CHAPTER V

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THE SECOND CRUSADE.

[Sidenote: Bernard the apostle of the second crusade.]

What Peter the Hermit had been for the first crusade, that St. Bernard was for the second; and on Peter, Bernard looked down with undisguised contempt. The failure of that first great enterprise he ascribes to the wretched councils of the fanatical guide whose name he supposes that his hearers or correspondents have sometimes heard. To the holy war which he felt himself called upon to kindle, he looked forward without the least misgiving, and the proud confidence which he feels and everywhere expresses may be taken as a special characteristic of Western monachism in its palmiest days. While the monks of the East were losing themselves more and more in the mists of dreamy or useless speculation, the cell of the Western monk became an imperial chamber from which went forth the letters which were to cheer or counsel the Vicar of Christ, to rebuke kings and statesmen, to warn and guide the faithful, to recall the wanderer to the fold, and to confound the unbeliever. For these high offices he had a commission higher than that of any earthly authority. They fell within the range of his duty as the member of a society, the soldier of an army, which was to fight the battles of the King of kings. He was the knight sheathed in the impenetrable armour of the Spirit, and he bore in his hand the invincible sword of faith. He had learnt the language, and transferred to his monastic life the images and terms, of feudalism. For him action was everything; solitude with its essential idea of rest was in comparison of this as nothing. He fled from his home to the cloister, because he could there fight better against material and spiritual corruption. He chose the most severe schools which he could find for the exercise of his self-discipline. He withdrew from these into wilder deserts, if they failed to meet his ideal of self-mortification. He established what he called a reform, if existing rules appeared to him too indulgent to human weakness. Such was the life of St. Bernard. He was from first to last a crusader, and the most pertinacious and successful of his crusades was against the peace and quiet of his own family. His mother had made a secret vow to devote all her children to God; and Bernard held it among the first of his duties to see that her vow should be fulfilled. Power, wealth, and dignity in the world were within his grasp: he threw them all aside. The holy house of Molesme had sent forth some of its most austere members under an Englishman named Stephen Harding, and these found a ruder and more savage home on the borders of Champagne and Burgundy, at Citeaux, the cradle of the great Cistercian order. Thither came Bernard in his early manhood, and there he remained until he in his turn went forth to found a new house in the gloomy and ill-famed valley to which he gave a name associated for ever with his memory. Here at Clairvaux his father took the habit of a monk, and died in his arms. His brothers and his sisters had made their profession before him,—not all without a struggle; but who should resist the Divine Will? The wife of one of his brothers refused to make the sacrifice of her husband’s love: but a sudden illness convinced her of the perils of disobedience, and like her husband she found her home in a convent.

[Sidenote: Sources of Bernard’s influence.]

[Sidenote: A. D. 1130.]

[Sidenote: A. D. 1140.]

This was the man whom the tidings of the fall of Edessa filled with profound emotion. He could no more doubt the duty of ridding the Holy Land of unbelievers than he could call into question his own mission against all ungodliness and sin. But if it had been right to rush to the rescue of the Holy Sepulchre when it was still in the hands of the infidel, it was still more right, it was indispensably necessary, to keep that sacred place and the land in which it lay from falling again under the old despotism. For Bernard, when his mind was once fixed on any enterprise, there could be no rest, as there could also be no measure in the vehemence of his eloquence. The energy with which he espoused the cause of Innocent II. against a rival pope had invested him with an influence second to that of no other man of his age; and he had wielded this power with tremendous effect against Abelard, the keenest and most daring thinker of Latin Christendom.

[Sidenote: Death of Louis VI. of France.]

[Sidenote: A. D. 1137.]

[Sidenote: A. D. 1142.]

Three years before the council of Sens, which under the direction of Bernard condemned the propositions or heresies of Abelard, died the French king Louis VI., surnamed the Fat, the monarch (if so he might be called) of a scanty kingdom the enlargement of which would best be promoted by advantageous marriages. Of such an opportunity Louis the Fat eagerly availed himself when William, lord of Poitou and Guienne, the wide region lying between the Loire and the Adour, offered his daughter and heiress Eleanor as the wife of the heir to the French crown. By right of this marriage Louis VII. found himself on the death of his father and of his father-in-law possessed of a far larger kingdom and greater resources than he had expected to inherit; and he might have made it the business of his life to guard and extend his dominions at home, had he not felt himself suddenly called to take up his cross and follow the example of his great-uncle, Hugh of Vermandois. In a war with Theobald, count of Champagne, he had stormed and set fire to the castle of Vitry. To escape from his soldiers the people had taken refuge in a neighbouring church. To this building the flames spread, and all within it, men, women, and children, 1,300, it is said, in number, were burnt. The sight of the scorched and charred bodies filled the king with horror and grief: sickness followed, and he determined to work out his repentance by leading his armies to the Holy Land. His remorse was quickened by the eloquence of Bernard, and Louis put on the blood-red cross in the council of Vezelay.

[Sidenote: A. D. 1146. Easter. Council of Vezelay.]

[Sidenote: Speech of Bernard.]

[Sidenote: The Knights Templars.]

From this council the pope, Eugenius III., was absent. His place was more than supplied by his friend and adviser, whose voice stirred the depths of every heart. The letter of Eugenius held out to the crusaders all the promises which had been assured to them by Urban at Clermont, and warned them against the vices which had brought disaster and disgrace on the arms of Christendom. But for the moment every other feeling than that of fierce yearning for conflict was swept away by the furious torrent of Bernard’s oratory. He preached to the Knights Templars, the members of that splendid order which was already astonishing the world with its valour and its haughtiness. Associated at first for the protection of pilgrims on the road to Jerusalem, they had established themselves in the Holy City itself, and received from Baldwin II. some ground to the east of the Temple; and the mosque of Omar, purified from its defilements, became the church of the order. The fiery warriors who professed themselves the humble guardians of the Holy Sepulchre needed no stimulus of rhetoric to spur them on: and the rhetoric of Bernard was fierce enough to stir even the most peaceable. In this new philosophy butchery was the surest means of grace, and carnage imparted indelible sanctity. ‘The Christian who slays the unbeliever in the Holy War is sure of his reward, more sure if he is slain. The Christian glories in the death of the Pagan, because by it Christ is glorified; by his own death both he himself and Christ are still more glorified.’ The floodgates of enthusiasm were once again opened wide; and the scenes of the council of Clermont were reproduced with little change. Accompanied by the French king who wore the cross conspicuously on his dress, Bernard mounted a wooden platform and addressed the impassioned multitude. His speech was scarcely ended when all with one voice cried aloud for the cross. The saint gave or scattered the badges which had been provided. When these were exhausted, he tore up his own dress to furnish more.

[Sidenote: Reluctance of Conrad emperor of Germany to join the crusade.]

[Sidenote: A. D. 1147. Whitsuntide. Meeting of Louis VII. and the pope at St. Denys.]

But if Louis was eager to depart, Conrad of Germany hung back. The Emperor felt more anxious about the reduction of refractory princes than for the slaughter of unknown infidels. Christmas came; and at Spires first, afterwards at Ratisbon, Bernard strove to impress on him the paramount duty of the crusade. Conrad promised to give his answer on the following day; and on that day Bernard preached a sermon, painting in awful colours the terrors of the Great Assize when all the kindreds of the nations should be gathered before the judgment-seat of the Son of Man. He implored the emperor to think of the account which he would then have to give, and of the infinite shame and endless agony which would be his portion, if he should then stand convicted of unjust stewardship. Conrad was melted to tears, and promised to take the cross. Bernard was prepared for him and for all, and fastened the badge on their shoulders at once. Taking from the altar the consecrated banner, he delivered it to the emperor, and the hand of God was seen in the crowd of thieves and ruffians who thronged to enlist themselves as champions of the cross. Four months later Louis welcomed the pope at St. Denys, and received from Eugenius at the altar the wallet and staff of the pilgrim, with the banner which was to lead him to victory. The wishes of the devout turned naturally to Bernard rather than to others of whose earnestness they could not have equal assurance; but to their prayers that he would head the enterprise he replied that he was no general and that they must find some one to lead them who was skilled in the handling of earthly armies.

[Sidenote: Persecution of the Jews stirred up by the monk Rodolph.]

[Sidenote: Suppressed by Bernard.]

When the followers of Peter the Hermit and Walter the Penniless began their march along the Rhinelands, their crusading zeal vented itself first in horrible cruelties practised on the Jews (p. 40). That vile example was followed by the bands now gathered round the standard of the emperor. The appetite for blood was whetted by the wolfish howlings of the monk Rodolph; and the spell of bigotry enlisted on his side a man otherwise well deserving the reverence of all ages, Peter the Venerable, abbot of Clugny. But the fanaticism of Bernard could not fasten itself on men against whom not even a semblance of wrong could be charged; and he refused to punish them now for the crimes of their forefathers in the days of Pontius Pilate. ‘God has punished the Jews,’ he said, ‘by their dispersion; it is not for man to punish them by murder.’ Rodolph was sent back to his monastery: but it was no easy task to repress the fury of a multitude already drunk with the blood of hundreds of victims in all the great Rhine cities.

[Sidenote: March of the crusaders under Conrad and Louis.]

[Sidenote: Refusal of Conrad to meet the emperor Manuel at Constantinople.]

Conrad and Louis had met at Mainz. With Louis came his wife Eleanor; and here he was joined by the counts of Toulouse, Nevers, Flanders and other chiefs of the crusade, among these being, it is said, Robert de Mowbray and the earl of Warren and Surrey from England. The story of the enterprise is soon told. The numbers of the host were vast, but numbers, never easily ascertained, are least of all to be depended upon in such expeditions as these. The order of disciplined armies may have lessened the perils and lightened the hardships of the passage across Europe; and the troop of women who with spear and shield, headed by the Golden-footed Dame, marched on, as they thought, to conquest, may have congratulated themselves on the pleasantness of their task. The real danger began when they had passed from Europe into Asia. The suspicions of Conrad had been soon and vehemently excited against the Greek emperor Manuel, grandson of Alexios. These suspicions were so much strengthened before he reached Constantinople that he refused all interviews with him and crossed the Bosporus without coming into his presence.

[Sidenote: Supposed treachery of Manuel.]

The French king was more complaisant; but if he was satisfied with the welcome given to him by Manuel in person, he was alarmed and indignant at the news that the Byzantine sovereign was in secret correspondence with the Turkish sultan of Cogni (Iconium, Ikonion). His indignation was fully shared by his army; and while some held that the paramount duty which called them to Palestine should overbear the avenging of all private wrongs, others insisted that a power which had allowed the Holy Sepulchre and the Holy Land itself to slip from its grasp, and had only placed hindrances in the way of the pilgrims and champions of the cross, should be swept utterly away.

[Sidenote: Disastrous march of Conrad and Louis.]

For the present the storm was lulled; and the crusaders went on their way, to find that the guides with which Manuel had furnished them led them into arid deserts or betrayed them directly to the enemy. Conrad had already lost thousands or tens of thousands in Lykaonia, when the French king, who had been cheated with false tidings of his triumphant progress, received on the shores of the Askanian lake (p. 57) the news of his great disaster. Conrad himself soon followed the miserable fugitives who had told his dismal story, and the two sovereigns resolved to strike off from the beaten path and make their way through the lands bordering the eastern shores of the Egean Sea. They had advanced as far as the Lydian Philadelphia, when the threatening appearance of things impelled many to return to Constantinople, and Conrad himself embarked near Ephesus. Louis with his people pressed on to the banks of the Meander, where the Turks who hastened to attack them were signally defeated. This defeat was more than avenged in the mountain passes beyond Laodicea whence after fearful slaughter the French reached the Pamphylian Attaleia. From this seaport it was proposed that all, whether soldiers or pilgrims, should go by sea to Antioch. It was decided that the latter only should take ship, as Louis urged that the warriors ought to follow in the steps of the conquerors of Jerusalem. But the ships promised by the governor of Attaleia proved to be wholly insufficient for this purpose. The king embarked with his army, and the pilgrims with the sick were left in charge of the count of Flanders. The guard was inadequate; the sick were murdered by the people of Attaleia; the Turks bore down hardly on the pilgrims. The count of Flanders escaped by sea, and seven thousand miserable wanderers struggled onwards on the road by which they hoped to reach Jerusalem. Their journey was soon ended by the martyrdom which according to the promise of Urban and Eugenius was to ensure their salvation.

[Sidenote: Visit of the French king to Jerusalem.]

[Sidenote: A. D. 1148. March.]

[Sidenote: Resolution to attack Damascus.]

The arrival of the French king with his forces at Antioch caused no slight alarm to the Turks of Cæsarea and Aleppo. But although he was earnestly pressed to take advantage of their dismay by striking a sudden blow, nothing could dissuade him to put off his journey to Jerusalem; and the entreaties of Eleanor, who was well content to stay where she was, excited in him mingled feelings of resentment and suspicion. After disasters so terrible his entrance into Jerusalem bore too much likeness to a triumph; and after a council with Conrad, who had reached Ptolemais, the project of rescuing Edessa, which had been the very purpose of the crusade, was for the time abandoned for the siege, and, as it was hoped, the conquest, of the more important and nearer city of Damascus.

[Sidenote: Siege of Damascus.]

[Sidenote: Treachery of the barons of Palestine.]

[Sidenote: Retreat of the army to Jerusalem.]

[Sidenote: Failure of the crusade.]

With the aid of the Knights of the Temple and of St. John, the siege of this city was prosecuted with a skill and vigour which seemed to leave no doubt of the result. The Damascenes were in despair, and not a few turned their thoughts to flight as the only means of safety: but with incredible infatuation the king of the French and the German emperor took counsel not for the completion of the enterprise but for the disposal of the city when it should have been conquered. The decision that it should be given to Thierry, count of Flanders, roused the indignation of the barons of Palestine, who now scrupled not to add treachery to the long catalogue of their crimes. Bribed by the Turks, they assured the sovereigns that they would have better success by attacking the city from another quarter than from that on which their toil had been all but rewarded by its capture. Abandoning their former position in the rich gardens before the town, they soon found themselves on barren soil, with scanty supplies or none, and with a hopeless task before them. It was easier to suspect than to punish the treachery of their advisers; and possibly on account of this treachery the proposal that they should attack Ascalon was rejected. The army retreated to Jerusalem. Conrad went back with the remnant of his troops to Europe. A year later his example was followed by the French king and his wife, of whose conduct Louis had formed suspicions fully justified by certain judgments pronounced by her in Provençal Courts of Love. Only a few months more had passed before he obtained a divorce on the plea of consanguinity, and Eleanor transferred her vast inheritance to her second husband the Norman duke Henry, afterwards Henry II. of England.

[Sidenote: Accusations against St. Bernard.]

[Sidenote: His answer.]

[Sidenote: A. D. 1153. Death of Bernard.]

So ended in utter shame and ignominy the second crusade. The event seemed to give the lie to the glowing promises and prophecies of St. Bernard. So vast had been the drain of population to feed this holy war that, in the phrase of an eye-witness, the cities and castles were empty, and scarcely one man was left to seven women; and now it was known that the fathers, the husbands, the sons, or the brothers of these miserable women would see their earthly homes no more. The cry of anguish charged Bernard with the crime of sending them forth on an errand in which they had done absolutely nothing and had reaped only wretchedness and disgrace. For a time Bernard himself was struck dumb: but he soon remembered that he had spoken with the authority of God and of his vicegerent, and that the guilt or failure must lie at the door of the pilgrims. Like those who had gone before them, these men had given loose to their passions and filled their camps with debauchery and confusion; and such abominations the Divine Righteousness could never tolerate. Nay, Bernard could even see now the folly, if not the iniquity, of allowing thieves and murderers to take part in an enterprise in which only the devout and faithful were worthy to share. But such considerations were too cold to satisfy permanently the temper of the age. The thoughts of the many, if not of the few, went back into the old channel, when the monk John declared that the slaughtered pilgrims had died with the exulting joy of martyrs at the thought of their deliverance from a wicked world; and that from the lips of St. Peter and St. John themselves he had the assurance that the ranks of fallen angels had been filled up with the spirits of those who had died as champions and pilgrims of the cross whether in the Holy Land or on the journey across the intervening countries. For Bernard also the saints and angels, he said, were impatiently waiting. Five years later it was in his power to add that their desires and his had been fulfilled.

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