Joseph François Michaud - The History of the Crusades (Vol.1-3)

The pope answered St. Bernard that he only need arm himself with the sword of the word of God, and content himself with sounding the evangelical trumpet to announce the war. The abbot of Clairvaux employed himself in nothing thereafter, but his mission; and he acquitted himself with so much zeal, and his preachings produced such an extraordinary, and I will venture to add, so unfortunate an effect, that they depopulated cities and countries. He wrote to Pope Eugenius: “ The villages and the castles are deserted; and there are none left but widows and orphans, whose husbands and parents are still living .”

While St. Bernard was thus preaching the crusade in the provinces of France, a German monk, named Rodolphe, exhorted the people of the Rhine to massacre the Jews, whom he represented in his vehement discourses as the allies of the Saracens, and the most dangerous enemies of the Christian religion. The abbot of Clairvaux fearing the effect of these preachings, hastened into Germany to impose silence on this seditious apostle of the holy war. As the German monk had flattered the passions of the multitude, St. Bernard required all the ascendancy of his virtue and his fame to combat his doctrines. He ventured to raise his voice in the midst of an irritated people, and to make them feel that Christians ought not to persecute Jews, but pray to Heaven for their conversion; that it belonged to Christian piety to pardon the weak, and make war against the exalted and proud. The preacher of the crusade at length silenced the turbulent orator, and sent him back to his monastery, reminding him that the duty of monks was not to preach, but to weep; that they ought to consider cities as prisons, and solitude as their paradise .

This action of St. Bernard, [268]which was scarcely observed in his own barbarous age, and which has been turned into ridicule in ours, does honour to his character, and may excuse the extravagant zeal he displayed for a disastrous war. When he arrived in Germany, the Germanic empire was beginning to breathe after the long troubles that had followed the election of Lothaire. Conrad III., clothed with the purple, had just convoked a general diet at Spires. The abbot of Clairvaux repaired thither with the intention of preaching war against the Mussulmans, and peace among Christian princes. St. Bernard pressed the emperor, Conrad, several times to take up the cross; he at first exhorted him in private conferences, and afterwards renewed his exhortations in sermons preached in public. Conrad could not make up his mind to take the oath to go and fight against the infidels in Asia, alleging the recent troubles of the German empires. St. Bernard replied that the Holy See had placed him upon the imperial throne, and that the pope and the Church would support their work. “Whilst you shall defend his heritage, God himself will take care to defend yours; he will govern your people, and your reign will be the object of his love.” The more hesitation the emperor felt, the warmer became the zeal and eloquence of St. Bernard to persuade him. One day as the orator of the crusade was saying mass before the princes and lords convoked at Spires, all at once he interrupted the service to preach the war against the infidels. Towards the end of his discourse, he transported the imagination of his auditors to the day of judgment, and made them hear the trumpets which were to call all the nations of the earth before the tribunal of God. Jesus Christ, armed with his cross and surrounded by his angels, addressing himself to the emperor of Germany, recalled to him all the benefits with which he had loaded him, and reproached him with ingratitude. Conrad was so much affected by this vehement apostrophe, that he interrupted the speaker, and, with tears in his eyes, cried out: “ I know what I owe to Jesus Christ, and I swear to go wherever he shall call me. ” Then the nobles and the people who believed they had been witnesses of a miracle, threw themselves on their knees and returned thanks to God for his blessings. Conrad received from the hands of the abbot of Clairvaux the emblem of the Crusaders, together with a flag which was placed upon the altar, and which Heaven itself had blessed. A great number of barons and knights assumed the cross in imitation of Conrad, and the diet which had been assembled to deliberate upon the interests of the empire, was occupied entirely with the safety of the Christian colonies in Asia.

A new diet was convoked in Bavaria, where the letters of St. Bernard determined a great number of bishops and German nobles to take the cross. Ladislas, duke of Bohemia, Odoacer, marquis of Syria, Bernard, count of Carinthia, Amadeus, duke of Turin, and the marquis de Montferrat took the oath to go into the East to fight the Saracens. Among the prelates who enrolled themselves under the banners of the Cross, history names the bishop of Passau, the bishop of Ratisbon, and the wise Otho of Frisingen, brother of the emperor, to whom posterity owes a relation of the principal events of this war.

The most dear interests, the most tender affections had no power to detain the knights and princes in their countries and homes. Frederick, nephew of the emperor, who had taken the cross, allowed himself not to be moved by the tears of his aged father, the duke of Suabia, who died with grief, in spite of the consolations of St. Bernard. A war-cry was heard from the Rhine to the Danube; Germany, although so long agitated by its own troubles, found in all parts warriors for the holy expedition. Men of all conditions obeyed the voice of the preacher of the holy war, and followed the example of kings and princes: a thing to be wondered at, says Otho of Frisingen, thieves and robbers were seen performing penance, and swearing to shed their blood for Jesus Christ. “Every reasonable man,” adds the same historian, “a witness of the changes that were operated in them, plainly perceived the work of God, and was not the less astonished at it.”

The Germans were so easily persuaded, that they came and listened to the abbot of Clairvaux, who preached to them in a language they did not understand, and returned convinced of the truth and holiness of the discourse. The sight of a preacher so much reverenced, appeared to bestow a marvellous sense upon every one of his words. The miracles which were attributed to him, and which were performed sometimes in private, sometimes in public, as Otho of Frisingen says, were like a divine language which warmed the most indifferent, and persuaded the most incredulous. Shepherds and labourers abandoned the fields to follow him into towns and cities; when he arrived in a city, all labours were suspended. The war against the infidels, and the prodigies by which God promised his protection to the soldiers of the cross, became the only business of men of all classes. Sometimes the abbot of Clairvaux assembled the clergy, and preached reform in their manners; sometimes he addressed the people and animated them against the Saracens.

St. Bernard visited all the cities of the Rhine, from Constance to Maestricht; in each city, say the ancient chronicles, he restored sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, and cured the lame and the sick; they report thirty-six miracles performed in one day, at each prodigy the multitude crying out, [269]“Jesus Christ, have mercy upon us! all the saints, succour us!” The disciples who followed the abbot of Clairvaux could not help regretting that the tumult which was constantly raised upon his passage, prevented their seeing several of his miracles. [270]Every day an increasing crowd pressed around him. History relates that he was once on the point of being stifled by the multitude which followed his steps, and only owed his safety to the emperor of Germany, who took him in his arms, and drove back the people, who were impatient to see and touch him whom they regarded as the interpreter and messenger of God.