THE YEAR 1145 did not begin auspiciously for Latin Christians in the Mediterranean. The Kingdom of Jerusalem, the confederation of feudal territories along the Levantine coast created in the wake of the First Crusade (1095–1099), faced its most pressing crisis yet as the surrounding Muslim states mounted a determined effort to reverse the Christian conquests. On Christmas Eve, 1144, the Turkish general Imad ad-Din Zengi captured the city of Edessa in southeastern Anatolia (Şanlıurfa in modern Turkey) after a brief siege. Edessa, which had been in Latin hands since 1098, lay in a strategically important region along the trade and travel routes connecting Asia Minor to Syria and Mesopotamia, but its significance as a centre of ancient Christianity certainly added to the pain of its loss. A popular legend held that an early ruler of Edessa, King Abgar, had personally corresponded with Jesus Christ and was the first non-Jewish convert to Christianity. The conquering Muslims were also said to have defiled a shrine in the city holding the relics of the apostle Thomas, Jesus’s “doubting” disciple who died preaching Christianity in India, but whose remains were venerated in Edessa. If this were not enough, just as news of Edessa’s capture reached Western Europe, the pope in Rome died unexpectedly. He had been in office barely six months, and the new pope, Eugenius III, was forced to flee Rome with his supporters to escape the violence unleashed by aristocratic factions opposed to his election.

As the pope huddled with members of his curia in the central Italian town of Viterbo, envoys from the crusader states arrived with distressing news about the latest Muslim victories. One of these arrivals from the East was Bishop Hugh of Jabala (Jableh on the Syrian coast, then part of the crusader principality of Antioch), a Frankish transplant to the Latin Kingdom.