The Fall of Edessa and the Atabeg Zengi

Crusades – The Second Crusade, 1144-48

In this course, Dr Nicholas Morton (Nottingham Trent University) explores the Second Crusade (1144-48). We start by thinking about the origins of the Second Crusade, focusing in particular on the fall of Edessa at the hands of Zengi. In the second module, we think about launch of the Second Crusade, before turning in the third module to think about the (separate) progress of Conrad III of Germany and Louis VII of France from Europe to the Crusader states. In the fourth module, we think about the Siege of Damascus and the failure of the Second Crusade, before turning in the fifth and final module to other frontiers of the Second Crusade, including the conflict between Christians and Muslims in the Iberian peninsula, and the so-called Wendish Crusade.

The Fall of Edessa and the Atabeg Zengi

In this module, we think about the origins of the Second Crusade (1145-49) in the fall of Edessa in 1144, focusing in particular: (i) the foundation of the County of Edessa in 1097, and its early successes in the 1110s and 1120s; (ii) the rise of the Atabeg Zengi in the later 1120s, and his acquisition of a major power bloc centred on the cities of Mosul and Aleppo; (iii) Zengi's surprise attack on Edessa in 1144, and the fall of the city; and (iv) the aftermath of the sack of Edessa in the Crusader States, but also in Western Europe, leading Pope Eugenius III to announce the Second Crusade.