[Mrs. Don-o]

To me--- and I am not a scholar of this period --- it impresses as an appalling example of futility. Bernard wrote to the pope that after the preaching of the crusade, "Cities and castles are now empty. There is not left one man to seven women, and everywhere there are widows to still-living husbands."

Most of those men --- including scores of noblemen and many thousands of commoners--- never came back. Families spent decades raising and paying out fortunes to ransom back those taken captive; the monks (including Bernard) said that the humiliating defeats were caused by the betrayal of Christian by Christian, inspired -- so they wrote --- by the devil.

It sure doesn't sound like the emergence of a civilization to me.

[AEMILIUS PAULUS]

Trade began to grow. The West began to expand. The West started to learn again. Slowly the Holy Land fell under Western control. The West was beginning on its road to ruling the World. The West was becoming an expanding, growing, appropriating, living and conquering thing. Bernard played his role. God Bless him. We need a man like him again.