French abbot Bernard of Clairvaux preached a sermon to a crowd at a council in Vézelay, with King Louis VII in attendance, urging the necessity of a Second Crusade.

Abbot is an ecclesiastical title given to the head of an independent monastery for men in various Western Christian traditions. The name is derived from abba, the Aramaic form of the Hebrew ab, and means "father". The female equivalent is abbess.

Bernard of Clairvaux, O.Cist., venerated as Saint Bernard, was an abbot, mystic, co-founder of the Knights Templar, and a major leader in the reform of the Benedictines through the nascent Cistercian Order.

On 31 March 1146, the French abbot Bernard of Clairvaux preached at Vézelay to encourage support for the Second Crusade.

Vézelay is a commune in the department of Yonne in the north-central French region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté. It is a defensible hill town famous for Vézelay Abbey. The town and its 11th-century Romanesque Basilica of St Magdalene are designated UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

Louis VII, called the Younger or the Young to differentiate him from his father Louis VI, was King of France from 1137 to 1180. His first marriage was to Duchess Eleanor of Aquitaine, one of the wealthiest and most powerful women in western Europe. The marriage temporarily extended the Capetian lands to the Pyrenees.