalonia.

In the middle of May, while the Lisbon crusaders were getting under way, Conrad of Germany began his journey to the east as the commander of a far more heterogeneous army, composed mainly of Franconians, Bavarians, and Swabians in such great numbers that the rivers and surrounding countryside could hardly accomodate them. The German crusaders ranged from bishops, princes, and magnates advancing with fully equipped troops to include at the other extreme not only those with no equipment or money and no realization of the implication of the long, hard journey, but also the robbers and other criminals whose enlistment had been hailed as a special sign of divine grace. Problems of discipline, maintenance, and provisioning must have been inherent in such a huge and loosely-knit group from the beginning; but they were not yet critical.

The German crusaders went from Nuremberg to Regensburg. There the emperor paused to negotiate a truce with king Géza of Hungary, who had defeated the Germans at the battle of Leitha the year before and who now feared that Conrad and his army might retaliate and succeed in placing the pretender Boris on the Hungarian throne. During the last week in May the crusaders went to Ardagger and thence to Vienna where more crusaders, including Ottokar of Styria, joined the army, and negotiations with Géza were continued. The Hungarian king finally agreed to allow the huge army to pass through his realm and to pay Conrad a large sum of money levied from the Hungarian church in order to guarantee that the passage of the army would be peaceful. Soon after the middle of June the crusaders crossed the border and entered Hungary in martial array, as if it were an enemy land; they managed to observe the terms of the truce, however, and without untoward incident arrived around July 20 at Branits on the Bulgarian border, where the ancient road to Constantinople begins. Apparently a few Hungarian crusaders had joined the army during its transit.

The emperor Manuel had been alarmed by the news of Conrad's participation in the crusade and had apparently thought that it might indicate a shift away from the German-Byzantine alliance against Roger to a concentration of the forces of western Europe against Constantinople. He had therefore taken the precaution of strengthening the fortifications of Constantinople and equipping and readying his home troops, some of whom were detailed to remain in the city and others to follow the Germans in order to insure that they should pass through the Byzantine realm peacefully. In addition he sought to maintain diplomatic relations with the leaders of the crusading armies. Here at the entrance to Byzantine territory two Greek messengers came to Conrad bringing greetings from Manuel and seeking to ascertain the German emperor's intentions. They said that the Germans could not traverse the Byzantine empire unless they swore not to injure the emperor's interests in any way; whereupon the chief nobles in the army swore that they had not entered Byzantine territory to injure the Greeks, but were going to tight the Turks in Anatolia. Satisfied with this assurance, the ambassadors promised to furnish provisions during the passage of the army. The crusaders then took the highway along the Morava to Nish and Sofia, which led through difficult mountainous terrain. At both cities they were treated well and received ample provisions; and the Greeks had no serious complaint to make against the Germans. When they reached the richer land around Philippopolis, however, relations became more strained. There were instances of plundering, of rough treatment of the people bringing provisions to the camp, and even of armed conflict between the rear guard and the natives. Conrad appeared neither willing nor able to enforce discipline in these matters, a circumstance not entirely surprising when one remembers the miscellaneous character of his army and the long march which it had already accomplished without any major incidents like the fighting around Belgrade in the First Crusade. A Byzantine force under general Prosouch, however, followed the Germans at a little distance, quashing the inroads of stragglers and, when the raiders were unusually fierce, coming into more open conflict for a short time near Philippopolis.

Sometimes, as at Adrianople, Greek elements were guilty of breaking the peace. Perhaps because of his experience of disorders around Philippopolis, Conrad did not stop at Adrianople, but led his army on beyond. Unfortunately, a relative who remained in the city because of illness was killed by Greek marauders and the inn where he was lodging burned and looted. The emperor's nephew, Frederick (later Frederick I), returned to avenge the incident by burning a monastery in which the sick man had lodged, capturing and killing some men, and searching for the lost money. Open warfare seemed sure to result, but Prosouch and others managed to make peace.

Aware of the tension between the crusaders and his people and still fearful for the safety of his capital, Manuel asked Conrad to cross the Dardanelles at Sestus rather than the Bosporus at Constantinople. To this route, which was actually more direct and favorable than the one he chose, Conrad would not agree, perhaps because he did not care to have Manuel dictate his route or because he had agreed to meet Louis at Constantinople or because the armies of the First Crusade had not gone that way. It remained for Frederick I to make use of the route through Sestus during the Third Crusade. Conrad and his army continued according to their original plan, and Manuel went on strengthening his capital and sent additional forces to police the Germans on their journey.

Nature administered the next rebuff to the crusaders. On September 8 the German army encamped in a pleasant meadow called the plain of the Chocrobacchi, which was watered by the Melas river. During the night the river became swollen with torrential rains and swept away many men and animals and much equipment in a flash flood. The crusaders were stricken by the thought that this was a sign of divine disapprobation and were full of sorrow when they viewed the wreckage. Again Manuel sent messages, of comfort this time and inviting the German sovereign to a conference. Conrad seems to have refused unless the emperor would come to meet him as he approached the city, and so the negotiations were abandoned.

By September 10 the Germans were before Constantinople. During the rest of the month they remained outside the city, first at the inclosure known as the Philopatium, which is on the land side, and then in the suburb of Pera, from which they crossed the Bosporus. Although the rulers did not meet, and the crusaders were not allowed inside the city, the army took the opportunity to rest from the long march. Some looting and reprisals took place, and there is a tradition that Conrad observed the defenses of the city with interest and threatened to return and invest the city in the following year. Actually negotiations were never broken off entirely, partly perhaps because of the good offices of Manuel's empress, Bertha of Sulzbach, who was Conrad's sister-in-law. The army was furnished with supplies, and Manuel pressed Conrad to cross over into Asia Minor. He also seems to have suggested some interchange of forces, with the idea of giving Conrad the support of some Greek troops in Asia Minor if the German commander would leave part of his army in Constantinople for Manuel' use.

At that time Roger of Sicily, who had been their common enemy for a long time, was attacking the Byzantine empire. Aftet Roger withdrew from the crusade at Etampes, he decided that the time was propitious for him to attack the Byzantine empire and establish himself more firmly in southern Italy, since Conrad and Manuel were both occupied. He alleged that Manuel had insulted him by refusing to allow his son to marry Manuel's daughter. Corfu and Cephalonia fell to Roger; and he plundered Corinth, Thebes, Euboea, and possibly Athens. Manuel had to call in the Venetians as allies and probably would have used the German reinforcements, too, against Roger or a possible coalition between Roger and the French. Conrad would not agree with this plan, but finally decided to go on to Asia Minor without waiting for Louis. When he crossed at the end of September, he and his army received gifts from Manuel. At the same time the Lorrainers, who had preceded the main part of the French army, were forced to cross, too, and they waited for their comrades on the shore of Asia Minor. But Conrad had had enough of waiting. He and his army pressed on, eager to arrive before Edessa and begin the conflict.

The French Crusaders

Metz had been chosen as the assembly point for the French army. The large army gathering there in June included Lotharingian crusaders under Stephen of Metz and Henry of Toul, Thierry of Alsace, count of Flanders, Reginald of Bar, and Hugh of Vaudemont. From northern Italy came the rulers of Savoy and Montferrat. There were contingents from Brittany, Burgundy, central France, and Lorraine, and, of course, Eleanor's men from Poitou and Aquitaine. The large band from Provence, however, did not go at this time. They could afford to wait until August, since they had chosen the sea route which would be less time-consuming. They sailed from the mouth of the Rhone under the aegis of Alfonso Jordan, the count of Toulouse, bearer of the proud crusading name of St- Gilles.

At this time Louis enacted laws necessary for securing peace and maintaining discipline in the army, probably similar to those agreed upon by the Lisbon crusaders; and the leaders of the various parts of the army confirmed these by solemn oath. Also he dispatched the bishop of Arras and the abbot of St. Bertin to Worms to prepare a fleet to take the crusaders across the Rhine at that point. On June 29 Louis and his army arrived in Worms, were honorably received, and crossed the river safely. They encamped on the other side to await the arrival of bishop Arnulf of Lisieux and his Norman and English troops and sent men on to Regensburg to meet the Greek messengers who had been expecting the king for a long time. While here some friction and altercations arose between the crusaders and the citizens of Worms who were looking after the provisions. Prices soared. Because of this and the congestion in the army, the counts of Auvergne and Savoy and the marquis of Montferrat decided to leave the main group and take their troops through the Alps to Apulia and thence across to Constantinople.

At Regensburg the army crossed the Danube on a new bridge and found a fleet prepared to carry their baggage and many of the people as far as Bulgaria. Louis gave audience to the Byzantine ambassadors, who delivered letters from Manuel. Conciliatory in the main and seeking to secure the good will of the crusaders, the letters contained two important stipulations which Manuel had already revealed to the pope but does not seem to have included in the German negotiations: namely, that the king should not seize any city or stronghold in Manuel's realm and that if he drove the Turks from any place in Anatolia which had belonged to Byzantium, that place should be restored to Manuel. These stipulations the nobles were to confirm by oath. At once a great discussion arose. The nobles were willing to endorse the first clause but could not agree about the second, even though the messengers resorted to threats, saying that the emperor would destroy the supplies gathered for them if they delayed much longer, since he would consider their hesitation a sign of hostility. Even so the crusaders refused to comply. The presence of an anti-Greek party, including Godfrey of Langres and Louis's brother, Robert of Perche, made itself felt, but at last a compromise was reached. Some of the leaders swore on behalf of the king to guarantee the security of the Greek realm, and the ambassadors confirmed the promise of a sufficient market, suitable exchange, and other necessary privileges. Consideration of the much-debated provision about restoration of conquered lands to the emperor was postponed until Louis and Manuel could meet together. One of the messengers took the news to Constantinople at once; the other accompanied the French army until legates had been selected to go with him to the Byzantine capital ahead of the main army and prepare for the negotiations with Manuel.

The French followed the route of the German army along the Danube to Passau and then to Vienna and the Hungarian border without outstanding incident. They continued to use the bridges which Conrad had built and were well received at the principal cities. In the more mountainous, wooded, and often swampy country of Hungary the going was harder; but as the result of early negotiations between Louis and king Géza the army received ample supplies. The relationship between the two sovereigns was far more amicable than the armed neutrality which Conrad and Géza had observed. They met together, established a common peace, and provided that French pilgrims could pass through Hungary in safety in the future; and Géza presented Louis with horses, vessels, and garments. Relations were impaired, however, when Géza discovered that the pretender Boris had secretly joined the French army, and Louis refused to hand him over because Boris had sought asylum with him. The Hungarian king therefore withdraw to a part of his kingdom which did not lie along the crusaders' route, and the army continued peaceably as far as the Bulgarian border, and there stocked up on provisions, supplied in great part by the Hungarians, before undertaking the passage of the difficult western part of that country.

From the first the French crusaders were not satisfied with the rate of exchange the Greeks offered them, and they had to suffer from the antagonism which the passage of the German army had kindled in the inhabitants, Louis, however, worked to disperse misunderstandings. He was aided by Michael Branas, the duke of Sofia, who had been appointed to accompany him through the Balkan peninsula and who established peace with the inhabitants along the route and helped to procure markets. Louis shared the provisions thus obtained with rich and poor alike in his army, and so it was possible for him to maintain peace more easily than for the commanders of troops who had less prestige and less money to insure the provisioning of their followers and had to resort to plundering when the markets were not sufficient. The drain even on the royal treasury was great; from the edge of Hungary and at many later points Louis had to write urgently to Suger for additional funds to cover his heavy daily expenses.

In addition to the problems of Greek-French relations, there were also some altercations between the advance part of the French army and the rear of the German army as to who should secure supplies at the Greek markets. The French army had traveled at a faster rate than the Germans, who had set out a month earlier, and so the advance party of Lorrainers was in Constantinople by mid-September while Louis, going more slowly, was still in Philippopolis. During the journey across Bulgaria Louis received no news from the ambassadors whom he had sent to Constantinople, but he had many reassuring messages from Manuel and his empress. Again the Greeks urged the crusaders to by-pass Constantinople by taking the road from Adrianople to Sestus, and like Conrad, Louis refused to fall in with this plan.

When a day away from Constantinople, Louis at last met his messengers. They brought the disquieting news that, contrary to their original plan, Conrad had crossed the Bosporus without waiting for the French and that the Lorrainers had been forced to accompany him. In addition some members of the French army who had reached Constantinople in September and refused to cross over had been attacked by Byzantine mercenaries; and they had been rescued from this dilemma only by the intercession of the French envoys. To these indications of haste and lack of cooper­ation on the part of the Germans and coercion on the part of the Greeks was added the news that Manuel had concluded a treaty with the Selchukid sultan of Iconium (Konya). Such an action was not comprehensible to the French. They remembered Manuel's writing to Louis that although the Greeks had been more or less at peace with the Turks, the capture of Edessa broke the peace, and so influenced Manuel to collect an army to go against them. Since then, however, Manuel's attitude had changed. He had been frightened by the great increase in the crusading forces and by the participation of the German emperor; he had become aware of the strong preparations embarked upon by the sultan of Iconium; and he had experienced western hostility in the form of Roger's attacks.

On hearing of the Turkish alliance the anti-Greek party in the army advised the king along the very lines which Manuel feared; to retreat and capture a foothold in the rich and populous countryside through which they had just passed, and then with the aid of Roger and his fleet to attack Constantinople. This advice did not prevail, however; the king and his army followed their original plan and arrived at Constantinople on October 4. Unlike their reception of Conrad the Greeks gave Louis a splendid welcome and conducted him to an audience with Manuel in the imperial palace. There the two sovereigns discussed the crusaders' plans in a friendly fashion, and the emperor promised to give whatever aid he could. Louis and his retinue were housed in the Philopatium, as the Germans had been; but in contrast to his cool treatment of Conrad, Manuel spared no pains in entertaining Louis and conducted him on a tour of the famous shrines of the city, invited him to a fabulous banquet, and sent a group of special clergy to celebrate the feast of St. Denis in Louis's presence. Meanwhile the army camped outside the city, whose gates were closed to all except the king and his retinue. As before, the Greeks furnished an ample market and suitable rates of exchange, but the crusaders did a certain amount of plundering and destruction of property, some of which was held in check by punishments meted out by the king. The fiery bishop of Langres kept urging the French to capture the city before which they stood, pointing out its weaknesses and stirring up hostility by citing the wrongs which John Comnenus, Manuel's father, had done to Antioch and the enmity between Greek and Roman bishops in Asia Minor. This effort to sidetrack the crusade was fruitless as far as an actual change in goal was concerned, but it must have damaged the morale of the army by adding to the already present distrust and hostility towards the Greeks. Unlike the members of the Fourth Crusade who were convinced by similar arguments, the majority of crusaders in 1147, according to Odo, agreed with those who cited the pope's call to the crusade as controlling their plan of action. The papal legate, cardinal Guido of Florence, must have been the one who pointed out that Eugenius had called not for an attack on Constantinople, but for a pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulcher and the destruction or conversion of the Moslems. Thus Manuel's request for help from Eugenius in restraining hotheads in the French army had been granted. Certainly papal policies exerted a greater influence over the course of the crusade after it left western Europe than critics like John of Salisbury have acknowledged. Unfortunately neither cardinal legate was able to dominate the army under his spiritual guidance as Adhemar of Le Puy had, or as St. Bernard could have done, and to carry it forward with a positive plan. Despite their good qualities Theodwin was considered barbarous and crude by the French, and Guido exhibited more interest in books and dialectics than in battles. Their leadership lacked vigor and was further reduced to a monitory position by contrast with more aggressive ecclesiastics like the bishops of Langrcs and Lisieux and by strong lay interests.

During this critical time Louis was waiting for the lords of Savoy, Auvergne, and Montferrat who had left the main army at Worms and were now coming to Constantinople via Brindisi and Dyrrachium (Durazzo). Manuel was suspicious of the long delay and probably distrusted the new forces, since they were coming by way of the Norman kingdom of Sicily. Therefore he had part of the market removed. Especially effective was the circulation of rumors about the Germans' progress in Asia Minor. They were credited with slaughtering 14,000 Turks, capturing Iconium, and asking Manuel to come and hold the city while they sped ahead to further conquests. These stories caused such discontent in the French army that Louis finally agreed to cross the Bosporus before his allies arrived. Using Greek boats and accompanied by Greek provisioned and money-changers, the army entered Asia Minor.

As yet, after nearly two weeks of proximity, the Byzantine and French sovereigns had not come to any agreement about their relations in Asia Minor. Once he had succeeded in removing the French from their potentially dangerous position before Con­stantinople, Manuel detained them on the opposite shore with a series of diplomatic exchanges. At last his terms were clear: an alliance between one of Louis's kinswomen and Manuel's nephew and the homage of the barons in return for guides, fair exchange, markets where possible, the right of plunder where markets were not available, and suitable gifts for the king and his barons. At once Robert of Perche and some comrades abducted the French noblewoman who had figured in Manuel's plans and went to Nicomedia without paying homage to the emperor. Again the rest of the anti-Greek party urged bold action, advising Louis to seize Constantinople; but the milder and more expedient counsel which stressed the crusaders' need for guides, supplies, and the friendship of the Byzantines won out once more. In the meantime the long-awaited contingent which had traveled through Italy managed to cross over without the help of the Greeks, who had wished to split the army by detaining them; and the reunited army determined to set out on its march through Asia Minor. Only then did Manuel hold the long-deferred meeting, and he and Louis came to the following agreement: that the king would not take from the emperor any town or stronghold which was under his jurisdiction; that the emperor should send along two or three of his chief barons as guides and should furnish market facilities; that the crusaders should have the rights of plunder where supplies were not offered. The barons then paid homage to Manuel and received gifts from him. Manuel had also hoped to induce Louis to enter into an alliance against Roger, but he was unsuccessful. This may account in part for his detached attitude towards the French crusaders thereafter. In addition, of course, he was opposed to the establishment of independent Latin principalities in Anatolia and was bound by a treaty of peace with the Moslems. Thus the participants in the Second Crusade did not receive active assistance from the Greeks in any way comparable to that rendered by Alexius during the First Crusade, and this proved a grave handicap during their penetration of Anatolia.

The Wendish Crusade

While the Lisbon expedition, the Spanish crusade, and the various armies of the Palestinian crusade were embarking upon their various journeys and campaigns, the Wendish crusade, the latest comer to the scene, was still in a state of preparation. Apparently the agitation for a crusade against the Slavs had not come as the result of any recent invasion or at the instance of the people living nearest them. By 1147 count Adolf of Holstein had managed to build up his position in connection with the Wends quite successfully. He had brought in German colonists and re­established Lübeck, had restored churches like Neumunster, and had won the friendship of Niklot, the Obotrite prince who was the chief leader of the Wends. News of the crusade disrupted these arrangements; although Niklot asked Adolf to remain his ally, it was impossible for the count to oppose the holy war. The pact had to be broken off. Niklot retired to the northeast, establishing a strong fortress, and mustering an army, and on June 26 took the offensive before the crusaders arrived. He sailed into the harbor of Lübeck, burned parts of the city, killed many of the citizens or took them prisoners, and captured much booty. Then he proceeded to lay waste the surrounding country, so that all the recently won advantages were lost.

June 29 had been set as the time for the crusade to leave Magdeburg, but as usual recruits were slow in coming. Finally approximately 40,000 men set off from Artlenburg in the middle of July under the leadership of the duke of Saxony, Conrad of Zahringen, archbishop Adalbero of Bremen, and others. Anxious to punish Niklot, they crossed the lower Elbe and arrived at the Wends' stronghold, Dobin. There the Saxons were joined by a large army and fleet of Danes who had come to retaliate for sea-raids which Niklot had perpetrated. The Wends, however, made a successful foray against the Danes and look many prisoners; and their allies the Rani attacked the fleet and partially destroyed it. In reply the Danes harassed the inhabitants along the coast and rescued much of their fleet. Despite this lively beginning, it early became apparent that the siege was being conducted with mixed feelings. The Saxons apparently thought that it was not to their advantage to devastate a land belonging to them and to harass a people which was becoming more and more dependent on them. Those who had come to seek fiefs found little encouragement; and those who had come in order to fulfil the crusading vow and return home as quickly as possible grew restive. Furthermore the Danes were anxious to regain their men who had been captured. And so a truce and then a peace were concluded on the following terms: Idolatry was to be discontinued; the Danish prisoners were to be released; and Niklot was to become an ally of count Adolf of Holstein again and to pay tribute. The first two conditions were never really carried out. In practice the fanatic vow "to convert or to destroy" had dwindled to a clause which was not enforced; and the prisoners returned were for the most part infirm. The alliance between count Adolf and Niklot was resumed, however, and continued along the lines which had been established before the crusade was announced.

Early in August the papal legate, Anselm of Havelberg, led the main body of crusaders from Magdeburg. Their numbers included bishop Henry of Olmütz, the palgrave Hermann of the Rhine, Frederick of Saxony, Albert the Bear and his two sons, Wibald of Corvey, and many others, totalling perhaps 80,000 men. They planned to attack the tribe of the Liutizi. Crossing the Elbe, they rested at Havelberg and then stormed into enemy country, bringing devastation. The natives fled before them, however; and the crusaders were not able to meet them in hand to hand fighting until part of the army set up a siege before Demmin. Here again the crusaders proved leas ruthless in carrying out their vow against the Slavs than one might expect. Discontent broke out in the besieging army; and in early September the crusaders returned home after doing little more than devastate some of the open countryside.

While part of their number had encamped before Demmin the rest had gone to Stettin. This was a singular choice, since Christianity had already been established there; and it was possibly dictated by Albert the Bear's desire to gain more land. Many of the crusaders were amazed when crosses were displayed on the walls and a group of citizens led by bishop Adalbert of Stettin came to treat with the army and to point out that this was not a heathen city and would profit more from preaching than from being put to the sword. On hearing this the bishops in the army entered into negotiations with Ratibor, the Christian prince of the Pomeranians, and with bishop Adalbert; and peace was concluded. From there the crusaders, unsatisfied with the turn of events, went home.

Thus the expedition against the Wends had accomplished little or nothing beyond interrupting for a time the more peaceful relations which were being established between the Saxons and the Slavs. The desire to split off from the Palestinian crusade apparently rose mainly from the application of two familiar crusading motives to local conditions: that of the clerics who wished to extend the influence of the church to the north and that of the lay princes who were eager to augment their domains and eliminate inroads from the Slavs. At the outset each group had endorsed a policy of extermination or conversion of the heathen; but when faced with the sieges of pagan Dobin and Demmin the lay nobles whose interests were involved hesitated to destroy valuable property and potential allies and so carried out their crusading vows as expediently as possible, while at Stettin the crusade was diverted against a Christian city in order to satisfy a desire for territorial expansion and then was brought to a halt when this became clear. The disparity between the ambitions of the crusaders and the actual conditions obtaining among the Slavs and their neighbors was very great. The Wendish crusade thus stands in marked contrast to the more realistic campaigns carried out in Portugal and Spain.

In Europe the crusade, despite the meager accomplishments against the Wends, had made a satisfactory beginning. Crusaders like the conquerors of Lisbon and Almeria had finished their immediate battles successfully and could wait for the spring before setting out again. The armies for the Palestinian crusade, however, were still traveling towards their goal. The French army hastened past Nicomedia and Nicaea, eager to join the Germans and participate in and emulate their conquests. At this sanguine moment when the long journey and wearisome negotiations promised to give way to the accomplishment of their hopes, they learned that the German army had not captured Iconium as the Greeks had reported but had been defeated by the Turks and forced to retreat in disorder towards Nicaea. Conrad had planned to combat the Turks as soon as possible and without waiting for the French. Apparently he had hoped to accomplish this scheme with the support of the military forces in his army while sending the pilgrims to Jerusalem by another route, but this sensible idea caused great dissatisfaction among the crusaders and could not be carried out. A group did leave Conrad's forces and travel south along the coast under the leadership of the emperor's half-brother, the bishop of Freising, but the army was not pared down to a purely military expedition. At Nicaea Conrad gathered provisions for the march on the sultan's capital of Iconium and prepared to follow a short­cut through the mountains which the Greek guides showed them.

The unwieldy army found the mountains very difficult to traverse and went so slowly that they exhausted their supplies before they emerged from the confusing mountainous terrain. Somewhere near Dorylaeum (near modern Eskishehir) they suffered an ambush from the Turks, who had been building up their strength against the crusaders for some time. The German cavalry charged the enemy in vain, because the Moslems feigned flight until they had tired the crusaders and drawn them away from the main army, which sustained terrible losses. After this catastrophe Conrad yielded to the request of the princes and nobles and led the expedition back towards the sea in the hope of renewing its strength and keeping it relatively intact for an engagement when conditions should be more favorable. The retreat was dreadful. Although begun in an orderly fashion, it degenerated into a rout. The hungry crusaders withdrew slowly because of their weariness and their attempts to secure food, and the Turks became more during day by day in harassing them and finally succeeded in killing count Bernard of Plötzkau and his men who had been protecting the rear of the army. Then they molested all parts of the column at will. Fatalities and injuries were numerous, and Conrad was wounded. When the army finally reached Nicaea at the beginning of November it broke up. Most of its members tried to return home via Constantinople, a terrible undertaking for them with their reduced or vanished strength and equipment. Conrad and a nucleus of his barons sent messengers to tell Louis of the disaster and to ask him to meet the emperor and be ready to aid and counsel him in his time of need.

The French army was grieved and stupefied by this turn of events. Cries against the treachery of the Greeks broke forth, but it is worth noting that Conrad in his letters to Wibald of Corvey did not mention this factor in his account of the disaster, even though he could have shifted responsibility from himself in this way. Instead, the Germans tended to blame themselves for an over-bold reliance on their own strength and for the offense which their sins had given God. Odo records what must have been the comment of the military party of both armies: "When the holy father forbade dogs and falcons and restricted the nature of knights' clothing and arms, men who did not concur with this command acted with a lack of wisdom and utility which equaled the presence of wisdom and utility in his command. But would that he had instructed the infantry in the same way and, keeping the weak at home, had equipped all the strong with the sword instead of the wallet and the bow instead of the staff; for the weak and helpless are always a burden to their comrades and a source of prey to their enemies". The vast number of pilgrims on the crusade was proving a hazard to the military aims.

Louis and his nobles offered Conrad money and equipment and agreed to wait at Lopadium until Conrad could collect more supplies before continuing the journey. Markets became scarcer in the interim, and the French resorted to plundering the country­side, as their agreement with Manuel permitted. To this the enraged inhabitants responded by molesting and sometimes killing members of the weakened German forces who followed after and finally had to be conducted to the rendezvous at Lopadium by a French escort.

In the council held at this time Conrad expressed a desire to continue the crusade in Louis's company and asked to be stationed in the middle of the army, since he and his forces were not strong enough to guard the front or rear. At his request for additional troops Louis designated Amadeo of Savoy, the marquis of Montferrat, the bishop of Metz, the count of Bar, and others as additions to the emperor's forces. In this order they arrived at Esscron (near Balikesir) sometime after November 11. Louis had originally planned to travel to Antioch through Philadelphia (Alashehir) on a good road which was less direct than the one Conrad had taken in the direction of Iconium but shorter than the coastal route which Otto and his men had chosen. Reports that the way through Philadelphia afforded meager supplies, however, caused Conrad, in reaction from his former desire for speed, to persuade Louis and his advisers to change their minds and follow the longer but better supplied road near the sea.

The army found that this road, too, crossed mountainous country and rivers which were swollen with the winter rains, while food was expensive and difficult to obtain from the fortified cities located at intervals. Some crusaders managed to take passage in ships; some remained behind in the service of the Greeks; but the majority arrived at Ephesus around mid-December. Here they were greeted by Greek messengers who warned Louis that the Turks had gathered a large force to combat the crusaders and urged him to take refuge in the imperial strongholds. It seems likely that this message was bona fide and that the Turks, encouraged by their success in dispersing the German army, had pushed into Byzantine territory to repeat their tactics against the French, while the Greek inhabitants who had been alienated by the disorders during the passage of the western army were not going to oppose the Turks and may have been willing to cooperate with them in some instances. This time, however, Louis did not put credence in the emperor's news, and he refused to give in to fear of the Turks. Thereupon the imperial messengers produced other letters listing injuries which the king and his army had been responsible for in Byzantine territory and serving notice that Manuel could not restrain his men from vengeance in the future. The Franco-Greek alliance, on which so much time and effort had been spent, had become extremely shaky, particularly since the German defeat in Asia Minor had removed one source of anxiety from the Greeks.

At Ephesus Conrad became ill and failed to recuperate quickly enough to continue with the army. When Manuel and his wife heard this they invited Conrad to come to Constantinople to convalesce. There is no doubt that Manuel was very glad to separate the two western sovereigns and to have an opportunity to strengthen the old agreement with Conrad against Sicily and Hungary, now that the German emperor was powerless to threaten Constantinople, and Conrad on his part must have been happy to exchange the lesser place which he had to accept in Louis's army for the attentions lavished upon him at the Greek court. Byzantine diplomacy had reversed itself. Now it was the German sovereign who was wooed by the court while the French king marched at the head of his army through Asia Minor. Manuel himself acted as Conrad's physician until the illness had been cured; and the difficult winter season, passed among the amenities of life in Constantinople, was fruitful in strengthening pre-crusade ties between the Byzantines and the Germans, but not in promoting unity among the crusading armies.

Meanwhile the French army had continued on its stubborn way. The first contact with the Turks came in a successful skirmish on Christmas eve near Ephesus. After this heartening incident winter weather, with torrents of cold rains, began in earnest. On the way to Laodicea ad Lycum the crusaders found Turkish forces blocking the ford of the swollen Maeander river and using their usual tactics of harassing the army as it advanced; but after two days the Turks were finally routed and the crusaders came to Laodicea on January 3 or 4, 1148. The French rightly felt themselves in a kind of no man's land where Turkish forces could appear suddenly and, when defeated, as at the Maeander, seek refuge in Greek towns like Carian Antioch. It was impossible to secure enough food at Laodicca for the journey to Adalia (Antalya), but the army had to go on rather than exhaust its strength in vain waiting. Turks and some of the inhabitants lurked threateningly around them; worst of all, the crusaders saw gruesome evidence of the destruction of part of Otto of Freising's army just a week or so before. Therefore Louis drew his troops into battle array and stationed himself with his body-guard at the rear while Geoffrey of Rancon, one of the chief Poitevin barons, and Amadeo of Savoy took command of the van. Unfortunately for the crusaders, not all the army had taken the warning signs seriously. Perhaps overconfident because of their success thus far, the vanguard disregarded the royal order to spend an entire day in crossing a mountain near Cadmus. When the passage was not too difficult, they outdistanced the rest and climbed a second mountain, pitching camp on the other side. This confused the center part, which stopped and piled up while trying to discover where the vanguard had gone. In the midst of this turmoil the watchful enemy closed in, attacking the unprotected middle of the army before the rear guard came up. Louis heard the noise of the struggle and arrived on the scene as quickly as possible, sending his chaplain to the vanguard to cell them of the situation. They were prevented from returning, however, by the onrush of men fleeing the battle. Louis and his nobles, unaccompanied by the foot soldiers or sergeants which he would have provided for a pitched conflict, managed to charge against the Turks and distract their attention from the noncombatants, who fled to safety; but in the ensuing engagement the Turks destroyed almost all of the royal guard. Fortunately for the crusaders, Louis was not recognized and fought his way to safety. The approach of night and fear of a surprise attack finally halted the Turks, who collected their rich spoils and departed without pressing their advantage further. Thus the king was able to join the baggage train which was still crossing the mountain; and then he encountered the reinforcements coming from the van. They decided, however, that it would be unwise to launch a counter attack during the night. Louis alleviated the needs of those in his army as generously as he could from his own supplies; and the next day he led the army on, with the enemy continuing its policy of harassing the troops.

The French still had twelve days of hard marching before they could reach Adalia, and there were not enough provisions for the journey. Louis and his magnates must have feared that the army would break up in disorder as the Germans had on the road between Dorylacum and Nicaea. Apparently there was no serious talk of retreat, since they had found little protection and few supplies at Laodicea. The French continued doggedly towards Adalia as best they could. At this time the Templars, who had had more experience of this sort of warfare in west and east than the other knights, stood out because of their ability to look after their own equipment and protect the people around them; and so by common consent it was agreed that the army should form a sort of fraternity with the Templars during the emergency, all taking an oath that they would not flee the field and that they would obey in every respect the officers assigned them. The knights were divided into groups of fifty and each group put under the command of Gilbert the Templar or one of his associates. They had to learn to endure Turkish attacks without being drawn away in fruitless pursuit, to attack only when ordered, and to return from pursuit at once when the signal was given. Also they were taught to maintain an order of march in which each man kept the position given him. The archers on foot were drawn up at the rear of the army to combat the Turkish bowmen; and nobles who had lost or sold their equipment on the journey were included in this group.

The new system worked well. The crusaders managed to rout enemy attacks four times or so in the days that followed and to go ahead in an orderly fashion with forces intact. Since the Turks and Greeks had burned the stores of food and destroyed the pasturage and crops in the fields by allowing flocks and cattle to graze ahead of the advancing army, many of the horses succumbed and many packs, tents, clothing, arms, etc. had to be abandoned and destroyed. The army subsisted on horse-meat and bread baked in the ashes of the campfires. At last they arrived at Adalia on January 20.

As William of Tyre has pointed out, Adalia belonged to the Byzantine empire but was so close to Moslem territory that it had had to establish a working agreement with the Turks and so maintained a trade in necessary articles with them. To this town Manuel had sent a messenger who forced the French nobles to reconfirm their pact with the emperor in return for market privileges. Food was obtainable, though at high prices; but it was impossible to obtain grain for the starving horses, and the Turks lingering outside the city prevented access to the surrounding pastures. Furthermore, the crusaders could not obtain animals in the city to replace the ones lost on the journey. In this new emergency the king was eager to march on to Antioch, but his barons recommended going by sea in order to avoid the forty days' journey which would traverse the same type of barren countryside infiltrated with enemy forces which they had experienced since leaving Ephesus and to which their depleted strength was not equal. The Greeks had promised to collect a large fleet from the neighboring villages and islands and had told the crusaders that the trip to Antioch would take only three days by sea. Still reluctant to endorse this plan, Louis offered to equip the knights from his own resources and to go with them along the route which the soldiers of the First Crusade had taken to Antioch via Tarsus, while he suggested sending the pilgrims by ship. Once again the hope of separating the military forces from the noncombatants was not realized. The barons opposed the king's proposal as unsuitable since they were "sluggish with idleness and ailing with weariness and annoyances" and in many cases without weapons and horses.

When it proved impossible to reequip the knights the French approached the commandant of the city and Manuel's messenger to secure passage by water; and they were promised enough ships to transport the entire army. Then winter storms set in and continued for almost a month, delaying the fleet. Prices in the town sky-rocketed, and the crowded conditions were unpleasant. When the ships did come, accomodation on them proved to be expensive and inadequate for the numbers in the army. Louis apportioned the first ships among his bishops and barons. Next came a long wait for more vessels. At last it became evident that no more ships were coming. Then the greater part of the army, which had no place on shipboard, took the only alternative open to them: the decision to march to Antioch. With his usual generosity Louis tried to provide for their needs. He gave the commandant and the emperor's messenger five hundred marks to insure that they and a large troop of men would accompany the crusaders across two nearby rivers, which the enemy was guarding, and then give the French an escort to lead them safely to Tarsus; those unfit for the journey were to be sheltered in the city until they recovered and could get an opportunity to follow their comrades. Accordingly, the invalids were admitted to the city and the troops for the overland journey made preparations for their departure. All the horses which the king could collect were furnished to knights of proven valor.

After appointing the counts of Flanders and Bourbon to see that the agreement was carried out, Louis embarked for Antioch. He left behind him the larger part of the army which he had led for more than sight months across Europe and down the wintry and unfriendly coast of Asia Minor and for whose requirements he had provided as well as he could throughout. This large, slow-moving expedition of mixed character had been far different from that envisioned in his first plan for a military force which would go to succor Edessa and the east. Louis, like Conrad, had hoped eventually to separate the pilgrims from the soldiers in order to accomplish his military aims efficiently, but not in the manner in which the severance came about at Adalia. Here and elsewhere between Constantinople and Jerusalem the lack of a friendly supporting fleet was particularly disastrous. If the army could have been provisioned and rearmed by ships, or if the noncombatants could have been transported easily, the fate of the large western armies in 1147-1148 might have been far different. The sea-faring peoples were engaged, however, in the Spanish, Wendish and Lisbon expeditions or the Sicilian-Byzantine struggle.

As it was, Louis had clung somewhat timidly, and perhaps in reaction from Conrad's unfortunate dash toward Iconium, to nominally friendly territory with the apparent idea of reaching Jerusalem before launching his offensive. Thus his barons had not had ready opportunities for practicing their warlike arts and replenishing their resources by attacking enemy strongholds. Instead, the initiative had been taken by the enemy, whose large concentrations of troops and knowledge of the country and the necessary movements of the crusaders enabled them to pick the time and place for conflicts. Also unsatisfactory relations with the Greek inhabitants and their emperor had embittered and confused the French still further. The most lurid tales of Manuel and his treachery are admittedly not true; but his desire to separate the western armies and their commanders, his truce with the Turks and his lack of any substantial support of the crusaders in Anatolia, while they may be justified as dictated by self-interest (and suggested by the Norman attack upon Greece) cannot be ignored as factors in the dispersal of the large pilgrim armies.

The morning after Louis departed the Turks descended on the crusaders, but were beaten off. Then the Greeks said that the winter season and the presence of the Turks made it impossible to take the army to Tarsus; and after several days of argument forced the king's representatives to leave Adalia on the ships which returned for them. The end of the army left behind came swiftly. Many were killed in combat with the Turks outside Adalia; some were led into slavery by the Moslems or were admitted to Greek service; others died of the plague which raged in the city. Only a small percentage of the original number could have managed to get through to Tarsus and Antioch.

Louis did not arrive at St. Simeon, the port for Antioch, in three days as promised. Although some of the ships did so, he was driven off course by unfavorable winds and may even have touched Cyprus before reaching the port more than two weeks later, on March 19. There he received a warm and splendid welcome from prince Raymond of Antioch and his people. Raymond was Eleanor's uncle, and he had been one of the first to send messages to the west asking for aid. Consequently his pleasure at the arrival of Louis and his barons after three years of anticipation was very great. He escorted the king and his followers to Antioch with pomp and ceremony unlike anything which they had experienced since Constantinople and showered them with attentions and gifts. In return Raymond counted on their support in a campaign against the cities of Aleppo and Shaizar in order to alleviate Turkish pressure on the hard pressed northern section of the Latin states. To his surprise and growing disgust Louis was inclined to do no such thing. Even though the neighboring Turks feared the recently arrived French, and Raymond thought the situation promising for conquest, Louis was not sympathetic. The powerful preaching of the crusade had wrought a great change in the early, simple plan of a military expedition for the aid of the east; the concepts of holy war and pilgrimage had been impressed on those who enlisted, and Louis was of the temperament to respond to such ideas. Privately and in council he announced that he planned to go on to Jerusalem in order to fulfil his crusading vow. After visiting the holy places, Louis apparently hoped to plan a joint campaign with Conrad, other western crusaders, and the knights of the Latin principalities. Then, too, the French crusaders had been reduced to a tenth or less of their original numbers during their journey to Antioch and now consisted mostly of knights without substantial numbers of sergeants and archers to reinforce their strength. A more vigorous general than Louis or a less travel-worn army might have overcome their scruples and welcomed the opportunities which Raymond offered for extending and protecting the northern section of the Latin states, just as the maritime crusaders had agreed to turn aside to help the king of Portugal defeat the Moslems at Lisbon, but for this group the attractions of Jerusalem were too many and too close at hand. Furthermore, Raymond's device of interesting Eleanor in his schemes in order to sway Louis was not a happy one. The queen entered into her uncle's plans wholeheartedly and enjoyed the diversions offered her in Antioch as well; but Louis distrusted this enthusiasm, and gossiping courtiers apparently misconstrued and magnified her lively enjoyment of the visit. The final step in a worsening situation came when Raymond lost his patience with Louis and tried to injure the French king by advising Eleanor to remain in Antioch if her husband left and to divorce him on the ground of consanguinity. Louis countered these moves by taking his queen and his people away from Antioch sooner than he had planned and setting out quietly for Tripoli.

Raymond had not been the only prince looking forward to the arrival of the crusaders and hoping to make use of their resources, manpower, and prestige. Joscelin of Edessa, Raymond of Tripoli, and Baldwin and Melisend of Jerusalem hoped to attract Louis to their domains, too. Since the rulers of Jerusalem feared that the French might be detained in Antioch or Tripoli, they sent Fulcher of Angoulême, the patriarch of Jerusalem (1147-1157), to invite Louis to visit their kingdom. We can be sure that the patriarch pointed out that Otto of Freising and survivors from his army had reached Jerusalem on April 4 and that Conrad had arrived a week or so later.

The German ruler had parted from Manuel on the best of terms, laden with many splendid gifts, and had travelled with a Greek fleet. On landing at Acre he went to Jerusalem, where Fulcher had helped to welcome him outside the city and to conduct him within to the sound of hymns and chants. There the emperor had established himself in the house of the Templars and had visited the shrines of the holy city. He had intended to accomplish his vows and then to gather an army and set out for Edessa, which he had been unsuccessful in rescuing the autumn before; but in Jerusalem he was influenced to consider an expedition against Damascus to redress the failure of a campaign of the summer before. Conrad needed to build up his army again and so set out for Acre to secure the services of the men arriving at the seaport. Probably among them were the Lisbon crusaders.

The emergence of Damascus as a goal for the crusading armies was abrupt. From the time of the first appeal for aid in 1145, Edessa and northern Syria had been to the fore. Jerusalem, however, had been mentioned as needing protection from further inroads by the Moslems and it was always the goal of the crusaders' religious aspirations. At the court of Jerusalem Conrad had encountered local and feudal ambition as marked as, and even less far-seeing than, that which Louis had found in Antioch, but harder to recognize. His glamor of the holy city, the authoritative position which Baldwin held for westerners as the king of the Latin state, and the reputation which the Templars had for military sagacity made the arguments for a Damascene campaign weighty. No one seems to have objected seriously that the young king and his barons should have been more mindful of the precarious welfare of the northern principalities than of the aggrandizement of their comparatively secure domain. Damascus, like Aleppo, was a desirable city whose capture had long been wished for. Also, Conrad was probably told that the devastation of Edessa in 1146 had been so complete that its repossession would be of doubtful value. Thus the problem of the city whose fall had stirred the west to the monumental crusade was pushed aside.

Louis was eager to lead his army to Jerusalem; and the news that Conrad was preparing for a joint expedition with the eastern Franks and recruiting his ranks from newly-arrived crusaders must have raised new hopes of military conquest in Palestine, with an army in full strength and shorn of its non-military elements. Louis could count on gaining added strength from the contingents from Provence and Languedoc who had come to Acre in late April with count Alfonso Jordan of Toulouse and his son Bertram. Unfortunately the count of Toulouse himself furnished an incident for dissension between the crusaders and the eastern Franks. As the son of Raymond of Toulouse, who had founded the county of Tripoli, he was rumored to aspire to that principality, which was being governed by Raymond II, the grandson of the French count's elder brother. On the road south to Jerusalem, Alfonso Jordan died at Caesarea, the victim, it was said, of poison administered at the command of the count of Tripoli and his sister-in-law, queen Melisend of Jerusalem. Bertram continued his journey and later took part in the siege of Damascus; but Tripoli appears to have been in a state of unrest after the death of Alfonso Jordan, and rumors over this latest incident between the Franks of the east and west were as rampant as they had been in Antioch. On reaching Jerusalem, Louis was given the same ceremonious welcome which Conrad had experienced, and he and his nobles were conducted to the holy places. After he had accomplished the devotions customary for a Jerusalem pilgrim, a general court was announced for June 24 at Acre, "to consider the results of this great pilgrimage, the completion of such great labors, and also the enlargement of the realm". The roster of rulers and lay and ecclesiastical lords who attended was brilliant, Conrad was accompanied by Otto of Freising, the bishops of Metz and Toul, the papal legate Theeodwin of Porto, the dukes of Bavaria and Swabia, duke Welf, margrave Hermann of Verona, Berthold of Andechs, William of Montferrat, and count Guy of "Blandras" (Biandrate) as his principal advisors. Louis's train included the bishops of Langres and Lisieux, the papal legate Guido of Florence, the counts of Perche, Troyes, Flanders, and Soissons, and Bertram of Toulouse; while king Baldwin and his mother were supported by patriarch Fulcher, the archbishops of Caesarea and Nazareth, the bishops of Acre, Sidon, Beirut, Banyas, and Bethlehem, Robert of Craon, called the Burgundian, master of the Temple, and Raymond of Le Puy, master of the Knights of St. John, the royal constable, the lords of Nablus, Tiberias, Sidon, Caesarea, the Transjordan, Toron, and Beirut. No representatives from the principalities of Antioch, Edessa, or Tripoli are known to have been present, however. The rulers of Edessa and Antioch were engaged in defending their lands against Nur-ad-Din, and the count of Tripoli had serious internal problems to settle.

In his description of the court William of Tyre characterizes the nobles of the realm of Jerusalem as possessing an accurate knowledge of affairs and places, attributes which were normal enough for the inhabitants of the country, but in sharp contrast to the elementary and romantic notions that the European crusaders entertained concerning the Holy Land. On foreign soil, among situations which had repeatedly proved far more complex than they had suspected, the western princes felt and were made to feel that they needed the advice of men who knew the place intimately. The day was past when they could afford to dash ahead into practically unknown territory or plod ahead without a vigorous plan for a campaign. With the nobles of Jerusalem they entered into careful consideration as to what action would be most expedient. Various plans were presented before the council and discussed. Some crusaders like the count of Flanders and Arnulf of Lisieux were eager to leave the Holy Land behind and to go home without attempting the campaign, and Conrad seemed to be turning to that point of view. Louis and his warlike supporters like the bishop of Langres wanted to stay and perform some deed worthy of their country and their ancestors. Surely there must have been advocates for the northern campaign planned by Raymond of Antioch or for the relief of Edessa. In the end, however, the recommendation of the more belligerent Syrian barons won out, even though there was a native faction which considered an expedition against a city as consistently friendly as Damascus unwise. At this decision some of the crusaders like Welf did go home; but the greatest part of the troops, numbering at least 50,000 and commanded by Baldwin, Louis, and Conrad, assembled at Tiberias in mid-July.

Fired by the sight of the True Cross, the Christian army marched to Banyas for a further conference about strategy. Here the leaders received the advice of men well acquainted with the situation of Damascus and its surroundings, and in council with the barons and prelates decided to attack from the west, where the city's strongest fortifications were protected by orchards that would assure the attacking army a supply of food and water.

Going by Mount Lebanon, they arrived at Daraiya, a few miles southwest of Damascus, on July 23. There they arranged the armies in battle formation and decided upon the order of march, to eliminate disorder and rivalry as much as possible during the siege. First went the forces of the eastern Franks, whose superior knowledge of the country fitted them for finding the best route and opening the attack. Louis and his men followed close behind to strengthen and aid the Jerusalemite army, while Conrad commanded the rear in anticipation of a possible surprise attack from that direction. In this way they advanced on the following day through the plain before the city, which was irrigated by canals and thickly set with mud-walled orchards whose density and narrow paths made the approach extremely difficult. The Damascenes harassed the army from hiding places among the trees, openly blocked the paths, shot arrows from towers in the orchards, and hid behind perforated walls in order to stab the attackers with lances. Despite this vigorous defense the crusaders killed or captured many of the Moslems and drove the rest back into the city. As they emerged from the gardens, however, they found the cavalry and archers of Damascus and its allies massed on the bank of the Barada river, which flowed beside the city. After some hesitation the crusaders rallied and began to attack, but were not able to break through until Conrad and his knights rushed from the rear in a powerful charge and then began hand to hand fighting. With great courage and ferocity they drove the Moslems back from the river and inside the city. Thus the army was established in a good position, with access to food and water. They had gained some booty in the gardens and had timber at hand to use for defenses; at the same time they were able to destroy bridges which were necessary to the enemy.

Inside the walls the Damascenes were terrified. Their vizir, Muin-ad-Din Unur (or Onfir), had sent urgent messages for help to Saif-ad-Din of Mosul and his brother Nur-ad-Din. Both had raised large forces to come to the aid of Damascus, but the citizens were afraid that they could not hold out until help came. Unur, however, was indomitable. He stirred his people by displaying the Koran of the caliph Uthman while they tried desperately to fortify the city from within. The next day he led a counter-attack which was not successful in forcing the crusaders from their position but did kill and wound many of their number. This example of courage heartened the Damascenes; and the situation remained the same during that night and the next day, with no serious attack made by either side. By this time Saif-ad-Din and Nur-ad-Din had reached Homs, and Saif-ad-Din had notified Unur that he would fight the crusaders if a man of his choice could command Damascus during the conflict. Although he said that he would return the city to Unur if the Moslems won, the vizir of Damascus was in a dilemma. Because of his former friendly relations with Jerusalem he had incurred the hostility of the Moslems and felt that Saif-ad-Din would not really return the city.

Unur had apparently written to the Syrian Franks in an attempt to induce them to raise the siege. According to Ibn-al-Athir he pointed out that if Damascus fell, the foreign Franks would expect it for themselves and would claim additional land which belonged to the kingdom of Jerusalem, and that, if he gave the city to Saif-ad-Din, Jerusalem would be readily accessible for the next Moslem campaign. The effect of this message was heightened by the fact that Saif-ad-Din had written to the crusaders saying that he would seize them if they did not leave Damascus alone. All this news appalled the Syrian Franks, and Unur has been credited with increasing his advantage by sending money to encourage them to withdraw. Furthermore the Palestinian barons had been annoyed when the three kings had agreed to grant Damascus to the count of Flanders when it fell, since they felt that it should go to Guy of Beirut. They decided to raise the siege and draw Louis and Conrad away.

The crusaders knew that the western part of the city, which they faced, had been well fortified during their delay and the eastern part held open for flight if that became necessary. Since the proximity of the great Moslem armies now made it necessary to capture the city quickly, the council advocated a shift in position. During the night of July 26 the new view of the situation and the proposed change in tactics were discussed. Finally the crusaders, whose belief in the experts must have been somewhat shaken by this time, agreed to the plan, and on July 27 they advanced to the east. Here they found themselves in a worse position than before, lacking water and with very little food at hand, since they had counted on entering the city quickly. The walls were too thick to storm at once, and the large armies of Nur-ad-Din and his brother still threatened from the rear. The folly of the move was apparent to all; and it was impossible to return to the western approach which the Moslems had reoccupied and where the army would have been obliged to repeat their first arduous offensive in order to gain a foothold. Retreat from the city seemed the only solution, but the bishop of Langres and the most belligerent part of the French army advocated remaining and lighting it out. At last Conrad, the count of Flanders, and the native barons induced Louis to agree with them. This he did for the common good and as a token of his respect for Conrad. Thus the armies withdrew, suffering Moslem attacks as they went.

The failure at Damascus gave rise to much bitterness and many accusations of treachery against various persons and groups. The Templars, the Palestinian barons, and Raymond of Antioch were named most often. Even Conrad, who was too cautious to name names, wrote to Wibald that betrayal had been encountered where least expected, when the city was declared unassailable in the west and the armies were moved intentionally to another place where there was not a suitable approach or water supply for the army. Thus the great alliance was destroyed in one short campaign. Although the troops besieging Damascus had agreed on their return to attack Ascalon and had fixed a day and place for the assembly of the expedition, the atmosphere was full of accusations and charges which discouraged cooperation. When Conrad arrived at the rendez-vous he found few others there, and after eight days' waiting for a muster that never occurred he decided that he had been deceived a second time and made plans to leave Palestine as soon as possible and to winter in Constantinople on the way home.

The crusade had been a series of shattering defeats for him, but he consoled himself with the reflection that he and his army had accomplished everything which God had wished or the people of the land had permitted. He felt the kind of antagonism for the inhabitants of the Latin principalities which the French vented on the Greeks; and so he turned his attention to the one advantage which his eastern journey seemed to offer: a closer alliance with the Byzantine emperor Manuel. This was built partly on the marriages of Manuel and Bertha and Manuel's niece Theodora and Henry of Bavaria, the second of which was celebrated at this time. Bertha's dowry had been southern Italy; Theodora's seems to have been part or all of Austria. To ensure the possession of these portions a coalition was established among Manuel, Conrad, the duke of Bohemia, the margrave of Istria, Henry of Carinthia, Henry of Bavaria-Austria, William of Montferrat, Venice, Genoa, Pisa, Poland, Galicia, and the Kumans against Hungary, Sicily, and their allies, among whom duke Welf was numbered once more, now that he had returned from the crusade.

Louis was less eager to depart from Palestine. He still dreamed of achieving something helpful to the Holy Land. To Suger's urgent pleas that he come home, he replied that in view of the oppression of the church and the emergency existing in the east he had been moved by piety and by the prayers of the eastern church to remain until after the following Easter. In the meantime he did what he could financially to aid the inhabitants who were suffering from frequent Moslem inroads. The defeat of the crusade had reduced the prestige of the Christians to a very low level and had emboldened the Turks to attempt things which they had not dared to do before, particularly in northern Syria. When Louis did leave Palestine in 1149 his mind was still full of the necessity to aid Outremer, but now Byzantium figured as an enemy rather than an ally in future plans. This conviction was strengthened by the journey home. Louis had chosen to sail on a Sicilian vessel and so narrowly escaped being captured by part of the Byzantine navy, which was still at war with Roger. The king did lose a ship on which some of his retinue were traveling, and Eleanor was detained for a while. This misadventure added fuel to the French hatred and distrust of the Byzantines, which had grown tremendously in the past year and a half. When Louis landed in Calabria, he was glad to claim Roger as an ally, and together they spoke of launching a new crusade to bring effective aid to the east and to avenge themselves on the Greeks. Louis crowned Roger king; then he journeyed home, stopping at the papal curia to tell of his experiences and to sound out the pope on the idea of a new expedition. Eugenius assented to this plan, and St. Bernard and Suger supported it, too; but there was no real response to the new crusade among the nobles and the people. They were exhausted by the grueling experiences of the Second Crusade and its tremendous expenditure of resources and strength in the east without any positive achievement. Conrad, of course, was not willing to be drawn into such a scheme. His antipathy for the Latin east and his entente with Manuel were more than enough to alienate him.

There was to be no epilogue to recover the fortunes of the Second Crusade in Palestine. The vision of all the forced of Christendom on the march against the pagan Slavs and the Moslem world had been dissipated by the mixture of military and non-military elements in the armies, divided leadership, conflicting interests within Christendom, lack of knowledge and understanding of the countries invaded, and the growing strength of the Moslems in the east. The smaller, more concentrated, essentially military expeditions in Portugal and Spain had achieved the successes of the crusade; and they foreshadowed the shift from the vast miscellaneous outpourings of the First and Second Crusades to the more limited personnel and more definite objectives of the Third and Fourth Crusades.

CHAPTER XVII

THE CAREER OF NUR-AD-DIN