Second Crusade
The Second Crusade was the second major crusade launched from Europe. The Second Crusade was started in response to the fall of the County of Edessa in 1144 to the Seljuk forces of Zengi. The county had been founded during the First Crusade by Baldwin in 1098. While it was the first Crusader state to be founded, it was also the first to fall.
The Second Crusade was announced by Pope Eugene III and was led in the east by European kings Louis VII of France and Conrad III of Germany, with help from other European nobles. The armies of the two kings marched separately across Europe. After crossing Byzantine territory into Anatolia, both armies were separately defeated by the Seljuk Turks. The main Western Christian source, Odo of Deuil, and Syriac Christian sources claim that the Byzantine Emperor Manuel I Komnenos secretly hindered the Crusaders' progress, particularly in Anatolia, where he is alleged to have deliberately ordered Turks to attack them. However, this alleged sabotage was likely fabricated by Odo, who saw the empire as an obstacle; moreover, Emperor Manuel had no political reason to do so. Louis and Conrad reached Jerusalem in 1148, where the remnants of their armies participated in an ill-advised attack on Damascus that ended in their retreat. Crusader efforts were successful in Iberia, where several territories—including Lisbon, the future capital of the Portuguese Empire—were conquered.
The initial response to the crusade bull, with incipit Quantum praedecessores, was poor, and it in fact had to be reissued when it was clear that King Louis would be taking part in the expedition. Louis had been considering an expedition independently of the pope, which he announced to his Christmas court at Bourges in 1145. It is debatable whether Louis was planning a crusade of his own or in fact a pilgrimage, as he wanted to fulfill a vow made by his dead brother Philip to go to the Holy Land. It is probable that Louis had made this decision without having heard about the bull. In any case, Abbot Suger and other nobles were not in favour of Louis's plans, as he would be gone from the kingdom for several years. Louis consulted Bernard of Clairvaux, who referred him back to Pope Eugene. By that time Louis would have definitely heard about the papal bull, and Eugene enthusiastically supported Louis's crusade. The bull was reissued on 1 March 1146, and Eugene authorized Bernard to preach the news throughout France.
Background
Fall of Edessa
After the First Crusade and the minor Crusade of 1101, there were three Crusader states established in the east: the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the Principality of Antioch and the County of Edessa. A fourth, the County of Tripoli, was established in 1109. Edessa was the most northerly of these, and also the weakest and least populated; as such, it was subject to frequent attacks from the surrounding Muslim states ruled by the Artuqids, Danishmendids and Seljuk Turks. Baldwin II, Count of Edessa, and Joscelin of Courtenay were taken captive after their defeat at the Battle of Harran in 1104. Baldwin ascended to king of Jerusalem in 1118, and Joscelin succeeded him as count of Edessa. Although Edessa recovered somewhat after the Battle of Azaz in 1125, Joscelin was killed in battle in 1131. His successor Joscelin II was forced into an alliance with the Byzantine Empire, but in 1143 both Byzantine Emperor John II Komnenos and King Fulk of Jerusalem died. Joscelin had also quarrelled with the Count of Tripoli and the Prince of Antioch, leaving Edessa with no powerful allies.Meanwhile, Zengi, atabeg of Mosul, had added Aleppo to his rule in 1128, the key to power in Syria, contested between Mosul and Damascus. Both Zengi and Baldwin turned their attention towards Damascus; in 1129 Baldwin led a failed campaign against Damascus. Damascus, ruled by the Burid dynasty, later allied with King Fulk when Zengi besieged the city in 1139 and 1140; the alliance was negotiated by the chronicler Usama ibn Munqidh.
In late 1144, Joscelin II allied with the Artuqids and marched out of Edessa with almost his entire army to support the Artuqid army against Aleppo. Seeking to take advantage of Fulk's death in 1143, Zengi marched north to besiege Edessa, which fell to him after a month on 24 December 1144. Manasses of Hierges, Philip of Milly and others were sent from Jerusalem to assist but arrived too late. Joscelin II continued to rule the remnants of the county from Turbessel, but little by little the rest of the territory was captured by Muslims or sold to the Byzantines. Zengi was praised throughout the Muslim world as "defender of the faith" and al-Malik al-Mansur, "the victorious king". He did not pursue an attack on the remaining territory of Edessa or on the Principality of Antioch, as was feared. Events in Mosul compelled him to return home, and he once again set his sights on Damascus. However, he was assassinated by a slave in 1146 and was succeeded in Aleppo by his son Nur ad-Din.
Papal bull and French plans
The news of the fall of Edessa was brought back to Europe first by pilgrims early in 1145, and then by embassies from Antioch, Jerusalem and Armenia. Bishop Hugh of Jabala reported the news to Pope Eugene III, who issued the bull Quantum praedecessores on 1 December, calling for a crusade to rescue the remaining states. Hugh also told Eugene of an eastern Christian king who, it was hoped, would bring relief to the Crusader states: this is the first documented mention of Prester John. Eugene did not control Rome and lived instead at Viterbo, but nevertheless the Second Crusade was meant to be more organised and centrally controlled than the First Crusade: the armies would be led by the strongest kings of Europe, and a route would be planned.Upon hearing of the fall of Edessa, Louis VII of France was already preparing a crusade of his own, independent of Eugene’s bull. It is possible that the embassies from the east had visited Louis as well. Louis was obsessed with a sin he had committed in a military campaign he undertook earlier in Champagne and was planning a pilgrimage to the Holy Land to make up for it. Louis and his wife Eleanor of Aquitaine were at Bourges when the message of the bull arrived, and Louis responded enthusiastically on Christmas Day that he would lead a crusade. Noting a lack of enthusiasm among the French nobility, Louis postponed further action till Easter 1146. However, in consultation with Abbot Bernard of Clairvaux, Louis eventually sought Eugene’s blessing, and Louis' crusade enjoyed full papal support. Final planning took place at Saint-Denis over Easter that year, which Eugene attended. Louis delegated administration of his kingdom to Eugene, who appointed Abbot Suger and Ralph I of Vermandois as co-regents.
Bernard of Clairvaux
The pope commissioned Bernard to preach the Second Crusade and granted the same indulgences for it which Pope Urban II had accorded to the First Crusade. A parliament was convoked at Vezelay in Burgundy in 1146, and Bernard preached before the assembly on 31 March. Louis, Eleanor, and the princes and lords present prostrated themselves at the feet of Bernard to receive the pilgrims' cross. Bernard then passed into Germany, and the reported miracles which multiplied almost at his every step undoubtedly contributed to the success of his mission. At Speyer, Conrad III of Germany and his nephew, later Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, received the cross from the hand of Bernard. Pope Eugene came in person to France to encourage the enterprise.For all his overmastering zeal, Bernard was by nature neither a bigot nor a persecutor. As in the First Crusade, the preaching inadvertently led to attacks on Jews; a fanatical French monk named Rudolf was apparently inspiring massacres of Jews in the Rhineland, Cologne, Mainz, Worms and Speyer, with Rudolf claiming Jews were not contributing financially to the rescue of the Holy Land. Bernard and other nobles were vehemently opposed to these attacks, and so Bernard travelled from Flanders to Germany to deal with the problem and quieten the mobs. Bernard then found Rudolf in Mainz and was able to silence him, returning him to his monastery.
Reconquista in Iberia
In the spring of 1147, the pope authorized the expansion of the crusade into the Iberian Peninsula, in the context of the Reconquista. He also authorized Alfonso VII of León and Castile to equate his campaigns against the Moors with the rest of the Second Crusade. In May 1147, the first contingents of Crusaders left from Dartmouth in England for the Holy Land. Bad weather forced the ships to stop on the northern Portuguese coast at Porto on 16 June 1147. There they were convinced to meet with King Afonso I of Portugal.The Crusaders agreed to help Alfonso attack Lisbon, with a solemn agreement that offered to them the pillage of the city's goods and the ransom money for expected prisoners. However, some of the Crusader forces were hesitant to help, remembering a previous failed attempt on the city by a combined force of Portuguese and northern Crusaders during the earlier siege of Lisbon in 1142. The 1147 siege lasted from 1 July to 25 October, when the Moorish rulers agreed to surrender primarily due to hunger within the city. Most of the Crusaders settled in the city, but some of them set sail and continued to the Holy Land. Those who stayed helped to conquer Sintra, Almada, Palmela and Setúbal, and they were allowed to settle in the conquered lands.
Almost at the same time on the peninsula, King Alfonso VII of León, Count Ramon Berenguer IV of Barcelona, and others led a mixed army of Catalan, Leonese, Castilian and French Crusaders against the rich port city of Almería. With support from a Genoese–Pisan navy, the city was occupied in October 1147.
Ramon Berenguer then invaded the lands of the Almoravid taifa kingdom of Valencia and Murcia. The fraction of the crusading forces which had aided the Portuguese in the capture of Lisbon were encouraged to participate in the proposed siege of Tortosa by Ramon and the English papal envoy Nicholas Breakspear. In December 1148, he captured Tortosa after a five-month siege—again with the help of the Crusaders. A large number of Crusader forces were rewarded with lands inside and in the vicinity of Tortosa. The next year, Fraga, Lleida and Mequinenza in the confluence of the Segre and Ebro rivers fell to his army.