Page:A general history for colleges and high schools (Myers, 1890).djvu/506

444 the pious acquired great wealth, and became possessed of numerous estates and castles in Europe as well as in Asia.

Preaching of St. Bernard; Failure of the Crusade.—In the year 1146, the city of Edessa, the bulwark of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem on the side towards Mesopotamia, was taken by the Turks, and the entire population was slaughtered, or sold into slavery. This disaster threw the entire West into a state of the greatest alarm, lest the little Christian state, established at such cost of tears and suffering, should be completely overwhelmed, and all the holy places should again fall into the hands of the infidels.

The scenes that marked the opening of the First Crusade were now repeated in all the countries of the West. St. Bernard, an eloquent monk, was the second Peter the Hermit, who went everywhere, arousing the warriors of the Cross to the defence of the birthplace of their religion. The contagion of the holy enthusiasm seized not only barons, knights, and the common people, which classes alone participated in the First Crusade, but kings and emperors were now infected with the sacred frenzy. Conrad III., emperor of Germany, was persuaded to leave the affairs of his distracted empire in the hands of God, and consecrate himself to the defence of the sepulchre of Christ. Louis VII., king of France, was led to undertake the crusade through remorse for an act of great cruelty that he had perpetrated upon some of his revolted subjects.

The strength of both the French and the German division of the expedition was wasted in Asia Minor, and the crusade accomplished nothing.

The Three Leaders.—The Third Crusade was caused by the capture of Jerusalem (1187) by Saladin, the sultan of Egypt.