Saint Ernest Martyr german saint relic crusade defender of the holy land

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Saint Ernest Martyr german saint relic crusade defender of the holy land:
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Saint Ernest Martyr german saint relic
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Saint Ernest(died 1148)[2]was theabbotof theBenedictineZwiefalten AbbeyatZwiefalten,Germanyfrom 1141 to 1146. He participated in theSecond Crusadefought by Christians between 1146 and 1149 to defend theHoly Landfollowing the Turkish atabegZengi\'scapture of the strategically important city ofEdessain 1144.[3]
WhenSt. Bernardcalled for participation in theSecond Crusadeto defend theLatin Kingdomand roll back Zengi\'s advances in Syria, the German kingConrad III, along with many other nobles and churchmen, including Ernest, responded. Ernest attached himself to a contingent of pilgrims and fighters led by the king\'s brother, bishopOtto of Freising. The crusade was not successful. The German armies suffered massive attrition on their march throughAsia Minorand those few who did make it to join the other Crusader forces led by the French kingLouis VIIin the Holy Land eventually retreated from an ill-considered siege ofDamascusin July 1148 and returned home in ignominy.[7]Otto of Freising\'s group progressed along the southwestern coastal route across Anatolia fromEphesustoLaodiciabefore making for the coast and securing naval passage toAntioch.[8]They suffered nearly the whole way from severe hunger and other deprivations, including ambushes by Turkish forces in which numerous Christians were taken prisoner or killed.
Ernest is a Germanic name meaning severe.[4]Not much is known about Saint Ernest\'s life. He was born of a noble family inSteisslingen, Germany, and along with his two brothers became important patrons of reformed monasteries in Swabia.[5]How and when Ernst entered the religious life is not clear. A donation to Zwiefalten by the three brothers from 1131 suggests they might have taken monastic vows as early as that time, while the laterVita Ernusticlaims he was a child oblate.[6]Because theHirsaurule, which Zwiefalten followed, did not permit child oblates, this later tradition is likely invented.
St. Ernest himself did not reach Jerusalem. There are no eyewitness or near-contemporary accounts of what happened to him, but a later twelfth-centuryhagiography, theVita S. Ernusti abbatis,written at Zwiefalten, describes how he was taken captive bySaracensin an ambush, and then, along with 40 other Christian prisoners selected for their youth and comeliness, brought to Mecca and presented to the \"king of Persia.\" In the vita\'s account, the king orders Ernest and the other Christians to venerate his pagan gods, but Ernest steadfastly refuses. Brutally tortured, he is brought once again before the idols and told to worship them. Instead, he stones the idols with rocks, smashing them to pieces. Ernest is then killed by having his viscera drawn out of his navel and wound around a rod.[9]The story contains a number of fanciful elements, but reproduces in particular the popular medieval image of Muslims as idolaters, a myth that Otto of Freising himself went to some lengths to dispel in his chronicleOn the History of the Two Cities.[10]