Year 1144 (MCXLIV) was a leap year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar.
The 1140s was a decade of the Julian Calendar which began on January 1, 1140, and ended on December 31, 1149.
Year 1146 (MCXLVI) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Julian calendar.
Year 1147 (MCXLVII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar.
Year 1148 (MCXLVIII) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Julian calendar.
The Second Crusade (1147–1150) was the second major crusade launched from Europe. The Second Crusade was started in response to the fall of the County of Edessa in 1144 to the forces of Zengi. The county had been founded during the First Crusade (1096–1099) by King Baldwin I of Jerusalem in 1098. While it was the first Crusader state to be founded, it was also the first to fall.
Imad al-Din Zengi, also romanized as Zangi, Zengui, Zenki, and Zanki, was an Oghuz Turkish atabeg who ruled Mosul, Aleppo, Hama, and, later, Edessa. He was the namesake of the Zengid dynasty.
Nūr al-Dīn Maḥmūd Zengī, commonly known as Nur ad-Din, was a member of the Oghuz Turkish Zengid dynasty, which ruled the Syrian province (Shām) of the Seljuk Empire. He reigned from 1146 to 1174. He is regarded as an important figure of the Second Crusade.
The County of Edessa was one of the Crusader states in the 12th century. Its seat was the city of Edessa.
Otto of Freising was a German churchman and chronicler. He was Otto I Bishop of Freising as from 1138.
Raymond II was count of Tripoli from 1137 to 1152. He succeeded his father, Pons, Count of Tripoli, who was killed during a campaign that a commander from Damascus launched against Tripoli. Raymond accused the local Christians of betraying his father and invaded their villages in the Mount Lebanon area. He also had many of them tortured and executed. Raymond was captured during an invasion by Imad ad-Din Zengi, atabeg of Mosul, who gained the two important castles of Montferrand and Rafaniya in exchange for his release in the summer of 1137.
The Siege of Damascus took place between 24 and 28 July 1148, during the Second Crusade. It ended in a decisive crusader defeat and led to the disintegration of the crusade. The two main Christian forces that marched to the Holy Land in response to Pope Eugene III and Bernard of Clairvaux's call for the Second Crusade were led by Louis VII of France and Conrad III of Germany. Both faced disastrous marches across Anatolia in the months that followed, with most of their armies being destroyed. The original focus of the crusade was Edessa (Urfa), but in Jerusalem, the preferred target of King Baldwin III and the Knights Templar was Damascus. At the Council of Acre, magnates from France, Germany, and the Kingdom of Jerusalem decided to divert the crusade to Damascus.
The siege of Edessa took place from November 28 to December 24, 1144, resulting in the fall of the capital of the crusader County of Edessa to Zengi, the atabeg of Mosul and Aleppo. This event was the catalyst for the Second Crusade.
Mu'in ad-Din Unur al-Atabeki was the Turkish ruler of Damascus in the mid-12th century.
Hugh was the bishop of Jabala, or, as it was then called, Gibellum, a town in Syria, during the 12th century. When the County of Edessa fell to Zengi in 1144, Raymond, prince of Antioch, sent Hugh to report the news to Pope Eugene III. In response, Eugene issued the papal bull Quantum praedecessores the following year calling for the Second Crusade. Hugh also told the historian Otto of Freising about Prester John, the mythical Nestorian Christian priest-king of India, who was intending to help the Crusader States against the Saracens. Otto included the story in his Chronicon of 1145; it is the first recorded mention of the Prester John legend.
Zwiefalten Abbey is a former Benedictine monastery situated at Zwiefalten near Reutlingen in Baden-Württemberg in Germany.
Events from the 1140s in England.
The Council of Acre met at Palmarea, near Acre, a major city of the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, on 24 June 1148. The Haute Cour of Jerusalem met with recently arrived crusaders from Europe, to decide on the best target for the crusade. The Second Crusade had been called after the fall of Edessa to Zengi in 1144. In 1147, armies led by Conrad III of Germany and Louis VII of France began their separate journeys to the east. Conrad arrived at Acre in April 1148, and Louis marched south from Antioch.
The military history of the Crusader states begins with the formation of the County of Edessa in 1097 and ends with the loss of Ruad in 1302, the last Christian stronghold in the Holy Land.
Boris, also known as Boris Kalamanos was a claimant to the Hungarian throne in the middle of the 12th century. He was the son of Euphemia of Kiev, the second wife of Coloman the Learned, King of Hungary. After Euphemia was caught in adultery, Coloman expelled her from Hungary and never acknowledged that he was Boris's father. However, Boris, who was born in the Kievan Rus', regarded himself as the king's lawful son. He laid claim to Hungary after Coloman's firstborn and successor, Stephen II of Hungary, died in 1131. Boris made several attempts to assert his claims against kings Béla II and Géza II with the assistance of Poland, the Holy Roman Empire and the Byzantine Empire, but failed and was killed in a battle.
