The crusades were a series of religious wars in western Asia and Europe, Louis VII kneels in front of Bernhard, Louis VII, 1120-1180, called the Younger, was King of the Franks from 1137 to 1180, the sixth from the House of Capet, Bernard of Clairvaux, Bernardus Claraevallensis, 1090-1153, a French abbot and a leader in the reform of Benedictine monasticism. Second crusade, Historical, digital reproduction of an original from the 19th century