Ch. XV THE SECOND CRUSADE 479 
 
French army by several weeks on the overland march and join forces only at
Constantinople. 
 Once again events took an entirely new turn. A portion of the crusaders,
composed mainly of Saxons, declared that they wanted to go on crusade against
their pagan Slavic neighbors east of the Elbe rather than against the Moslems
in Palestine. The circumstances of the movement are not at all clear, but
it appears to have been of popular origin (though not from the actual border
country) and to have been countenanced by St. Bernard as analogous to the
Spanish part of the crusade which had already been authorized by the pope.15
A special sign, the cross on the orb, was selected for this Wendish crusade
and the feast of Saints Peter and Paul indicated as the date for the participants
to set out from Magdeburg. Many joined at once. 
 Conrad's envoys to Eugenius, the bishops of Worms and Havelberg and abbot
Wibald, left the diet to meet the pope at Dijon on March 30 and probably
acquainted the pontiff with the situation. Those conversations and a meeting
with St. Bernard at Clairvaux a week later apparently satisfied the pope
in regard to the Wendish crusade. His bull Divini dispensatione, issued on
April 13, established the expedition as a crusade coexisting with the Palestinian
and Spanish ones. He granted the crusaders' indulgence to participants if
they had not enrolled in the Jerusalem crusade previously, if they retained
their devout purpose throughout, and if they did not allow the Wends to buy
their freedom from conversion. Conversion or destruction was to be the watchword.
As papal legate he designated Anseim of Havelberg, one of the messengers
whom Conrad had sent from Frankfurt. 
 Although friendly relations now existed between him and Conrad, Eugenius
did not go to Strassburg to confer on German matters. Instead he went to
Paris with Louis and helped to convince Suger that he should overcome his
reluctance to act as regent of the kingdom, then celebrated Easter at St.
Denis, and took part in much of the business relating to the final arrangements
for the crusade. At this time the pope received a second 
 
 15 St. Bernard's role in regard to the Wendish crusade is puzzling. His
letter, no. 457 (FL CLXXXII, 65 i) and Otto, Gesta, I, 42, seem to show him
authorizing the movement as part of the papal crusade at once and without
recourse to Eugenius. Such an action is unlike Bernard's constant assertion
that he acted at the command of the pope, and is unorthodox because the pope
alone could create a crusade with its special privileges. Perhaps Bernard
yielded to pressure in the belief that Eugenius's willingness to modify his
plans to include the Spanish crusade augured well for the authorization of
the Wendish crusade, which would similarly utilize popular enthusiam and
enlarge the Christian orbit. Cf., however, Constable, "The Second Crusade,"
pp. 256—257.