Fig. 103.—Godefroy de Bouillon, crowned with the Instruments of our Lord’s Passion.—From a Woodcut of the end of the Fifteenth Century, in the Burgundian Library, Brussels.
Fig. 104.—Tomb of Godefroy de Bouillon, as it existed in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem, with the inscription:—“Hic jacet inclitus Godfridus de Bulion, qui totam istam terram acquisivit cultui Christiano, cujus anima cum Christo requiescat. Amen.” (“Here lies the illustrious Godefroy de Bouillon, who won all this Holy Land to the worship of Christ. May his soul rest with Jesus.”)—Monument of the early part of the Twelfth Century, now destroyed, from a Drawing taken on the spot in 1828, now in the possession of M. Ambr. Firmin-Didot.
Half a century passed away, during which Christendom sent forth expedition after expedition to defend the Holy Land and to consolidate its conquest; but with little success, for the Saracens never desisted from their attacks on the Crusaders, and persistently disputed with them the possession of Palestine. Moreover, the ardour of the pilgrims gradually diminished, the zeal for the Crusades commenced to slacken in Europe, and indifference and apathy began to take its place. When the throne of Godefroy de Bouillon began to totter upon its insecure foundations, the road to Jerusalem became deserted, and the civilised world, absorbed and distracted by the nearer and keener struggles continually waging between its popes and its sovereigns, soon, preserved but a vague remembrance of the glorious enterprises of its fathers.
Suddenly, however, it was rumoured in the West that the city of Edessa, the capital of the first Christian principality founded by the Crusaders in the East, and considered as the bulwark of the kingdom of Jerusalem, had been retaken by the Saracens, who had deluged the streets in blood. The painful tidings were received with deep indignation; but a man of genius was at hand to strike the keynote of distress and vengeance, and the voice of St. Bernard, the Abbot of Clairvaux, rekindled the waning torch of crusading enthusiasm.
It was at Vézelai (Fig. 105), where Louis VII. held his court, that the illustrious abbot, “fortified with the apostolical authority and his own sanctity,” first addressed the nobles and the populace (1146). “As there was no room in the castle,” says an eye-witness, Eudes de Deuil, in his Latin chronicles, “a pulpit had been constructed in the open air upon the plains which lay at the foot of the hill of Vézelai, into which Bernard ascended, accompanied by the king, wearing the cross sent him by the pope.” When the heaven-born orator had aroused his hearers with the divine fire of his eloquence, there arose a universal shout of “Crosses! crosses!” The crosses which the abbot had prepared beforehand were soon exhausted, and, tearing his clothes into strips, he distributed them amongst the assembly, who fastened them crosswise on their garments. He continued his exhortations during the whole of his stay at Vézelai, giving proof of the sanctity of his mission by the numerous miracles which he performed.
The pious and touching appeals of St. Bernard attained the success he desired. King Louis, his wife Eleanor, his principal nobility and clergy, many thousand knights, and a vast number of the lower classes, enrolled themselves under the banner of the cross. “As soon as it was agreed that they should set out at the expiration of a year,” says another chronicler, “all joyfully returned home. But the Abbot of Clairvaux went about preaching from place to place, and it soon became impossible to reckon the number of the Crusaders.” From France, Bernard crossed over to Germany, where the influence of his inspired words fully revealed itself, for whole populations, unable even to understand the language he addressed them in, carried away by the marvellous charm of his manner, smote their breasts, and cried out, “God be merciful to us! The saints be with us!”
Fig. 105.—Façade of the Abbey Church of the Magdalen, as it now stands at Vézelai, where, in 1146, St. Bernard preached the Second Crusade (Twelfth Century).
The Emperor Conrad, whom the Abbot endeavoured to persuade to join the King of France in the new crusade, at first gave the enterprise considerable opposition; but at last, at a meeting held at Spires, the 28th of December, 1146, Bernard’s extraordinary eloquence produced such an effect upon him that he vowed on the spot to assume the cross. His example was immediately followed by several German princes, amongst whom was his own nephew, the youthful Frederick of Suabia, who afterwards became so celebrated under the name of Frederick Barbarossa.