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Geoffrey of Clairvaux: Defense of Bernard of Clairvaux's Calling of the Second Crusade
We ought not to conceal the fact that certain men, through ignorance or malignity, took offense because Bernard had by his preaching stimulated the expedition for the deliverance of Jerusalem, which had such an unfortunate issue. Nevertheless we can confidently affirm that he was not the first mover in the matter. Even after the report of the unfortunate situation had already deeply stirred the souls of many, and he had been repeatedly urged by the king of France, and he had also been pressed by apostolic letters, he still refused to speak or to give his advice in the matter until the sovereign pontiff himself, in a general letter to all the faithful, had commanded him, as the natural interpreter of the Roman Church, to set forth to the peoples and their rulers the necessity of the crusade. The tenor of this letter was that both people and princes should, for the purpose of penance and the remission of their sins, betake themselves to Jerusalem, where they would either deliver their brethren or sacrifice their lives for them.
Bernard accordingly preached the expedition in the most convincing manner, with the aid of the Lord, who confirmed the tuth of his servant's words by miracles. So many were the miracles, and so great, that it would be difficult to enumerate, still more to narrate them. At one time an effort was made to write them out, but the number of the prodigies to report exceeded the strength of the writer, and the grandeur of the subject, the faculties of him who had undertaken to treat it.
In short, as many as twenty sick folk, and even more, were cured of divers ills in a single day, and hardly a day passed that similar miracles were not performed. In a word, at this time Christ permitted his servant, by his touch and his prayers, to restore sight to men who had been blind from their birth, to cause the lame to walk, to cure the paralytic, to make the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak. All these were restored to a perfection of health truly remarkable in view of that which they had previously enjoyed.
The eastern church was not, it is true, granted the happiness of being delivered by the expedition of which we are speaking; but at least the heavenly Church was filled thereby with pious souls and and may therefore rightly rejoice. If, on this occasion, it pleased the Lord, instead of saving the bodies of eastern people from the pagans, to snatch the souls of many of the western from sin, who shall say, "Wherefore, Lord, dost thou so?"...
It happened that at the moment when the first news of the lamentable rout of the crusaders' army reached France a father came to present his blind son to the servant of God, that the boy's sight must be restored. After he had succeeded, by many prayers, in overcoming the reluctance of Bernard, the saint, laying his hands upon the child, addressed the Lord, saying that, if it were truly his word that Bernard had spread abroad when he preached the crusade, and if the Holy Spirit had really inspired him when he preached, the Most High might deign to prove this by opening the light the eyes of this blind child. While after this prayer they awaited the outcome, the child cried out, "And what shall I do now, for I can see?" Immediately a great stir arose among those present, including not only a great number of monks, but secular persons also, who, realizing that the little child could see, were greatly consoled and rendered thanks to God.
Source and Introductory Comments: James Harvey Robinson. Readings in European History Vol. 1, (Boston: Ginn & Co., 1904), 334-335.