Chronograph Русский Open the atlasAtlas
Western and Central Europe (11th–12th c.)Wars and battles

Second Crusade

After Zengi took Edessa in 1144, Pope Eugene III called for a new crusade, and on 31 March 1146 Bernard of Clairvaux preached it at Vézelay before King Louis VII. The French and German armies of Louis and Conrad III were badly mauled crossing Anatolia, and the siege of Damascus in July 1148 was abandoned after five days; its main lasting gain was Lisbon, taken in October 1147 for Afonso Henriques by a crusader fleet that had sailed from England.

Date
31 March 1146 – 1149start: exact date; end: year known · duration: ≈ 3 yearsDate in the Julian calendar
Place
Vézelaytoday: Vézelay, Yonne, France · Western and Central Europe
Route
Vézelay → Metz → Kingdom of Hungary, on the Danube → Constantinople → Lopadion → Ephesus → Mount Cadmus → Attalia → Sea off Cilicia → Antioch → Tripoli → Jerusalem → Acre → Damascus
Participants
Louis VII of France, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Bernard of Clairvaux, Kingdom of France, Holy Roman Empire, Byzantine Empire, Sultanate of Rum, Kingdom of Jerusalem, Kingdom of Portugal
Threads
Western and Central Europe (11th–12th c.)
Also known as
Siege of Lisbon (1147); Осада Лиссабона (1147); Siege of Damascus (1148); Осада Дамаска (1148); Battle of Dorylaeum (1147); Battle of Mount Cadmus; Битва у горы Кадм; Quantum praedecessores; Sermon at Vézelay; Проповедь в Везле

Zengi took Edessa, the first crusader state, on 24 December 1144. When the news reached Pope Eugene III through Bishop Hugh of Jabala, he issued the bull Quantum praedecessores (1 December 1145, reissued on 1 March 1146), and Louis VII had announced his wish to go on crusade at Christmas 1145. An assembly was summoned to Vézelay in Burgundy, and there, on 31 March 1146, Bernard of Clairvaux preached to an enormous crowd in a field, and the king, Queen Eleanor and the lords present took the cross. Bernard went on to preach in Germany, and at Speyer in 1146 Conrad III and his nephew Frederick, the future Barbarossa, took the cross as well.

The Germans set out in May 1147 and reached Constantinople on 10 September; the French left Metz in June. Both armies crossed the Bosporus into Asia, and Manuel I, whose lands Roger II of Sicily was attacking at the same time, made a truce with the Turks, which the French resented. In October 1147 the Seljuks all but destroyed Conrad's army near Dorylaeum. The French, joined by its remnants at Lopadion, marched to Ephesus, suffered heavy losses at Mount Cadmus on 6 January 1148, reached Attalia and went on by sea; Louis arrived at Antioch on 19 March. He declined the call of Eleanor's uncle, Prince Raymond, for an expedition against Aleppo and went on by way of Tripoli to Jerusalem. On 24 June 1148, at Palmarea near Acre, the crusaders and the High Court of Jerusalem chose to attack Damascus, a former ally of the kingdom; the army reached the orchards west of the city on 23 July, moved its camp to the eastern side and on 28 July retreated.

The only lasting gains were made in Iberia. A fleet of English, Norman, Flemish and German crusaders, which left Dartmouth on 19 May 1147, was persuaded at Porto to help King Afonso I of Portugal (Afonso Henriques) in return for the plunder of Lisbon. Besieged from 1 July, the starving city agreed to surrender on 21 October, and the crusaders entered it on 25 October; Gilbert of Hastings became its first bishop, and some of the fleet went on to help take Tortosa in December 1148. In the East, Louis and Eleanor sailed home on separate ships in April 1149. Bernard, humiliated, blamed the failure on the sins of the crusaders, and Damascus, no longer trusting the Franks, fell to Nur ad-Din in 1154.

Open in the interactive atlas

Connections

Causes and preconditions

  • Fall of Edessa28 November – 24 December 1144 · Balkans and Anatoliathe fall of Edessa moved Pope Eugene III to proclaim the Second Crusade in the bull Quantum praedecessores (1 December 1145)

Related events

  • First Crusade1096 – 12 August 1099 · Western and Central EuropeEdessa, whose fall prompted the Second Crusade, had been the first crusader state, founded by Baldwin of Boulogne in 1098
  • Suger's choir at Saint-Denis: the beginning of Gothic11 June 1144 · Western and Central EuropeSuger, whose choir was consecrated before Louis VII and Eleanor, governed France as regent while they were on the Second Crusade
  • Nur ad-Din unites Muslim SyriaSeptember 1146 – 15 May 1174 · Middle East and Egyptthe crusaders' failure before Damascus in 1148 left the city distrustful of the Franks, and in 1154 Nur ad-Din took it, uniting Muslim Syria
  • Reign of Manuel I Komnenos8 April 1143 – 24 September 1180 · Balkans and Anatoliain 1147 the armies of Conrad III and Louis VII passed through Manuel's empire
  • Third Crusade11 May 1189 – between 1 September and 2 September 1192 · Western and Central Europeboth crusades were launched from Vézelay: Bernard preached the Second there in 1146, and Richard and Philip set out from there in 1190

Same participants

Adjacent events in the thread

Meanwhile in the world

Other regions, within a year of this event

Eastern Europe

Balkans and Anatolia

Middle East and Egypt

Africa

Central and Northern Asia

South Asia

East Asia

Southeast Asia and Oceania

North America

Latin America

The same period

114612th century

Sources

  1. Wikipedia (English): Second Crusade
  2. Wikipedia (English): Siege of Lisbon
  3. Wikipedia (English): Siege of Damascus (1148)
  4. Wikipedia (English): Louis VII of France
  5. Wikipedia (English): Conrad III of Germany
  6. Wikipedia (Russian): Второй крестовый поход
  7. Wikipedia (Russian): Осада Лиссабона
  8. Phillips J. The Second Crusade: Extending the Frontiers of Christendom. — New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007.
  9. Odo of Deuil. De profectione Ludovici VII in orientem / ed. and tr. V. G. Berry. — New York: Columbia University Press, 1948.
  10. De expugnatione Lyxbonensi: The Conquest of Lisbon / ed. and tr. C. W. David. — New York: Columbia University Press, 1936.
  11. Wikidata: Q51654