His successor Joscelin II was forced into an alliance with the Byzantine Empire, but in 1143 both the Byzantine emperor John II Comnenus and the King of Jerusalem Fulk of Anjou died. Last modified July 17, 2018. It ended in a decisive crusader defeat and led to the disintegration of the crusade. The Germans, however, are able to fight on foot better than the French and excel in using the great sword". The German army led by Conrad III was the first to suffer from a lack of planning and not heeding local advice. An attack on Jaén in southern Spain, though, was a failure. Please see the category guidelines for more information. Louis and his associates claimed the ships for themselves, while the rest of the army had to resume the long march to Antioch. The leaders of the First Crusade established these states as a means of … The bull was reissued on 1 March 1146, and Eugene authorized Bernard to preach the news throughout France.[11]. This category contains historical battles fought as part of the Second Crusade (1145 –1149). The Second Crusade was started in response to the fall of the County of Edessa in 1144 to the forces of Zengi.The county had been founded during the First Crusade (1096–1099) by King Baldwin I of Jerusalem in 1098. The cost of raising and training a mamluk was about 30 dinars (by contrast, a good horse in Syria went for about 100 dinars). The Turks continued to attack, and were able to inflict a devastating defeat on the Crusader army at Mount Cadmus in January 1148. Cartwright, Mark. Roger II of Sicily [23] Some of them, who had departed earlier, helped capture Santarém earlier in the same year. The Battle of the Meander took place in December 1147, during the Second Crusade. December 24, 1144—Muslim forces under the command of Imad ad-Din Zengi re-capture Edessa, originally taken by Crusaders under Baldwin of Boulogne in 1098. There were perhaps 50,000 troops in total. [27] Both the French and German contingents had a huge numbers of camp followers, most of whom did not survive the Crusade. It would ultimately have a key influence on the fall of Jerusalem and give rise to the Third Crusade at the end of the 12th century. The Christian glories in the death of the pagan, because Christ is thereby glorified." The fighting around the city had been ferocious with heavy casualties on both sides but no real advance had been made. This bull stated that there was to be no difference between the spiritual rewards of the different crusaders. The original focus of the crusade was Edessa, but in Jerusalem, the preferred target of King Baldwin III and the Knights Templar was Damascus. The basis of the military system in the Islamic Middle East was the iqta' system of fiefs, which supported a certain number of troops in every district. Collapse of Almoravids, and rise of the Almohads. Manuel also sent ambassadors complaining about the pillaging and plundering that Louis had done along the way, and there was no guarantee that the Byzantines would assist them against the Turks. It is debatable whether Louis was planning a crusade of his own or in fact a pilgrimage, as he wanted to fulfil a vow made by his dead brother Philip to go to the Holy Land. The Second Crusade was announced by Pope Eugene III, and was the first of the crusades to be led by European kings, namely Louis VII of France and Conrad III of Germany, with help from a number of other European nobles. [46], According to William of Tyre, on 27 July the crusaders decided to move to the plain on the eastern side of the city, which was less heavily fortified but had much less food and water. [2] Count Baldwin II and future count Joscelin of Courtenay were taken captive after their defeat at the Battle of Harran in 1104. [38] The force led by Otto ran out of food while crossing inhospitable countryside and was ambushed by the Seluq Turks near Laodicea on 16 November 1147. [59] Baldwin III finally seized Ascalon in 1153, which brought Egypt into the sphere of conflict. [5], In late 1144, Joscelin II allied with the Ortoqids and marched out of Edessa with almost his entire army to support the Ortoqid army against Aleppo. Both Zengi and King Baldwin II turned their attention towards Damascus; Baldwin was defeated outside the city in 1129. Further support came from Turkoman and Kurdish auxiliaries, who could be called upon in times of war, though these forces were prone to indiscipline. The Slavic inhabitants also lost much of their methods of production, limiting their resistance in the future. The crusaders were pushed back from the walls into the orchards, leaving them exposed to ambushes and guerrilla attacks. The Turks did not bother to attack further and the French marched on to Adalia, continually harassed from afar by the Turks, who had also burned the land to prevent the French from replenishing their food, both for themselves and their horses. Within the empire itself, the crusade was remembered as a triumph of diplomacy. Zengi, already seeking to take advantage of Fulk's death in 1143, hurried north to besiege Edessa, which fell to him after a month on 24 December 1144. [57] He would die in 1153. Ancient History Encyclopedia Foundation is a non-profit organization. Our latest articles delivered to your inbox, once a week: Numerous educational institutions recommend us, including Oxford University and Michigan State University and University of Missouri. Please note that content linked from this page may have different licensing terms. However, he was assassinated by a slave in 1146 and was succeeded in Aleppo by his son Nur ad-Din. [11], For all his overmastering zeal, Bernard was by nature neither a bigot nor a persecutor. After crossing Byzantine territory into Anatolia, both armies were separately defeated by the Seljuq Turks. After quitting Ascalon, Conrad returned to Constantinople to further his alliance with Manuel. However, he was assassinated by a slave in 1146 and was succeeded in Aleppo by his son Nur ad-Din. [17], Upset by German participation in the crusade, the Obotrites preemptively invaded Wagria in June 1147, leading to the march of the crusaders in late summer 1147. [34] Conrad who underestimated the length of the march against Anatolia, and anyhow assumed that the authority of Emperor Manuel was greater in Anatolia than was in fact the case. [7] Hugh also told the Pope 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. [30], Joscelin tried to take back Edessa following Zengi's murder, but Nur ad-Din defeated him in November 1146. The fleet that had stopped at Lisbon arrived around this time, as well as the Provençals who had left Europe under the command of Alfonso Jordan, Count of Toulouse. October 25, 1147 — Second Battle of Dorylaeum: German Crusaders under Conrad III stop at Dorylaeum to rest and are destroyed by Saracens. "Second Crusade." Travelling from England, by ship, to the Holy Land, the army stopped and helped the smaller (7,000) Portuguese army in the capture of Lisbon, expelling its Moorish occupants. Bernard, the Archbishop of Cologne and the Archbishop of Mainz were vehemently opposed to these attacks, and so Bernard traveled from Flanders to Germany to deal with the problem and quiet the mobs. Despite an army of 60,000 and the presence of two western kings, the crusade was not successful in the Levant and caused further tension between the Byzantine Empire and the west. [31], The German crusaders, accompanied by the papal legate and cardinal Theodwin, intended to meet the French in Constantinople. [54], The crusaders decided to attack Damascus from the west, where orchards would provide them with a constant food supply. [37] They arrived at Darayya on 23 July. It was the first time that kings had personally led a crusader force. Some Rights Reserved (2009-2020) under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license unless otherwise noted. This Bull was sent directly to the French King, Louis VII, and although he had been contemplating a Crusade on his own, he chose to ignore the pope's call to action at first. [13] Pope Eugene came in person to France to encourage the enterprise. October 25, 1147—Second Battle of Dorylaeum: German Crusaders under Conrad III stop at Dorylaeum to rest and are destroyed by Saracens. 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. They reached Laodicea early in January 1148, around the same time Otto of Freising's army had been destroyed in the same area. Louis VII of France, his wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine, and the princes and lords present prostrated themselves at the feet of Bernard to receive the pilgrims' cross. Meanwhile Conrad fell sick and returned to Constantinople, where Manuel attended to him personally, and Louis, paying no attention to the warnings of a Turkish attack, marched out from Ephesus with the French and German survivors. In Germany, the Crusade was seen as a huge debacle with many monks writing that it could only have been the work of the Devil. He also authorized Alfonso VII of León and Castile to equate his campaigns against the Moors with the rest of the Second Crusade. Bernard then found Rudolf in Mainz and was able to silence him, returning him to his monastery. A force from Provence, led by Alphonse of Toulouse, chose to wait until August, and to cross by sea. The crusaders agreed to help the King attack Lisbon, with a solemn agreement that offered to them the pillage of the city's goods and the ransom money for expected prisoners.