IX - PISAN COLONIES

Summary

In 1146 tidings of the fall of Edessa reached Italy; a new crusade was preached by St Bernard of Clairvaux, and Pope Eugenius III, journeying northward through Lucca and Pisa, invoked the assistance of the faithful. At Whitsuntide, 1147, at St Denis, he presented a scrip and staff to the French king, as the emblems of his pilgrimage. Both Louis VII and Conrad III took the Cross, and at Metz the French were joined by the English and Normans under Bishop Arnulf of Lisieux. According to Roncioni the Pisans sent “a passing great fleet”; while Sardo informs us that they were accompanied by the Genoese. Such fables are, however, unworthy of credit, being attributable to the patriotic fantasy of a later age. Neither Pisans nor Genoese had any share in the second crusade. The latter were fully occupied with their expedition against Almeria and Tortosa; the former, though doubtless ready to lend an ear to the exhortations of a pope who was not only a fellow-citizen but had also shown his good will towards them by confirming the jurisdictional rights of their archbishops over Sardinia and Corsica, were far too much hampered by their war with Lucca to be able to take any effective part in distant enterprises.