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20 August (Feast of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, Abbot and Doctor of the Church)
Double
White Vestments
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Church of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux in Flachsmeer,
District of Leer, East Frisia, Germany.
Deutsch: Hist. Kirche (kath.) in Flachsmeer, LK Ler, Ostfriesland.
Author: Frisia Orientalis
Photo: May 2009.
(Wikimedia Commons)
Second Crusade (1146–49)
News came at this time from the Holy Land that alarmed Christendom. Christians had been defeated at the Siege of Edessa and most of the country had fallen into the hands of the Seljuk Turks. The Kingdom of Jerusalem and the other Crusader states were threatened with similar disaster. Deputations of the bishops of Armenia solicited aid from the Pope, and the King of France also sent ambassadors. The Pope commissioned Saint Bernard to preach a Second Crusade and granted the same Indulgences for it which Pope Urban II had accorded to the First Crusade.
There was, at first, virtually no popular enthusiasm for the Crusade, as there had been in 1095. Bernard found it expedient to dwell upon the taking of the Cross as a potent means of gaining absolution for sin and attaining grace. On 31 March, with King Louis present, he preached to an enormous crowd in a field at Vézelay. When Bernard was finished, the crowd enlisted en masse; they supposedly ran out of cloth to make Crosses. Bernard is said to have given his own outer garments to be cut up to make more.
Unlike the First Crusade, the new venture attracted royalty, such as Eleanor of Aquitaine, then Queen of France; Thierry of Alsace, Count of Flanders; Henry, the future Count of Champagne; Louis’ brother Robert I of Dreux; Alphonse I of Toulouse; William II of Nevers; William de Warenne, 3rd Earl of Surrey; Hugh VII of Lusignan; and numerous other nobles and bishops.
But an even greater show of support came from the common people. Bernard wrote to the Pope a few days afterwards, "Cities and castles are now empty. There is not left one man to seven women, and everywhere there are widows to still-living husbands."
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Church of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, Kurrenberg, Germany.
Deutsch: katholische Kirche St. Bernhard in Kürrenberg
Author: GFreihalter
Photo: April 2011.
(Wikimedia Commons)
Bernard then passed into Germany, and the reported miracles which multiplied almost at his every step undoubtedly contributed to the success of his mission. Conrad III of Germany and his nephew, Frederick Barbarossa, received the Cross from the hand of Bernard. Pope Eugenius came in person to France to encourage the enterprise. As in the First Crusade, the preaching inadvertently led to attacks on Jews; a fanatical French monk named Radulphe was apparently inspiring massacres of Jews in the Rhineland, Cologne, Mainz, Worms, and Speyer, with Radulphe claiming Jews were not contributing financially to the rescue of the Holy Land.
The archbishop of Cologne and the archbishop of Mainz were vehemently opposed to these attacks and asked Bernard to denounce them. This he did, but when the campaign continued, Bernard travelled from Flanders to Germany to deal with the problems in person. He then found Radulphe in Mainz and was able to silence him, returning him to his monastery.
The last years of Bernard's life were saddened by the failure of the Second Crusade he had preached, the entire responsibility for which was thrown upon him. Bernard considered it his duty to send an apology to the Pope and it is inserted in the second part of his "Book of Considerations." There he explains how the sins of the Crusaders were the cause of their misfortune and failures. When his attempt to call a new Crusade failed, he tried to disassociate himself from the fiasco of the Second Crusade, altogether.
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The death of his contemporaries served as a warning to Bernard of his own approaching end. The first to die was Abbot Suger in 1152, of whom Bernard wrote to Eugenius III: "If there is any precious vase adorning the palace of the King of Kings, it is the soul of the venerable Suger". Conrad III and his son, Henry, died the same year. From the beginning of the year 1153, Bernard felt his death approaching. The passing of Pope Eugenius had struck the fatal blow by taking from him one whom he considered his greatest friend and consoler.
Bernard died at age sixty-three on 20 August 1153, after forty years spent in the cloister. He was buried at Clairvaux Abbey, but, after its dissolution in 1792 by the French revolutionary government, his remains were transferred to Troyes Cathedral.
PART NINE FOLLOWS
The archbishop of Cologne and the archbishop of Mainz were vehemently opposed to these attacks and asked Bernard to denounce them. This he did, but when the campaign continued, Bernard travelled from Flanders to Germany to deal with the problems in person. He then found Radulphe in Mainz and was able to silence him, returning him to his monastery.
The last years of Bernard's life were saddened by the failure of the Second Crusade he had preached, the entire responsibility for which was thrown upon him. Bernard considered it his duty to send an apology to the Pope and it is inserted in the second part of his "Book of Considerations." There he explains how the sins of the Crusaders were the cause of their misfortune and failures. When his attempt to call a new Crusade failed, he tried to disassociate himself from the fiasco of the Second Crusade, altogether.
17(1090+-+1153).jpg)
Interior of Church of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, Rome.
Chiesa di San Bernardo alle terme, nel quartiere Castro Pretorio, a Roma. Interno.
Author: gaspa
Photo: August 2006.
(Wikimedia Commons).
The death of his contemporaries served as a warning to Bernard of his own approaching end. The first to die was Abbot Suger in 1152, of whom Bernard wrote to Eugenius III: "If there is any precious vase adorning the palace of the King of Kings, it is the soul of the venerable Suger". Conrad III and his son, Henry, died the same year. From the beginning of the year 1153, Bernard felt his death approaching. The passing of Pope Eugenius had struck the fatal blow by taking from him one whom he considered his greatest friend and consoler.
Bernard died at age sixty-three on 20 August 1153, after forty years spent in the cloister. He was buried at Clairvaux Abbey, but, after its dissolution in 1792 by the French revolutionary government, his remains were transferred to Troyes Cathedral.
PART NINE FOLLOWS
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