Bernard of Clairvaux: Why the Second Crusade Failed

Written by Simon Williams

Bernard of Clairvaux preached the Second Crusade into existence at Vezelay in 1146, and within two years it had collapsed outside the walls of Damascus. He spent his final years defending God's judgement rather than his own damaged reputation as history's greatest preacher.

• Full name: Bernard of Clairvaux
• Born: 1090, Fontaine-les-Dijon, Burgundy
• Died: 20 August 1153, Clairvaux Abbey
• Title: Abbot of Clairvaux, driving force of the Cistercian order's expansion
• Defining act: Preached the Second Crusade at Vezelay, 31 March 1146
• Crusade outcome: Failed siege of Damascus, July 1148

The crowd at Vezelay on 31 March 1146 was so large that no building in the town could hold it. A wooden platform had to be built on the hillside outside the walls so the abbot preaching that day could be seen and heard. When he finished, King Louis VII of France and Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine knelt at his feet to receive the crusader's cross, and so many other nobles followed that Bernard reportedly ran out of cloth crosses to hand out and had to tear up his own habit to make more.

Two years later, the army that sermon raised was retreating from the walls of Damascus in disarray, having attacked the one city in the region that might otherwise have been a useful ally. Bernard of Clairvaux, the most respected churchman in Europe and the single individual most responsible for the Second Crusade happening at all, spent the rest of his life trying to explain how something he had promised was God's will had ended so badly.

This is the story of a preacher whose words moved an entire continent, and what happened when the war he called for did not go the way anyone expected.

The Monk Who Became Europe's Conscience

Bernard was born in 1090 near Dijon in Burgundy and entered the reforming Cistercian order as a young man, founding the abbey of Clairvaux in 1115 at the age of just twenty-five and building it into one of the most influential religious houses in Europe. By the 1140s he was not merely a respected abbot. He was arguably the most powerful religious voice in Western Christendom, a trusted advisor to popes, a fierce critic of church corruption, and a theologian whose writings shaped Christian devotion for centuries afterward.

That authority is the only reason the Second Crusade happened at all. When Pope Eugenius III, himself a former monk of Clairvaux and one of Bernard's own students, wanted to raise a new crusading army in the 1140s, it was Bernard he turned to for the preaching, because Bernard's word carried a weight that few if any other living churchmen could match.

The Fall of Edessa

The trigger was the loss of Edessa, the first of the Crusader states established after the First Crusade, captured by the Turkish ruler Zengi in December 1144 after a short siege. Edessa's fall shocked Western Christendom in a way that outweighed its strategic significance. It was proof that the gains of 1099 were not permanent, and that the Crusader states could lose territory as well as gain it, a possibility few in Europe had seriously entertained before the news arrived.

Pope Eugenius III issued a formal call for a new crusade in response, in the bull Quantum praedecessores, but it was Bernard's preaching tour across France and Germany that turned a papal document into an actual army. Bernard did not simply repeat Urban II's arguments from half a century earlier. He built a theological case that framed the crusade as an unmissable opportunity for spiritual reward, a message that reached far beyond the knightly class alone and drew in ordinary townspeople as well as nobles.

The Sermon at Vezelay

Bernard's sermon at Vezelay on 31 March 1146 became one of the defining moments of his career. The crowd was so large that no hall in the town could hold it, and a wooden platform had to be built on the hillside outside the walls so that Bernard could be seen and heard by everyone who had come. The response overwhelmed even the organisers' expectations. King Louis VII of France and Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine took the cross immediately, kneeling before Bernard to receive it, and so many nobles followed that Bernard is said to have run out of prepared cloth crosses and torn strips from his own habit to keep up with demand.

The wave of enthusiasm that followed carried Bernard on a further preaching tour through the German lands, where he persuaded the Holy Roman Emperor Conrad III to commit an army as well. By the standard of pure recruitment, nothing about the Second Crusade's launch suggested the disaster that was coming. Bernard had done exactly what he was asked to do, and done it more successfully than anyone could reasonably have expected.

Two Armies, One Disaster

The armies Bernard's preaching raised did not fare well reaching the Holy Land at all. Conrad III's German force, marching ahead of the French through Anatolia, was ambushed and routed near Dorylaeum in October 1147, suffering heavy losses in a disorganised retreat that saw Conrad himself wounded by arrows. Much of his army was destroyed or scattered before it ever reached the Crusader states.

Louis VII's French army, following a similar route some weeks later, suffered its own serious losses to Turkish harassment along the mountain passes of Anatolia before the surviving crusaders finally regrouped, battered and much reduced, in the Crusader states. Two major European armies, raised by the most effective preaching campaign of the entire crusading era, had been badly mauled before either force had fired a shot at the campaign's actual objective in the east, and neither king's forces arrived in the Holy Land anywhere near full strength.

The Siege of Damascus

What remained of the crusading army finally assembled at Jerusalem in the summer of 1148, and its leaders made the decision that doomed the entire expedition. Rather than targeting Edessa, the city whose loss had started the whole campaign, the crusader leadership chose to besiege Damascus instead, a city that had at times been a useful counterweight against other regional Muslim powers rather than a consistent enemy of the Crusader states.

The siege, begun in July 1148, went badly from the start. The crusaders attacked from an orchard-covered side of the city with good water access, then inexplicably repositioned to a more exposed and drier approach on the assumption it would be easier to hold. Facing a relief force marching to the city's aid and dwindling supplies of their own, the crusader leadership abandoned the siege after only four days, on 28 July 1148. The coalition disintegrated almost immediately afterward, and the Second Crusade was effectively over.

Defending God's Judgement

The scale of the failure fell disproportionately on Bernard. He had staked his personal authority and the credibility of his preaching on the campaign's righteousness, and its collapse invited harsh criticism from across Europe, some of it questioning his personal judgement, some of it questioning the entire theology of crusading he had championed so publicly at Vezelay.

Bernard's own response, set out in the second book of his later work De Consideratione addressed to Pope Eugenius III, did not retreat from his underlying position. He compared the crusaders' defeat to the biblical account of the tribes of Israel losing battles against the tribe of Benjamin despite fighting with God's approval and even at God's own command, arguing that a righteous cause and a battlefield victory were never the same promise, and that God's judgement was not always legible in the outcome of a single campaign, however painful that outcome felt to those who had lived through it.

Legacy Beyond the Battlefield

Bernard died in 1153, only a few years after the disaster at Damascus, with contemporaries recording that his final years were genuinely saddened by the crusade's failure and by the sustained public criticism directed at him as its principal driving force. Yet his broader reputation as a theologian and reformer proved durable enough to survive the military catastrophe his preaching had helped launch. He was canonised as a saint in 1174, barely two decades after his death, and later still named a Doctor of the Church, one of the highest honours the Catholic tradition can bestow on a theologian. His writings, including his formal defence of the newly formed Knights Templar, continued to shape Christian monastic and theological thought for centuries afterward, long after the specific details of the Damascus campaign had faded from memory. Readers exploring the wider Crusades collection, including the knights whose founding rule Bernard himself helped write, will find it at the Histories and Castles store, alongside a free illustrated guide to Richard the Lionheart.

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This article is part of the Crusades series. Read all articles at https://historiesandcastles.com/blogs/the-crusades.

Deepen Your Understanding

→ The History of the Crusades: the full sweep of the crusading era, from Urban II's call at Clermont to the fall of Acre in 1291

→ Pope Urban II: The Pope Who Launched the Crusades: the pope whose 1095 sermon at Clermont set the precedent Bernard followed at Vezelay fifty years later

→ The Council of Clermont and the Crusades: the earlier sermon that launched the crusading movement Bernard's own preaching revived

→ Who Were the Knights Templar?: the military order whose rule Bernard himself helped write and defend in his own theological writing

People Also Ask

Why did Bernard of Clairvaux preach the Second Crusade?

Bernard preached the Second Crusade at the direct request of Pope Eugenius III, following the shock of Edessa's fall to the Turkish ruler Zengi in 1144, the first Crusader state to be lost since the First Crusade. As the most respected and influential churchman in Western Christendom, Bernard's personal endorsement was considered essential to rallying meaningful support across the French and German nobility. His sermon at Vezelay on 31 March 1146 proved dramatically successful, recruiting both the French and German royal courts to the cause within a single day.

Why did the Second Crusade fail?

The Second Crusade failed through a combination of military disasters and poor strategic decisions made at almost every stage. Conrad III's German army was routed near Dorylaeum in October 1147 before it even reached the Holy Land, and Louis VII's French forces suffered comparable losses to Turkish harassment along the same route. The surviving crusaders then besieged Damascus in July 1148, a city that had not been a consistent enemy of the Crusader states, and abandoned the siege within four days after a badly managed approach left them exposed and dangerously short of supplies.

How did Bernard of Clairvaux respond to the crusade's failure?

Bernard did not retract his support for the crusade's underlying righteousness, even after its collapse. In his later work De Consideratione, addressed directly to Pope Eugenius III, he compared the crusaders' defeat to the biblical Israelites losing battles against the tribe of Benjamin despite fighting with God's own approval, arguing that a righteous cause never guaranteed a battlefield victory. He faced significant and sustained personal criticism across Europe for the crusade's failure, since he had staked his own reputation on its success, but he maintained this theological position for the remainder of his life.

What happened at the Siege of Damascus in 1148?

The crusader leadership besieged Damascus starting in July 1148, initially approaching from an orchard-covered area on the city's outskirts that offered good water access for a prolonged siege. The army then inexplicably repositioned to a more exposed and drier side of the city, apparently believing it would be easier to hold and defend. Facing a Muslim relief force marching to the city's aid and dwindling supplies of their own, the crusaders abandoned the siege after only four days, on 28 July 1148, and the wider crusading coalition disintegrated shortly afterward.

Who was Bernard of Clairvaux?

Bernard of Clairvaux was a French abbot, born in 1090 near Dijon, who founded Clairvaux Abbey in 1115 and became the single most influential figure in the Cistercian monastic order's rapid expansion across twelfth-century Europe. Beyond his monastic role, Bernard served as a trusted advisor to popes, a fierce critic of Church corruption, and an influential theologian whose writings, including his formal defence of the newly founded Knights Templar, continued to shape Christian monastic and devotional thought for centuries after his death in 1153 and his canonisation as a saint in 1174.

Primary Sources and Further Reading

• Bernard of Clairvaux: De Consideratione, addressed to Pope Eugenius III, written in the years following the Second Crusade's failure. Bernard's own extended theological reflection on the crusade's collapse and his defence of its underlying legitimacy.
• Phillips, Jonathan (2007): The Second Crusade: Extending the Frontiers of Christendom, Yale University Press. The standard modern academic history of the Second Crusade's causes, campaigns, and failure.
• Barber, Malcolm (2012): The Crusader States, Yale University Press. Situates the fall of Edessa and the Second Crusade's failed response within the wider political history of the Crusader States.

Note: the precise strategic reasoning behind the crusader leadership's decision to target Damascus, rather than Edessa or another objective, is debated among historians and not settled by a single contemporary source. This article presents the widely accepted account of the siege's failure while treating the underlying decision-making as an area of ongoing historical interpretation rather than a fully resolved question.

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