page_title: Pope Eugene III
section_title: Pontificate
hierarchical_section_title: Pope Eugene III / Pontificate
caption_attribution_description: English: Cast lead papal bulla of Pope Eugene III (1145-53). Mass: 37.4g, diameter: 36.4mm, thickness: 5.6mm. The papal bulla is sub-circular in plan, with a notch in the top and bottom, and some loss of material from around the circumference. The front reads +/EVGEN/IVS.PP/III, on four lines. The reverse depicts St Peter and St Paul each within a pellet border. Between the two is a crozier; above are the abbreviations SPA SPE (for St Paul and St Peter). All of the designs and text on the papal bulla are in relief. The papal bulla has a light brown/off-white surface.
context_page_description: Pope Eugene III, born Bernardo Pignatelli, or possibly Paganelli, called Bernardo da Pisa, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 15 February 1145 to his death in 1153. He was the first Cistercian to become pope. In response to the fall of Edessa to the Muslims in 1144, Eugene proclaimed the Second Crusade. The crusade failed to recapture Edessa, which was the first of many failures by the Christians in the crusades to recapture lands won in the First Crusade. He was beatified in 1872 by Pope Pius IX.
context_section_description: During nearly the whole of his pontificate, Eugene III was unable to reside in Rome. Hardly had he left the city to be consecrated in the Farfa Abbey (about 40 km north of Rome), when the citizens, under the influence of Arnold of Brescia, the great opponent of the Pope's temporal power, established the old Roman constitution, the Commune of Rome and elected Giordano Pierleoni to be patrician. Eugene III appealed for help to Tivoli, Italy, to other cities at feud with Rome, and to King Roger II of Sicily (who sent his general Robert of Selby), and with their aid was successful in making such conditions with the Roman citizens as enabled him for a time to hold the semblance of authority in his capital. But as he would not agree to a treacherous compact against Tivoli, he was compelled to leave the city in March 1146. He stayed for some time at Viterbo, and then at Siena, but went ultimately to France.
  On hearing of the fall of Edessa (now the modern day city of Urfa, the first of the Crusader states established in the Levant) to the Turks, which occurred in 1144, he had, in December 1145, addressed the bull Quantum praedecessores to Louis VII of France, calling on him to take part in another crusade. At a great diet held at Speyer in 1146, King Conrad III of Germany and many of his nobles were also incited to dedicate themselves to the crusade by the eloquence of Bernard of Clairvaux, preached to an enormous crowd at Vézelay. The Second Crusade turned out to be "an ignominious fiasco" and, after travelling for a year, the army abandoned their campaign after just five days of siege "having regained not one inch of Muslim territory." The crusaders suffered immense losses in both men and materiel and suffered, in the view of one modern historian, "the ultimate humiliation which neither they, nor their enemies, would forget".
  Eugene III held synods in northern Europe at Paris, Rheims (March 1148), and Trier in 1147 that were devoted to the reform of clerical life. He also considered and approved the works of Hildegard of Bingen.
  In June 1148, Eugene III returned to Italy and took up his residence at Viterbo. He was unable to return to Rome due to the popularity of Arnold of Brescia, who opposed papal temporal authority, in the city. He established himself at Ptolemy II's fortress in Tusculum, the closest town to Rome at which he could safely install himself, on 8 April 1149. There he met the returning Crusader couple Louis VII of France and Eleanor of Aquitaine, who were by then barely on speaking terms given the strains of the failed Crusade and the rumors of Eleanor's incestuous adultery during the Crusade. Eugene, "a gentle, kind-hearted man who hated to see people unhappy" attempted to assuage the pain of the failed Crusade and their failing marriage by insisting that they slept in the same bed and "by daily converse to restore the love between them". His efforts were unsuccessful, and two years later Eugene agreed to annul the marriage on the grounds of consanguinity.
  Eugene stayed at Tusculum until 7 November. At the end of November 1149, through the aid of the king of Sicily, he was again able to enter Rome, but the atmosphere of open hostility from the Comune soon compelled him to retire (June 1150). Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa promised to aid Eugene against his subjects who had revolted but the support never came. Eugene III died at Tivoli on 8 July 1153. Though the citizens of Rome resented Eugene III's effort to assert his temporal authority, they recognized him as their spiritual lord. Until the day of his death he continued to wear the coarse habit of a Cistercian monk under his robe. He was buried in the Vatican with every mark of respect.
caption: A bulla of Eugene III
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