The Historians' History of the World 08 [Parthians, Sassanids and Arabs; The Crusades and the Papacy]

It was in the proclamation of the Second Crusade that he shone as the missionary and prophet of God, who called the nations to the defence of the Holy Sepulchre. At the parliament of Vézelay he spoke before the king; and Louis VII, with his nobles, received their crosses from his hand. The abbot of Clairvaux then marched to the less easy conquest of the emperor Conrad; a phlegmatic people, ignorant of his language, was transported by the pathetic vehemence of his tone and gestures; and his progress from Constance to Cologne was the triumph of eloquence and zeal. Bernard applauds his own success in the depopulation of Europe; affirms that cities and castles were emptied of their inhabitants; and computes that only one man was left behind for the consolation of seven widows. The blind fanatics were desirous of electing him for their general; but the example of the hermit Peter was before his eyes; and while he assured the crusaders of the divine favour, he prudently declined a military command in which failure and victory would have been almost equally disgraceful to his character.b

In the consternation throughout Palestine which the fall of Edessa occasioned, all classes of people beckoned their compatriots in the West. The news of the loss of the eastern frontier of the Latin kingdom reached France at a time peculiarly favourable for foreign war. After having reduced his vassal the count of Champagne to obedience, Louis VII the French king exceeded the usual cruelty of conquerors, and instead of sheathing his sword, when the inhabitants of Vetri submitted, he set fire to a church, to which more than thirteen hundred of them had fled for refuge. His sacrilegious barbarity excited the indignation of the clergy and laity. A fit of sickness calmed his passions; his conscience accused and condemned him, and he resolved to expiate his sins by a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Louis VII was the first sovereign prince who engaged himself to fight under the banner of the cross. The news of the calamities in Palestine quickened his holy resolution, and like other men he was impetuously moved by the eloquence of St. Bernard, the great oracle of the age.

The wish of Louis for a crusade was applauded by Pope Eugenius III. His intention was pronounced to be holy; and Bernard was ordered to travel through France and Germany, and preach a plenary indulgence to those who followed the royal example. Eugenius wrote to the faithful sons of the church, urging them to cross the seas to Palestine. The first crusaders had provoked the wrath of heaven by their dissoluteness and folly; but the new soldiers of Christ ought to travel simple in dress, and disdaining the luxury of falcons and dogs of the chase. As Peter had represented the scandal of suffering the sacred places to remain in the hands of the infidels, the eloquent Bernard thundered from the pulpit the disgrace of allowing a land which had been recovered from pollution again to sink into it. He was admitted to the thrones of princes, as well as to the pulpits of their churches; to public assemblies and to private meetings. In a parliament held at Vézelay, in the season of Easter, 1146, Louis was confirmed in his pious resolve; and having on his knees received the holy symbol, he joined with Bernard in moving the barons and knights to save the sanctuary of David from the hands of the Philistines. No house could contain the multitude; they assembled in the fields and Bernard addressed them from a lofty pulpit. As at the Council of Clermont, so on this occasion shouts of “Deus id vult” rent the skies; the crosses which the man of God had brought with him to the meeting fell far short of the number of enthusiasts; and he therefore tore his simple monkish garment into small pieces, and affixed them to the shoulders of his kneeling converts. The successful incendiary then crossed the Rhine; and every city and village from Constance to Carinthia echoed the call to war.