1148

6 January

Second Crusade: Louis VII ambushed and suffers heavy losses;

March

Second Crusade: Louis VII abandons what is left of his army at Adalia and sails for Antioch with his clergy, household and wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine; quarrels with Raymond of Poitiers and continues to Jerusalem;

April-June

Second Crusade: arrival of the remnants of the Second Crusade under Conrad III and Louis VII;

24-28 July

Second Crusade: Unsuccessful siege of Damascus;

1149

29 June

Nur ad-Din defeats and kills Raymond de Poitiers at the Battle of Inab;

15 July

Consecration of the renovated Church of the Holy Sepulchre;

by year end

Second Crusade: Iberian crusaders drive the Muslims out of Catalonia.

1150

May

Capture of Joscelin II, Count of Edessa;

Evacuation of the remaining regions of County of Edessa of all Latins and as many native (mostly Armenian) Christians as wish to join.

1151

March

Temporary division of the Kingdom of Jerusalem due to conflict between Queen Melisende and King Baldwin III.

1152

March

Frederick I (‘Barbarossa’) elected king of the Germans;

April

Baldwin III attacks his mother, forcing her to withdraw to Nablus; unity of the kingdom is restored;

May

Raymond II of Tripoli murdered by assassins.

1153

Spring

Reynald de Chatillon marries Constance, heiress of Antioch and becomes prince of Antioch;

18 May

Henry Plantagenet marries Eleanor of Aquitaine after the dissolution of her marriage to the French king;

22 August

Franks capture Ascalon; population spared.

1154

25 April