Deus Lo Volt!

would I deceive my people, nor cast myself into hell on your account. Yet it seems he could be liberal enough, granting huge amounts for public works at Shaizar, Aleppo, Hamat, Baalbek, and other cities, endowing hospitals and dervish monasteries and caravanserai along the roads. It is said that he would stand up when scholars or priests came into his presence and bade them sit beside him, nor contested their opinions however much he disagreed. Ibn al-Athir, who proudly claimed to have read the history of many sovereigns, declares that except for caliphs long past he could think of no man so virtuous and just as Nur al-Din. Unlike his father, he drank no wine and forbade his soldiers to drink. He would not listen to the tambourine or flute, calling such music offensive to Allah. Very often he got up at night to pray. Angrily he rounded on those who reproached him for distributing so much to Sufis, doctors of law, students of the Koran, dervishes and the like. With them, said he, rests all my hope. And having learned that Mahomet carried his sword in a scabbard, unlike his own warriors who carried swords in their belts, what did he do but insist they emulate the Prophet as best they might. Few men ever saw him smile. He loved the game of polo, otherwise but one desire suffused his heart, to kill Franks, to reconquer what was lost. He scorned the radiance of Christian belief, spurned the beauty that was offered.

On the second day of November he appeared beneath the walls of Edessa. That night Joscelin’s little army slipped away hoping to cross the Euphrates. Nur al-Din followed. Next day he caught them and the Franks scattered. Count Joscelin, wounded in the neck, escaped to a castle beyond the river. Nur al-Din returned to Edessa. Thousands met the sword, thousands more enslaved. That emir who seized an attractive girl when Zengi took Edessa now went looking among the captives and there she was. Zengi, considering her youth, made him let the child go, but Nur al-Din did not. Where she was taken, what became of her, ancient chronicles do not relate. Lord God, since Thy aid goes out to one and all, how should such things be?

Patriarch Michael the Syrian speaks of Edessa as a charnel house inhabited by jackals, vultures, rats, lizards. At night came vampires to suck and chew the flesh of murdered citizens. No living men approached, none except those in search of treasure. A city mutilated, abandoned, silenced. Who but Jeremiah would lament further on this?

We know our Lord is a mighty fortress, the music of His voice like thunder. And so the onslaught of doubt receded. And people spoke of the Holy Land, thinking that with God’s help they should banish evil from the bounds of His commonwealth. Pope Eugenius III in his bull, Quantum praedecessores, called for a new expedition.

In the year of our tuition 1146 it came about that Bernard de Clairvaux stood preaching on a hillside at Vézelay. As happened before when His Holiness Urban spoke at Clermont, multitudes listened. Few could restrain their tears when Bernard spoke of Turkish infamy, ravagement, oppression, misusage. Edessa was taken. Edessa, bulwark of strength, was lost. If, therefore, Saracen tides engulfed the Holy Land where might Christians turn for hope and revelation?

God’s unsleeping enemies mock the broken glory of Christ’s endeavor, he declared. So I consider you a blessed generation since you have been caught up in a year pleasant to the Lord, a year of jubilee. That cross cut from cloth does not fetch much if sold, but worn on the shoulder it is worth the kingdom of God. As lords on earth invest their vassals with some slight token, does not the cloth and thread of the Cross represent God’s ineffably greater gift? Has He not placed Himself in a position of necessity? Yet is not this for the benefit of His children? He wishes to be thought the debtor so that He may offer wages to all who serve, perpetual riches. Is it not true that many hustle to market when there is cheap pork to buy, yet dawdle toward Christ’s kingdom in Heaven?

Sanctified by the purity of his nature, armed with apostolic authority, speaking with the voice of a trumpet, he exhorted those listeners to undertake the journey, granting absolution, remission from sin. Nor should those on pilgrimage encumber themselves with vain superfluities, nor high lords travel with dogs, with falcons on their wrists, in expectation of temporal delight. Many who listened felt persuaded. They cried aloud vociferously for the insignia of faith, cried out to mark themselves with the vertical and horizontal sign, so many that the parcel of crosses he had brought proved inadequate. They say Bernard gave up his red sacerdotal vestments to be cut in the shape of crosses.

King Louis VII, Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine by his side, resolved to accept the sweet yoke of Christ, as did numerous Frankish barons. Abbot Suger, the king’s minister, strove to dissuade him, arguing that he should address the needs of France, but King Louis like men everywhere sought invisible things. Some dispute with Count Thibault once led him to invade Champagne. At Vitry-sur-Marne he set fire to Thibault’s castle. Flames leapt to the village. Citizens rushed into the church for sanctuary but King Louis put it to the torch. The roof tumbled down on those inside, which crushed a thousand or more. Shrieks of the dying rang in his head until he thought he must beg absolution at the Holy Sepulcher. Otherwise he saw little hope of eternal bliss. Therefore he took the cross at Vézelay.

Odo the monk describes how King Louis en route to Saint Denys entered a leper house to purge his mottled soul, humbling himself in search of grace, appealing the severity of God. And because our Lord responds to all, surely He did not fail to succor a troubled king of