The abbot’s influence grew in tandem with that of the Cistercian order to which he belonged. Founded in 1098, this new monastic movement swept through Europe, advocating a fundamentalist interpretation of the Benedictine rule–the regulations governing monastic life–that ushered in a new atmosphere of austerity and simplicity. The Cistercians experienced exponential growth: from two houses in 1113 to 353 by 1151. By the mid-twelfth century, Cîteaux could challenge, even outshine, the influence of more established forms of monasticism, like that of Cluny. This shift was starkly apparent in the origins of individual popes, for while Urban II came from a Cluniac background, Eugenius III had been monk at Clairvaux before his election to the papal office.¹⁰⁰

Bernard first preached the crusade during a grand Easter week assembly at Vézelay in 1146. The location of this gathering, jointly planned by the papacy and the French monarchy for the expedition’s relaunch, was no accident. Nestled in the Burgundian heartlands of Cluniac and Cistercian monasticism, Vézelay was perfectly placed to host a recruitment rally. Already closely associated with the practice of pilgrimage as one of the starting points for the journey to Santiago de Compostela, it was also home to a magnificent abbey church, dedicated to Mary Magdalene.

The scale of the meeting held at Vézelay was unprecedented. While the 1095 council of Clermont had been a largely ecclesiastical affair, in 1146 the flower of north-western Europe’s nobility came together. King Louis VII was joined by his beautiful, headstrong young wife, Eleanor, heiress to the immensely powerful duchy of Aquitaine. They had wed in 1137, when she was fifteen and Louis was about to ascend the throne (aged seventeen), but the initial warmth of their marriage waned somewhat as the king’s piety deepened. Possessed of a marked lust for life, Eleanor was to accompany Louis on crusade, although the later legend that she rode at the head of an army of Amazons was apocryphal.

The king’s brother, Robert, count of Dreux, likewise was present at Vézelay, as were a host of other Frankish potentates, many of whom had historic links to crusading. These included Count Thierry of Flanders, who probably had already made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in the late 1130s, and Count Alphonse-Jordan of Toulouse, son to the crusade leader Raymond and kinsman of Tripoli’s Latin rulers. The crowds of nobles were joined by so large a throng that the assembly had to be held outside the confines of the abbey church. From the vantage point of a hastily constructed wooden platform, Louis and Bernard delivered rousing, impassioned speeches on Easter Sunday. The French king’s clothing was already emblazoned with a cross specially sent to him by the pope, and a witness recalled that, when the abbot finished his stirring oration: ‘Everyone around began shouting for crosses. When [Bernard] had given out, we might even say had sown, the bundle of crosses which he had prepared, he was forced to tear up his clothes and sow them.’ The clamour was apparently so great that the wooden dais collapsed, although luckily no one was injured (this in itself was interpreted as a sign of divine favour).

Vézelay was an enormous success, promoting an infectious sense of enthusiasm and excitement, but even so, for the crusade to reach its full potential the call to arms needed to be broadcast to an even wider audience. With this in mind, Bernard enacted a range of measures. Additional preachers were deputised to spread the word elsewhere in France, while scores of letters extolling the virtues of the crusade were dispatched to other regions, including England, northern Italy and Brittany. In these missives the abbot almost adopted the language of a salesman to promote the crusade. In one the expedition was characterised as a unique opportunity to overcome sin: ‘This age is like no other that has gone before; a new abundance of divine mercy comes down from heaven; blessed are those who are alive in this year pleasing to the Lord, this year of remission…I tell you, the Lord has not done this for any generation before.’ Another letter encouraged Christians ‘not to let the chance pass you by’ to fight for God and thereby earn as ‘wages, the remission of their sins and everlasting glory’.¹⁰¹

Meanwhile, despite being in his mid-fifties and physically frail, Bernard himself embarked on an extended tour of north-eastern France, Flanders and Germany, sparking waves of recruitment wherever he went. In November 1146 the abbot met Conrad III, king of Germany, arguably the most powerful secular ruler in all Latin Christendom. Around fifty years old, he had not yet been crowned by the pope and was thus unable to claim the title of emperor enjoyed by his predecessors, but it seemed only a matter of time before this honour would be conferred. During the First Crusade, Rome and Germany had been embroiled in an acrimonious dispute that checked any hopes of direct imperial involvement in the expedition. But in the mid-twelfth century relations between the two powers were considerably improved. Conrad had shown himself to be a true and valued papal ally, not least against Norman Sicilian aggression in Italy; he had also demonstrated an affinity for the Holy Land, probably visiting the Levant in the 1120s. Nonetheless, Conrad was initially reluctant to take the cross, only too conscious that, in his absence, political rivals such as Welf, duke of Bavaria, might move to seize power. At their first meeting in Frankfurt, the king thus demurred when Bernard suggested that he enlist.

The abbot responded by throwing himself into a vigorous winter preaching campaign, delivering sermons at the likes of Freiburg, Zürich and Basel. His journey was said to have been accompanied by a multitude of miracles–more than two hundred cripples were apparently healed, demons cast out and one individual even raised from the dead. And, although Bernard could not speak German, and had to orate with the aid of an interpreter, his words were still capable of bringing ‘floods of tears’ to his audience. Through November and December, hundreds, if not thousands, committed to the cause. It surely was not coincidental that this journey took the abbot into southern German territory neighbouring Welf of Bavaria’s domain, nor that it culminated in Duke Welf’s own enrolment in the crusade.

Buoyed by this achievement, Bernard rejoined Conrad at Speyer on 24 December. In the course of that Christmas the abbot delivered a public sermon and then, on 27 December, was granted a private audience with the king. The following day, Conrad finally took the cross. Scholars continue to dispute the degree of influence exerted by Bernard at this critical moment, some arguing that he effectively goaded the king into joining against his will, others that Conrad’s decision had long been premeditated. Certainly, contemporaries described how the abbot mixed his ‘customary gentleness’ with dire warnings of an imminent apocalypse to win over the king, but it was probably Welf of Bavaria’s recruitment that proved decisive.

Notwithstanding this debate, Bernard of Clairvaux must still be regarded as the primary force behind the preaching of the Second Crusade. The abbot himself remarked that, through his efforts, the Latin armies had been ‘multiplied beyond number’, and that there was barely one man to every seven women left in the settlements through which he passed. There were, nonetheless, other individuals and influences at work in this period. The notions of memory and familial heritage emphasised in Quantum praedecessores evidently had a marked impact on recruitment. Louis VII had a bloodline connection to the First Crusade–his great-uncle, Hugh of Vermandois, had participated in the expedition. Analysis of others known to have joined the Second Crusade reveals that many had a similar crusading pedigree.¹⁰²