Eleanor of Aquitaine and the Second Crusade Ep 2: A Total Debacle

The second crusade was an absolute

military disaster.

It is the story of the largest army of a

generation led into the near east by two

kings on a mission that very few would

return from. And what makes this story

all the more remarkable is how

preventable so much of the disaster

really was. It's now been 50 years since

the first crusade, which was by all

accounts a huge success. And now in the

spring of 1146,

the call for the second crusade has gone

out across Europe. It's been preached by

the incredibly charismatic abbott later

Saint Bernard of Clairvo at the

instruction of the Pope and he's trying

to rally nobles and knights from across

Europe to go on this mission. The call

has been taken up by countless priests,

bishops, and monks in their own

communities, re-echoed to hamlets large

and small, so that many communities have

been all but emptied of their fighting

age men. Bernard of Clairvo himself has

been so successful in galvanizing people

to take up arms that he's even gotten

the king and queen of France, Louie and

Elanor of Aquitane to very publicly take

the crusader cross and make their oaths

to undertake this expedition. Even more

surprisingly, Bernard has been

successful in recruiting none other than

Conrad Hohentoen of the Holy Roman

Empire to bring an army on this mission

as well. Now, a huge army is about to

roll out of Europe on its slow way

toward Jerusalem. To observers, they

look numberless. It seems like this

mission is going to be unstoppable.

But the story of the Second Crusade is a

very grim tale. You're listening to

Villains and Virgins podcast and this is

the second episode in a series on Elanor

of Aquitane and the Second Crusade.

Before we get into all the details of

today's story, however, I have a couple

of special announcements to make. Number

one, there's going to be a very special

bonus episode around material to do with

Eleanor of Aquitane and more

specifically her absolutely scandalous

grandfather, William the 9inth,

sometimes called the Trouador. This is

going to be a Patreon exclusive as a

special treat for those of you who are

supporting the podcast every month. And

speaking of those people, I need to

pause and say a very special word of

thanks to those of you who are

supporting this podcast at the very

highest level. These people include

Richard Hubner, Charles Vignon, Kenneth

Jones, Tim Williams, Anthony Farnbach,

Rick Kaine, Gordon Carl, Agnes Viner,

Errol Silverstein, Random FX, and James

Brown. Thank you so much. The second

major announcement I have is that I'm in

the middle of organizing a history tour

for spring of 2026.

And this is going to be a trip that

takes you right back into the past,

specifically the tutor era of England.

We'll be visiting castles and churches

and talking about the scandalous doings

of Henry VIII and his notorious

children. There's even a very special

mini tour before the main tour kicks off

that's going to involve a very historic

pilgrimage from London to Canterbury.

So, if you're interested in either of

those things, head on over to

patreon.com/evashubert.

Become a member of the Patreon supporter

community and that is where you're going

to get the very first information where

you can get the links for the tour and

all the details. The tour will of course

be open to anyone who's interested, but

the people who will hear the very first

details before anybody else will be

those of you who are on Patreon. And

with that out of the way, we're going to

head back into today's story. So, in the

spring of 1146, once the hype and the

excitement of the grand adventure of the

Second Crusade died down, there were

some grumblings.

And there were good reasons for people

to grumble. You see, a crusade was an

extremely expensive undertaking.

One historian estimates that for a

nobleman, it was as much as four times

his annual income. That is the amount of

money that you have to be able to put

aside to even undertake such an

expedition as a knight. Now, it was

cheaper for everyday people, of course,

because they weren't bringing very

expensive armor and horses that needed

feeding and weapons and squires and all

that sort of thing. But even for

ordinary people, it was a very

significant undertaking. It meant being

away from home for potentially years. It

meant not working on your farm or being

with your family and a very significant

risk that you wouldn't make it back. And

as for all the people who weren't going

on the crusade but were going to stay at

home, well, it meant higher taxes right

across the board. So the announcement

that there was going to be another

crusade wasn't greeted with jubilation

by everybody. Then there were people who

grumbled about the queen Elanor of

Aquitane. And this was because the queen

had done something really quite

extraordinary. She had very publicly

taken the crusader cross alongside her

husband and made an oath that she too

was going on this expedition.

Now, women going on pilgrimage wasn't at

all a strange thing. Women did that in

the Middle Ages quite routinely. And the

crusades were pitched as a pilgrimage

with all of the same spiritual benefits.

The difference was they were armed

pilgrimages. They were also military

expeditions in which you were going to

be besieging castles, encountering enemy

forces, and running really significant

risks. And so having a woman, especially

such a high-profile woman as the queen

of France, going on this trip was

something unusual. And there were people

who said, "There's something wrong with

this." That being said, Elanor Vquitane

was not the first woman to go on

crusade. We actually have records of

medieval women in the first, second, and

third crusades accompanying the armies

into the near east. Noble women

typically traveled with their husbands

or their families. And for those who

were not members of the aristocracy, but

everyday women, they traveled alongside

the army and they earned their keep in a

variety of jobs, including things like

washing laundry, picking fleas, and

working as prostitutes. So when we

imagine these massive crusader forces

rolling slowly at walking speed over

thousands of miles, it is entirely

correct to see women mixed up in those

ranks.

For these women, it was a very serious

risk they were running because if things

went badly in a battle, what was going

to happen to them was death or

enslavement. The chances of these women

making their own way back home after an

unsuccessful battle was virtually zero.

And in addition to women, there were a

large number of other non-combatants,

some of whom were present on the first

crusade and many of whom are going to

join this second one. So, we're talking

about older men. We're talking about

priests and monks, other members of the

church who are not supposed to be

carrying weapons. They're not expected

to take part in any battles, but they

are going to be traveling with the

crusader forces. And that means these

are people who are going to need to be

fed, watered, and protected. And so, in

many ways, significant numbers of

non-combatants could be as much of a

liability to a crusader army as a

benefit. But to go back to Queen Eleanor

of Aquitane and the specific grumbles

that centered around her, this was

because the young queen had already made

some enemies. You see, she didn't fit in

so well in the very serious courts of

Paris where her husband Louie resided.

Eleanor had been born in Aquitane in the

Mediterranean influenced south of

France. She was high-spirited. She had

ideas of her own. She liked good food

and music and entertainment and she was

seen as somewhat indorous and perhaps

not behaving in a way that was seen as

fitting for the queen of France in the

eyes of the northerners. And this was

largely because Eleanor had the

timmerity to involve herself in

politics. And she's already done this

even before the second crusade call

arrives.

significantly. She got very much

involved on behalf of her sister who

married a nobleman who kind of already

had a wife. It was a scandal. That

nobleman had to put his wife aside to

marry Eleanor's sister. And this put

Eleanor's husband Louie, who supported

the match, on the wrong side of things

with both the Pope and several of his

vassals. But Eleanor was very vocal in

support of this and she even got

involved in conversations with Bernard

of Clairvo, this very famous churchman

who's been preaching the second crusade.

And he's somewhat shocked that a queen

in an audience with him would have

anything to talk about besides prayer

and the need for having children. So

Eleanor was expected to be submissive

and silent, which she wasn't, and to

produce a son, which she had not. By the

time the second crusade was about to

begin, Eleanor had produced exactly one

daughter in almost a decade of marriage

to Louie. And this being the Middle

Ages, the failure to produce the right

kind of child is always the woman's

fault. So, there were people who looked

at Eleanor and said, "She's doing things

she shouldn't be doing, like politics

and crusades, but she's not doing things

she should be doing, like working on

producing a royal heir." And some of the

stories that have been passed down to us

about Eleanor and have become part of

her legend were colored or possibly even

totally invented by people who took a

very dim view of the vivacious young

queen and thought that she was too manly

and sometimes they even embellished

their accounts to make this point more

strongly. For example, in our last

episode, I told you about one account

that had Eleanor and her ladies

appearing in armor on white horses

shortly after the call to crusade was

given by Bernard of Clairvo. The queen

has taken the oath. There are many

nobles that are thronging to Bernard to

take their oath and the queen reappears

with her ladies in battle armor sitting

astride a horse which by the way was

also not done. You're supposed to sit

side saddle. Now, some historians doubt

this account and they say, "Well, the

people who are telling this story, and

there are several of them, are all

people who disapprove of what Eleanor is

doing. She's signing up to go to war,

which is men's business in the Middle

Ages. And so, they're already deeply

disapproving of her as engaging in manly

behavior. And so drawing a picture of

her essentially dawning men's armor was

just a way to embellish that account and

make the point even more colorfully. So

we hear these stories about Eleanor in a

very different way than people in the

Middle Ages would have heard them. We

hear these stories and we think of

figures like Ian of Rohan in the Lord of

the Rings or Xeno Warrior Princess or

any number of other figures that we have

in our popular imagination that have

women doing these types of things. But

in the Middle Ages, it was seen as an

affront to God and nature. And so if

someone was telling a story about the

queen sitting

a stride a horse with legs on both side

of it, not side saddle, wearing armor,

this was a story that was actually meant

to be a detraction to the queen. It did

not advance her reputation in the

medieval mind. But whatever they thought

of Elanor of Aquitane before the second

crusade, by the time she comes back from

it, her scandalous reputation has been

cemented for all of history. Now,

Bernard of Clervo, that charismatic

churchman who's been in charge of

preaching the second crusade, has

reported to the pope that across Europe

in villages and towns, there's only one

man left for every seven women, even

allowing for some exaggeration and

bragging on his part about the success

of his own call. We have to interpret

this as a very massive mobilization of

people and not just the nobles. Remember

that knights and aristocrats were an

important part of the army. They were

the cavalry, but they were by no means

the majority of the army. Infantrymen,

the people who were actually doing the

marching and carrying the baggage, were

far, far more numerous, and these were

taken from the ranks of ordinary people.

So, how many people went on the second

crusade?

Numbers that are reliable are hard to

get. We have estimates that range from

somewhere between 60,000 to 100,000.

Chroniclers in the near east who saw

this army when it arrived in

Constantinople report that they were

more numberless than the sands of the

sea that they lost count. So many people

arrived on their shores. So what

motivated so many people to go on the

second crusade? Why would they want to

undertake such a long and hazardous

journey? There were a number of factors.

As with the first crusade, the pope and

Bernard and the churchmen who were

preaching this message promised people

remission for their sins that their the

penalty for their sins would be reduced

or wiped out if they enlisted in this

expedition. In the words of Bernard of

Clarvo himself, and I quote, "Marvel at

the fathomless mercy of God. Is it not a

heavenly intention and worthy of him to

admit to his service murderers and

ravishers, adulterers, the perjured and

other malifactors, and offer them thus a

hope of redemption."

So what Bernard is talking about are

people who are guilty of the most

serious crimes in their time. people who

are murderers and rapists, people who

are adulterers, people who have

committed every kind of offense, who are

serving sentences.

And he says, "If you sign up for this,

you have the opportunity to have your

moral ledger wiped clean. Rejoice in the

mercy of God that he would offer even

you, the most disgraced dregs of

society, a chance to redeem yourselves."

The Pope even promised wiping out

interest on money that people had

borrowed for those who enlisted in the

second crusade. So if you were

struggling with debt, if you had

borrowed a lot of money and now the

interest on that money was piling up to

levels that you feared you would never

be able to pay off, there was a

solution. You could sign up and become a

crusader and all of that interest would

be wiped away. So that's a pretty

significant incentive if you are

struggling financially and don't see a

way out. Bernard of Clairvo is supposed

to have remarked to another French

abbott that the second crusade was

brilliant because it accomplished so

many goals at a stroke. It provided

assistance to the crusader states in the

near east but it also simultaneously rid

Europe of so many of its criminals and

its poor. Now, this is an important clue

for explaining how this story is going

to turn out. Many of the people, the

ordinary people who sign up and are

going to be foot soldiers for this don't

have much money. They're going to be

relying on the provision of the nobles

that they follow to sustain them and

feed them over the course of the

journey. For people like this, marching

to Jerusalem may have seemed better than

starving at home, or at least roughly

equal odds with the possibility of

adventure or improving their situation.

For men from noble families, the vast

majority of them were younger sons

because by medieval custom, the oldest

son would inherit the father's noble

title and lands. And that meant that

second or third or fourth sons

didn't have many prospects. There was no

potential for them to advance very far

if they stayed at home. And so the call

of the Near East going off on a crusade

offered the possibility of making a

reputation, but also significantly

increasing your prospects. Perhaps you

could acquire land or wealth in the

service of some existing ruler in the

near east. So there's a significant

driver of ambition for many of these

noble sons who otherwise have very

little to look forward to if they stay

at home. As the armies of Europe began

to assemble and move toward their

mustering points for departure to the

Near East in the spring of 1147,

yes, this is months after the initial

call to crusade in 1146. It takes a

while between taking the oath and then

setting your affairs in order, raising

the funds, and organizing everything

you're going to need to be away from

home for 2 or 3 years. So, it is the

spring of 1147 when armies are actually

beginning to move out of their home

villages and hamlets toward larger

muster points and from there, like so

many streams joining a river, into an

ever larger force heading out of Europe

and toward the east. At this time,

there's a French monk who's very active

in the border between France and

Germany. He's been involved in preaching

the second crusade. And at this point,

he begins to incite people to start

practicing their sword skills before

they leave home by killing Jews in their

own communities. Now, if you listen to

our series on the first crusade, this is

going to be a deja vu moment for you

because once again, the Jewish

communities that are present across

Europe are under attack by these

crusaders as they're leaving home and

heading east. And what this monk is

saying is that the crusade is a war

against the enemies of Christ. And so,

you should start at home and kill the

Jews because they're enemies of Christ.

And then when you get to the near east,

you can go after the Muslims who fall

into the same category.

What's interesting is what happens next

because Bernard of Clairvo, who's really

the highest ranking churchman in charge

of preaching the crusade, gets wind of

this and he takes it very seriously. He

heads right over to this France Germany

border region where this monk is active

and he shuts him down. He actually

silences him, returns him to his

monastery, and makes some very public

statements about the fact that no, the

second crusade is not an invitation to

slaughter Jewish communities, leave them

alone. They might be on the wrong side

of God, but it's not our business to go

around killing them. So, Bernard takes a

very different position to what his

acolyte had been spreading. But what's

interesting about this is that some

people already had a much more expansive

view of the Second Crusade. Not everyone

saw it as just a military mission to

provide support to crusader states that

were under attack. Some of them saw it

in these larger

confessional terms as Christians against

non-Christians.

Even the pope's vision for the second

crusade expanded between the initial

call of 1146 and the time that armies

actually started moving in early 1147.

For example, he granted spiritual

redemption, this spiritual benefit of

pilgrimage and crusade to anyone who was

willing to help the king of Portugal out

in his fight against Muslims in that

part of the world in the Iberian

Peninsula. And there were quite a few in

Spain and Portugal at the time. So the

king of Portugal is busy trying to take

more land that he can control himself.

And to do that he has to force out

Muslim rulers who control sections of

that territory. So he asks the pope,

hey, can you send me some crusaders to

help out? And the pope obliges. So by

making this spiritual benefit extend to

people who are helping out in the

Iberian Peninsula, it actually changes

the itinerary for a number of crusaders.

So there are some men who are going to

head to the muster points by sea and

they're coming from England, from

Flanders, and from Germany. So they're

going around the western edge of Europe

and they're going to pass Portugal on

their way. And these guys make a stop in

Portugal and the king of Portugal

persuades them to help him out. And he

says, "Help me out attacking Lisbon and

taking the city and you're going to get

a share of the spoils of war. You'll be

able to grab wealth and valuables as

payment for what you're doing. And of

course, you'll get the spiritual

benefits of fighting the enemies of

God." And so these guys sign up and they

involve themselves in a threemonth siege

of Lisbon from July to October of 1147.

They're building siege engines. They're

launching projectiles

and a good number of them die. Some

15,000 men by some estimates die on the

on the Christian side of this battle.

But it is counted as a success because

they end up taking Lisbon and in the

story of the second crusade there aren't

very many successes to talk about. There

was also a military side quest in Slavic

territory. So the Slavic people at this

time occupied territory that was on the

borders of what we would now call

Germany. So we have Germanic Christian

people and then their neighbors are

these Slavic people who are not

Christians for the most part. There's

been a concerted attempt to convert them

sometimes quite violently. But these

Slavs have their own religion, their own

culture, their own language, and they're

a different ethnic group. So, there were

some Saxon knights in what we now call

northern Germany who weren't

particularly keen on riding all the way

to Jerusalem, but they did have their

eyes set on some very fertile land quite

close to their borders that was occupied

by these Slavic neighbors, sometimes

called the Wens. They asked the pope if

they could mount a crusade against these

pagan slaves, thus obtaining the

spiritual benefit of making war on

non-Christians

while also expanding the fertile land

that would be under their own direct

control. So the pope approves this and

these Saxon knights from northern

Germany never go east. They make their

own little expedition to take lands that

they have long had their eyes on, but

now they have a religious validation for

doing so. So, this side quest has been

called the Wendish Crusade. But the vast

majority of the army for the Second

Crusade is now making its way toward the

Near East. Some historians think that it

was the largest army of all the

crusades, the single biggest mass

mobilization of people in crusading

history. And in some ways, it was two

armies because there was a very large

force under the command of Conrad

Hohentoen, the Holy Roman Emperor, and

another large force under the leadership

of King Louie of France. Both of these

forces are going to travel overland and

they're heading for Constantinople,

which is still the capital of the

Eastern Roman Empire at this time. By

the time they reach Constantinople,

which is now the city of Istanbul in

modern Turkey, it is the autumn of 1147

and the emperor of the Eastern Roman

Empire who lives in Constantinople

is not that excited to see them. So this

emperor is sometimes referred to as the

Byzantine Emperor. And occasionally his

city Constantinople is called Byzantium,

but I prefer to refer to him as the

Eastern Roman Emperor because that is

how he saw himself in an unbroken line

of succession that went all the way back

to the Roman Empire that you and I are

familiar with. The western half of that

Roman Empire, which had its headquarters

in Rome at certain points, had long

since collapsed in Western Europe. But

in the east, it had never died. And so

the emperor who is inhabiting

Constantinople at this point would have

referred to himself and his territory as

Roman. And by the way, he wasn't the

only one who thought so. We'll get to

that in a moment. But you might be

confused at this point because if you

remember the first crusade, you'll know

that that expedition had a western army

arriving in Constantinople at the call

and the invitation of the emperor at

that time who was a different guy. This

is 50 years later. So the new emperor is

related but not the same. So that

emperor for the first crusade had

invited these people. They came at his

request. The second crusade, the

crusaders have to stop in at

Constantinople because they need to

check in with the guy who controls

territory that they need to cross over

and through. But he hasn't invited them.

And he's actually quite worried about

what they might be doing as they're

wandering through his territories. He

has good reason to be concerned because

in the first crusade when the western

armies came in, they made a promise to

that emperor at the time that they would

take back territory that the emperor had

lost to the Seljic Turks and then they

would hand it back to the emperor. That

was the deal. And in exchange that

emperor had promised that he would

provision them. He would provide

logistical support. He would provide

intelligence. he would send some of his

men and soldiers to ride along with

them. So there was this cooperative

arrangement that was very much the

foundation for the first crusade.

The second crusade is already quite

different and the emperor now has to

look back at the result of the first

crusade which is that western army

didn't hand back all the territory they

took. They actually founded their own

little crusader states in land that used

to be his. And those states have been a

problem for the emperor of

Constantinople ever since. So now this

emperor is looking at another massive

western army on his doorstep wondering,

hm, what are their actual goals? Are

these people really going to benefit me

in any way? or are they going to take

over even more land that is currently

mine and have it under their control? So

his caution under the circumstances

seems entirely justifiable.

So instructed by this history, the

current emperor of the east, Manuel the

first Kinus views the crusaders with a

very weary eye. And he spends some time

strengthening the fortifications of his

capital city of Constantinople. And I

have to point out for those people who

like to see the Crusades as this simple

war of religion between Christianity on

one side and Islam on the other that the

emperor of Constantinople is a Christian

and he has just concluded an alliance

with his nearest Muslim rival, the

Seljic Sultan, so that he can focus his

attentions on dealing with the newest

and most pressing threat to his land,

which is the crusader. army. In many

ways, it was quite amazing that there

were still crusader states for King

Louie and Conrad to ride to the defense

of in 1147.

The fact that crusader states had been

established at all at the end of the

first crusade was seen as something like

a miracle even by people at the time.

And that's because the first crusaders

didn't really have any clear leadership.

They had a committee of nobles who were

sometimes in competition or in

opposition with each other. They were

vastly outnumbered by other powers in

the region. And yet they managed to

carve out these territories and even

more astonishingly hold on to them for

50 years. Which brings us to the point

we're now at where there's a new western

army coming in to defend them. It would

have been very tempting for the

crusaders to assume that they'd managed

to pull this off because of their

inherent military superiority or because

they alone had the blessing of the

Almighty. But actually a far clearer

explanation for this was the state of

fragmentation and rivalry amongst other

powers in the region at the time. When

we're talking about Muslims in the near

east at this time, people use phrases

like the Muslim world. But that's

misleading and inaccurate. First of all,

the near east wasn't full of Muslims

entirely. There were Muslims there, but

there were also Armenian Christians and

there were Greek Orthodox Christians

like the emperor of Constantinople.

There were Jewish communities as well.

So yes, there are lots of Muslims, but

there are other groups, ethnic and

religious groups. Even if we just zero

in on the Muslims for a second, the

picture gets incredibly complicated.

There are ethnic divisions and there are

religious divisions. And these all have

political implications. So we have Sunni

Muslims and Shia Muslims. We have Seljic

Turks, we have Arabs and we have Kurds.

These are not the same people and they

don't have the same interests. And these

people are also grouped around different

regional rulers or dynasties. There are

the Zengids, the Aubids, and the

Fatimids. So each of these is now a

governing entity that has its own ethnic

and religious character and is often in

competition with other regional entities

that are nearby. So they have their own

battles to fight. They have their own

strategic concerns. And when the first

crusaders came in some 50 years before,

they were new players on the scene. But

they weren't the center of things. They

weren't everybody's top concern. It

wasn't as though all the Muslims in the

region said, "Ah, we need to band

together to defend Islam against the

infidel." That is not what happened.

They were actually busy competing with

each other. And some of them would send

armies and then they would go back and

they would they would fight amongst

themselves. So the fragmentation that

already existed in this geopolitical

landscape had a huge role to play in

explaining why the first crusaders

managed to do what they did. And it's

going to be the same landscape that the

second crusaders walk into. So the Sunni

Muslim Seljic Turks have established

their own empire. And like any empire,

they have local rulers who are in charge

of different provinces or areas of that

empire. And over time, some of these

rulers became increasingly independent

and they were in rivalry with each

other. They weren't all necessarily

marching to the same tune. So some of

these local emirs or rulers are the

Zenids and also the Sultanate of Rum.

So the way that is spelled is R U M R.

If it sounds like Rome, that's because

that's what they meant by it. The

Sultanate of Rome was territory that had

been carved out by the Seljixs, which

used to belong to the emperor of the

Eastern Roman Empire in Constantinople.

So now this territory that everyone

recognized as part of the old Roman

Empire was now partly under the control

of this Seljic Muslim governor who is

the Sultan of R. The Aubids who are

another regional power are Sunni Muslims

but they're not Turks. They are Kurdish.

So yes, they're Muslims but they're in

competition with the Seljixs. Even

though they have the same religious

identity, they don't have the same

political or military interests. The

Fatimids are Shia Muslims and also not

Seljixs. So they are very different both

religiously and ethnically from the

Seljic Empire that is on their doorstep.

So all of these different players don't

see their interests as being the same

just because they happen to be Muslim.

And this might seem strange until you

think about it in another region. When

we think about Christian history in

Western Europe, it wasn't the case that

the king of Spain and the King of France

were always friends just because they

both happen to be Catholic Christians.

And by the time the Protestant

Reformation comes along and you have

Protestant Christians as well as

Catholic ones, you see Christians

killing each other across Europe for

very long stretches of time. And so it's

just not the case that simply because

you share religion as one strand of your

identity that your interests political

and military are always going to be

aligned. And so that's exactly the sort

of competition that we see in the near

east at this time. Sunni Muslims and

Shia Muslims despise each other in a way

that's very similar to how Catholics and

Protestants thought about each other

during the wars of religion in Europe.

their enemies basically. So the main

takeaway here is that in many cases

ambitious Muslim powers in the region

were far more concerned about

competition with whoever was next door

on their borders than they were with

focusing their attention on these

Western Christians who were running

around in the crusader states. They do

engage. They do at times attack and

cities are taken and retaken between

these two sides. But it's not as though

there was some concerted united Muslim

effort to expel the westerners from the

Near East at this time. This also helps

explain why the emperor of the East,

himself, a Greek Orthodox Christian,

would have just concluded an alliance

with the Seljic Sultan of Rome, Massud,

so that he could better focus his

attention on what he saw as an imminent

threat to his own territory. Now, of

course, this alliance also allowed the

Seljic Sultan to focus his attentions on

the newcomers because if he didn't need

to worry about the emperor of Eastern

Rome mounting attacks on him from behind

if he deployed his troops toward

Jerusalem, then that gave him a much

freerange of action as well. By the way,

as a side note, this Seljic Sultan who

styled himself the Sultan of Room also

used the double-headed eagle insignia,

which is so closely associated with the

Roman Empire, just like the Eastern

Roman Emperor did. And curiously enough,

even the Holy Roman Emperors of the West

in what we would now call Germany also

use this double-headed eagle insignia.

And so it's this curious

historical shadow where everyone wants

to inherit the double-headed eagles of

Rome, even the Muslim Seljixs who are

now ruling some of that territory. But

the Eastern Roman Emperor Emanuel

Comeinus is much more concerned about

geopolitical factors like protecting his

existing territory from any further

incursions

rather than being motivated by any sense

of automatic religious unity with these

western Christians who are coming in in

the second crusade. The ideal scenario

for the emperor in Constantinople would

be for these western crusaders to

exhaust themselves fighting the Seljic

Turks. And that would take care of two

problems with one war, leaving him and

his lands relatively safe because

hopefully all the combatants would be

too exhausted from fighting each other

to have anything left to take over more

of his territory. So we have to think of

Emperor Communus as hoping for the best

but preparing for the worst. As the

armies of the second crusade arrive in

Constantinople in the autumn of 1147,

they come in two waves. Conrad

Hohentophen, the Holy Roman Emperor,

arrives with his German troops first and

he's followed some weeks later by King

Louie and Queen Eleanor of France and

their army. Now, I've been calling

Conrad Hoento the Holy Roman Emperor.

And many historical sources do. Some

people will quibble and say, "Well, he

wasn't crowned by the Pope, so he's

really just the king of the Germans at

this point." Because unless the pope

crowns you Holy Roman Emperor, you're

not officially the Holy Roman Emperor.

This is because Conrad Hoento was in the

middle of a fight with the Pope. That's

why he wasn't getting crowned. So he is

the de facto Holy Roman Emperor. He does

exercise rule over that territory, but

he's not been officially crowned by the

Pope. I'm going to try and simplify

things for us here by just calling him

Conrad and the Germans because there's

already another emperor in

Constantinople and talking about one

emperor versus another it gets

confusing. So Conrad and the Germans

come first, King Louie, Queen Eleanor

and the French come second. In both

cases, the emperor of Constantinople

makes the same request. He says, "Yes,

you can pass through my lands safely.

Please promise that any land of mine

that you take comes back to me. Any of

my territory that you take back from the

Seljixs belongs to me. So give it back

to my control and in exchange I will

instruct my people to sell you food and

try and provide for your needs. So this

is what the emperor wants. And Conrad

and Louie both nod their heads and they

don't seem to have a problem with this

arrangement. Now, Conrad the German and

the emperor of Constantinople are

actually related to each other by

marriage. Emperor Emanuel Commnis in

Constantinople is married to Conrad's

sister-in-law. So, they are related by

marriage. And this means that the

emperor treats Conrad with a little bit

extra warmth, as you're going to see

later in our story. But when Conrad's

armies first arrive in 1147, the emperor

gives them some advice and he says,

"Listen, the most direct route to the

crusader states is an overland route.

It's the shortest, but don't go there

because if you take that route, you're

going to be heading right into the

middle of the Seljic heartlands. It's

going to be enemy territory. They

dominate that whole area. You're going

to be under attack. Also, you'll have to

cross the Anatolian desert, which is

really, really hard, and it's very

difficult to provision an army to make

it through that area because you're not

going to find any food or water while

you're in the desert. So, the emperor

says to Conrad, "Listen, I and my

fathers before me have led many a

campaign into the Seljic territory along

this route that you want to go, and I'm

telling you, it's a bad idea. Instead,

the emperor said, "Go along the coast.

It is a longer route, but you avoid the

desert, you avoid the Seljic heartlands,

it's a much safer bet. Perhaps nobody

told Emperor Emanuel Communist that

trying to change the minds of Germans,

especially Germans going to war, is

pretty much a losing proposition. In any

case, Conrad and his army ignore this

advice and set out on the most direct

route toward the heartland of Seljic

territory. Some weeks later, the French

army arrives in Constantinople. And when

King Louie and his nobles learn that

Emperor Emanuel Communis has just

concluded an alliance with the Seljic

Sultan of Room, they are deeply

suspicious. Is the emperor their friend

or their foe? What is he doing making

alliances with Muslims? And there are

even some in the French high command,

some amongst the king's nobles who are

saying, you know, we should just take

Constantinople by force right now. We

have an army. We should subjugate the

city. kick the emperor out, put

ourselves in control so we can eliminate

any kind of a threat from someone who

might be going around behind our backs

and putting our armies in danger. But

King Louie says, "No, this is a crusade.

We have taken an oath to go directly to

Jerusalem." And he doesn't want to get

involved in any military side quests or

other objectives until he's reached

Jerusalem. So the king says, "We're not

doing that. We're going to play nice."

And the emperor is extremely gracious to

King Louie, Queen Eleanor, and their

nobles. He entertains them lavishly in

Constantinople for quite a number of

days. You have to imagine that for Queen

Eleanor of Aquitane, this was an

experience the like of which she'd never

had before in her life. The splendor of

Constantinople

must have made the royal courts of Paris

seem primitive by comparison, as in fact

they were. You see, in Constantinople,

there had been an unbroken imperial

civilization for centuries. The amount

of wealth and art and splendor was on a

scale that was unseen in Western Europe

at this period in history. And even the

emperor and his family themselves, they

had such elaborate rituals that put them

almost on the realm of demigods. They

had legions of servants with impeccable

manners that made what royalty and

servants did back in France look very

unmannerly and even lish by comparison.

For example, there are accounts of King

Louie back in France having to actually

wield a stick to put unruly pilgrims in

a church into line at some point. And

the idea that the emperor would even be

close enough to touch a common person,

let alone wield a stick was just unheard

of in Constantinople. So imperial life

was on another level. And the amount of

wealth and comfort and running water and

gold sculptures and fountains, it was

just beyond words for many of the

French. And for Eleanor in particular,

it's an experience that she would carry

with her the rest of her life. And it

probably informs some of the courts and

the changes in manners and customs that

she will be responsible for many years

later. In any case, when the French army

finishes with the emperor's hospitality

and turns their faces toward the road,

they take the safer coastal route. They

don't follow the route of Conrad and his

German army. So, Conrad and his army are

going to be heading right through the

worst of enemy territory as well as the

Anatolian desert. And by all accounts,

Conrad had really underestimated how

long this was going to take. And why

that is important is it means he also

underestimated the amount of food and

water that his army needed to carry.

Which meant that after about 10 days on

the road, they were in desperate

condition. They'd run out of drinking

water. And if you're in a desert and you

have no water to drink, you don't have

that much time. You know, you have to

find water or you're going to die. And

so this becomes the dominant concern of

the army. The men are already weakened.

They're exhausted by the heat. They're

exhausted by dehydration

and they don't have any relief in sight.

It was while they were in these dire

straits that the Seljics staged a

surprise attack in the evening of

October 25th, 1147.

It was called the Battle of Doram and

the results were devastating. The battle

raged on for hours all through the night

and well through the morning of the next

day, which was October 26th. Thousands

of Germans died. Most of the valuables,

including Conrad's royal treasure, was

seized by the Seljixs, and Conrad

himself narrowly escaped with his life

and only a very small number of his

knights. One chronicler says that Conrad

lost 9/10 of his army in this battle,

including all of his infantry and most

of his knights as well. There are

various accounts of exactly how many

knights survived this battle. Some

accounts say scores of knights. A score

is 20. So if you say scores, then we're

talking about something in the low

hundreds.

Other accounts say 2,000.

But whatever the number actually was, it

was a tiny remnant of the army that he

had marched out with. So at this point,

Conrad is a leader without an army. It's

an absolute devastation. Many of the

poor and ordinary infantrymen who found

themselves surrounded as the knights

rode off in disarray found themselves

captured and they were sold into

slavery. So the ones that were not

killed disappeared, never to be seen

again. Now, I just want to pause here

and recognize the fact that for the vast

majority of the men who followed Conrad,

this is the end of the road. History

follows the crowned heads. And so, the

chronicers are going to take us along

the road to see what happens to Conrad

next. But for the vast majority of these

ordinary people, they would never see

either Jerusalem, which was their goal,

or their homes and families again. And

if you think of the thousands, the tens

of thousands of families left at home

whose fathers, brothers, husbands, and

sons had vanished on this expedition.

The amount of human devastation, not to

mention the economic consequences, are

really hard to get a firm grasp of. It

must have had an enormous impact. And

even for those who didn't die, they

lived out the rest of their lives as

slaves in a foreign land, never to see

their homes or families again. Among the

knights who did survive, most of them

had lost their valuables, which means

the funding that they had packed along

this journey to sustain them, to feed

them, to pay for all the necessary items

they were going to need. So that left

them in a very desperate condition. And

Conrad himself had the same problem.

Conrad leads the remains of his army,

this this company of knights, back

towards the safety of the coast and out

of Seljic territory. Here, the very much

humbled emperor of the Germans meets

Queen Eleanor and King Louie and their

army, and he and his remaining knights

join that force. From this point

onwards, for a while, they're going to

travel together. And King Louie is very

gracious and he gives of his own

supplies and his own wealth to Conrad to

refernish him and his knights with the

supplies that they desperately need.

They were fortunate to have escaped with

their lives, but they're going to need

more than just that to sustain them on

the rest of the crusade. And after

learning about the disaster in the

Anatolian desert, King Louie and the

French were more determined than ever to

stick to the coastal route, even though

it was much longer and more mountainous.

But their misadventures were not yet

over. So Conrad and his guys get out of

the Anatolian desert in late October.

They join up with the French. They're

they've been marching now for a couple

of months. And by Christmas, they are

very close to Ephesus. And the army

makes camp on the banks of a river of

some kind. They set up everything, their

tents and their materials and so on. And

bad luck comes knocking again. A storm

whips up overnight. There are very high

winds that blow tents over. They blow

materials into the water. The water

rises very rapidly. It floods the banks

and it starts carrying away things like

baggage and siege materials. And even

some men and horses get carried away in

this sudden flood and go downstream

toward the sea. Conrad around about this

time also becomes quite ill with a

fever. And at this point he and his men

are quite sick of crusading. And so

they're going to make the decision to

turn around and head back to

Constantinople. And we actually have

Conrad's own words for what happens next

because he writes a letter back home

about it. So Conrad says, "When our

kinsman by marriage, Emperor Emanuel

Kominus, heard of this, he was extremely

upset and came to see us at the utmost

speed, bringing our kinswoman, the

beloved Empress, his wife. He generously

gave to us and our commanders his own

money and the necessaries for the

journey. Saw to it that we were cured

quickly by his own doctors and

practically forced us to come back with

him to his palace in Constantinople.

There he treated us with as much honor

as he ever to our knowledge showed to

any of our predecessors.

So Conrad is using the royal we here. we

and our he's referring to himself. But

clearly the emperor was extremely

solicitous towards him and went out of

his way to try and assist this most

unfortunate ruler of the Germans. So

we're going to leave the German emperor

Conrad Hohentoen licking his wounds in

Constantinople in the company of Emperor

Emanuel Commnis. And these two emperors

are left discussing imperial matters

together, including, by the way, a joint

operation against that troublesome

Norman Roger of Sicily, who you'll know

all about if you've watched our series

on the Normans in Sicily. But Conrad is

going to be waiting there enjoying

imperial hospitality in Constantinople

until weather improves in the spring and

campaign season starts again. We are

going to return our attention to the

French, King Louie and Queen Eleanor, as

they continue their march toward

Jerusalem. The French army continues

marching eastward from Ephesus, even

though the emperor of Constantinople had

just warned them that there were fresh

Seljic incursions into that territory.

So, there had been very recent military

operations. It was dangerous. He

actually advises them to take shelter

with imperial garrisons and be cautious.

But the French, they continue with their

original plan once again ignoring this

advice. And the French are about to have

their own disaster.

So the route takes them through a very

mountainous region and at one point they

actually have to climb a mountain pass

at a place called Mount Cadmus.

Now, if you've ever done any kind of

hiking through mountain passes, you know

that these are extremely narrow, steep,

and difficult trails to follow. It's

very hardgoing. To take an army up there

means that you're going to have to

condense all of your men down into a

very narrow stream, a very narrow line,

and they're going to proceed very slowly

through the limited space available

between the rock walls. So this is the

operation that the French army is going

to undertake. By the time they get to

this particular mountain, it's January

of 1148. So you have to imagine the

French army organized by divisions and

then narrowed down into very very small

ranks of a few men a breast heading

slowly up this incredibly steep trail.

Now one of the dangers of undertaking an

operation like this is that your army

becomes far too spread out to

effectively defend itself. So there were

clear directions given to the guys in

the vanguard which is the first division

the ones at the front and the vanguard

was under the command of an Aquitanian

nobleman. It was also full of other

Aquitanians and Eleanor of Aquitane was

riding with them because these were her

guys, her vassels, people from her

homeland. They spoke her own dialect.

She was in her element with them. So the

queen and this vanguard under the

command of one of these Aquitanian

noblemen is at the front and they're

told head up toward the pass, but there

is this flat section of land, this mea

that we can see. So get to the mesa and

set up camp there, and the rest of the

army will make its way up to the same

point and join you. So the vanguard sets

off. They reach the mesa in good time,

but when they actually get close to it,

they look around and they say, "This

looks pretty exposed. It's very

inhospitable. It's barren. It's windy."

But from here, we can see that if we

just keep going and we go across the

pass and down the other side, there's a

beautiful valley down there and it's got

shelter and it's got water. It's going

to be much better for the horses, much

more comfortable. Let's just keep going.

So ignoring the direction that they were

given, the vanguard moves past that

campsite that they had been designated

over the pass and down the other side

into the valley. So the entire army

follows the vanguard up this trail and

they keep on going. And by the end of

the day, the last division of the army,

the rear guard, in which King Louie

himself is riding, makes it up the trail

to the mesa, where they expect to find

the military camp all laid out and set

up. Instead, they find nobody.

Now, it's been a very long day, and it

was especially warm, even for January.

So, the reports are that the guys had

taken off their armor for the climb. And

again, if you've spent time climbing any

mountains at all, you know exactly what

this is like. Sometimes you're climbing

with hands and feet. It's incredibly

steep. It's very physically punishing.

Your body temperature goes up. And if

you're wearing chain mail or helmets, it

would get intolerably hot. So, it's

totally understandable that these guys

had stripped off some of the metal to

make the climb. The result of that was

when they get to the mesa, they don't

find any military camp, but suddenly

they realize they have company. It's a

Seljic ambush. And so you have to think

of these exhausted guys in the rear

guard. They've been working hard all

day. They're not wearing their armor.

They're expecting to find the rest of

the army and instead they find the

enemy. So very quickly they're

scattering. They're running. And the

Seljixs can very easily ride them down

and shoot them or hack at them. So once

again there's a very large number of

casualties. The king himself narrowly

escapes with his life and one chronicler

says that he

goes into a tree from which he bravely

kills many seljicss. And when I think

about this for a second I think that

chronicers remember have to write

accounts that make the crowned ones look

good. I really can't imagine effectively

doing battle with anybody with a sword

from a tree. So if the king bravely rode

into a tree, uh this is what he did to

save his life. I don't think that we can

really credit the idea that he was doing

combat effectively from that position.

He was lucky to survive. This much we do

know and he probably survived only

because he was wearing plain pilgrim

clothing and so no one would have

thought he was a person of significance.

At any rate, the reason that it's not a

complete massacre is that it gets dark

and that allows some of these scattered

men in Louis rearguard to take cover and

to hide and to pass undetected to the

Seljixs.

As the night wears on, these bloodied,

exhausted survivors of this ambush

attack stumble their way into the

military camp, which has been found down

in this valley somewhat farther away

than they expected to find it. And the

king himself is missing for hours.

People are wondering what happened. Did

he die? He eventually is brought in by

one of his men who finds him and puts

him on a random horse and leads him in.

But this is a situation of total

humiliation. Now, needless to say, this

disaster was entirely due to the fact

that the vanguard was not where they

were supposed to be. The rest of the

army was not found at the location where

they'd been instructed to set up. And

that left the rear guard dangerously

exposed to the Seljixs, who had been

following along and nipping at the heels

of this army for weeks now, looking for

an opportunity exactly like this. And

that's what they got. The lack of

discipline in the army had caused a very

serious number of casualties and could

easily have resulted in the death of

King Louie himself. So the Aquitanian

nobleman who'd been in charge of the

vanguard and had made the decision to go

down into the valley was dismissed. He

was sent home in disgrace. You're out of

the army. We don't want to see you

again. But that wasn't enough to solve

the problem. A lot of people in the army

had a huge amount of anger against this

vanguard full of Aquitanians, including

the queen herself. Eleanor took some

heat for this decision, although it

wasn't her decision. It was the decision

of the guy who was leading the vanguard.

She could have vetoed that decision, of

course. But pointing blame at the queen

for not seeing the strategic problem in

a decision made by a man whose business

was war is a little bit rich. She wasn't

someone who'd gone on military campaigns

before. Presumably he had a little bit

more familiarity with the subject. The

point is there was lots of resentment

and blame to go around. And so this

Aquitanian embarrassment

and the near disaster for the king that

had resulted was something that meant

they were going to have to make some

changes. So King Louie turns to the

Templars.

There have been Templar knights that

have been riding along with King Louis's

army. And if you've been watching the

series on the Templars, you know that

they're a relatively recent order.

They've been founded some almost 30

years ago. They are warrior monks and

they are some of the fiercest fighters

to be found in the crusader states.

They've already got a reputation for

being incredibly effective, incredibly

brave, very skillful. And the Templars,

because they're locals, have a much

better sense of the enemy, their

tactics, the hazards of the terrain, and

the safest way to move around. So the

Templars are put in charge of organizing

the army, of schooling them, of

instituting better discipline and trying

to direct them through the remainder of

the mountains without further incident.

And the Templars do exactly as they are

asked. They have this ability. They're

extremely good soldiers. And really, if

they'd been put in charge from the

beginning, this whole thing probably

would never have happened. But one more

major problem now loomed ahead. So, King

Louie, Queen Eleanor, and the army make

it to a port city called Atalia. And the

modern name for this is Antalia. It's

under imperial control, so it's a safe

place for them. They could have

continued overland from this port to

Antioch, but it was much shorter simply

to take a boat from Antalya across the

water directly to Antioch.

The problem was that boats were

expensive and there weren't enough of

them to ship an entire army from this

port city. So, King Louie and Queen

Eleanor and some of their nobles make

the decision that they're going to take

boats from Antalya to Antioch. The rest

of the army can make its way over over

land unless there are some other boats

that show up. So, they're basically

told, "You guys can wait here. Wait for

a few more boats. take them if you can

and the rest of you make your way on

foot to Antioch. So, the king and queen

and some of the nobles leave on these

boats.

A few other boats show up and then the

rest of the knights decide they're

taking the boats, too, partly because

they have the money to pay for them.

So, they leave.

This leaves the rest of the army, all of

the infantry and all of the everyday

people, including the non-combatants,

stranded in Antalya.

There aren't going to be enough boats

for them. Nor could they afford them

very likely, even if there were. So the

picture that you have to imagine now is

these thousands of ordinary people that

are miserably camped around the outside

of the city walls because there were too

many of them to just let in. But now

they're vulnerable to Seljic attacks.

And that's exactly what happens. Seljic

raiding parties come out and they begin

to attack them, especially at night.

They're picking people off. And so these

desperate crusaders are begging the

governor of Antalya, "Please let us in

behind the stone walls of the city.

Don't leave us out here as prey for the

Seljics." The governor takes pity on

them. He lets them in, but he says,

"Listen, there are too many of you. You

can't stay in the city indefinitely, and

also you're attracting a lot of

unwelcome Seljic attention here, which

is putting all of us at risk. So you

guys can't stay very long. You need to

move along.

The result is that these thousands of

people are have to leave Antalia and

head toward Antioch on foot. All of

their officers, all of the knights and

nobles who are normally in charge are

gone. We're looking at nothing but

people on foot.

Hunger, disease, death, and desertion

utterly destroy this army.

One historical account says that some

5,000 of them actually convert to Islam

out of desperation and starvation. And

so they are absorbed into Seljic history

and vanish from our view. Surely nobody

who had enthusiastically signed up for

all the glories of a crusade imagined

that they would be driven to such

desperate straits as this to actually

become the very Turks that they had gone

there to fight. This entire army

disappears.

Some by death, some by starvation, some

by conversion.

There are many ways. But the astonishing

truth of this moment is that King Louis

entire army is destroyed.

The army is the infantry. They're gone.

They don't ever make it to Antioch. Only

his knights and nobles, his cavalry

division remains. So, let's take a

moment to to digest what's going on

here. Conrad leading the German army had

lost basically everybody in the

Anatolian desert and he did that after

ignoring advice that specifically warned

him not to go there. That's tens of

thousands of people.

And now the king of France has lost

everybody in his army except the cavalry

and the noble women who are married to

them

here on the road to Antioch. This means

tens of thousands more people are

abandoned in hostile enemy territory,

left to fend for themselves or exposed

to danger largely due to the incompetent

planning and sometimes just the

arrogance of their leaders.

Conrad's decision to ignore what the

emperor specifically told him was

waiting for him on that road is pretty

hard to consign to anything other than

an extreme overconfidence

which we would describe as arrogance.

And the cost of that was paid by the

ordinary people who followed him. And as

for the French, what kind of leader goes

off with his entire high command, all of

his officers, and says to the troops,

"Yes, well, anyway, see you later. We'll

meet you over there, Tuluoo." and just

exits the scene. How do you have an army

that lacks every single leader or

officer that would normally be involved

in strategic decisions or chain of

command, and you just leave the infantry

by themselves? It's it's hard to

imagine, but this is what happened. And

the result of this was complete

annihilation for that army. But since

records of this destroyed army vanished

along with its men and women and other

non-combatants who vanished on those

planes, we are going to have to follow

the chroniclers and turn our attention

to King Louie and Elellanor. But before

we do that, I find it fascinating to

read the accounts of the second crusade

in the words of the chroniclers at the

time. First of all, because they don't