Dean James Mcgregor's Letters To Pope Urban II

There are many myths when it comes to the crusades. I have found through research that the Crusades did not happen extemporaneously or as a result of one individual event. In this paper I will examine a number of features that came together to create the political, social, religious, and economic environment that enabled the "crusading spirit" to take cause and spread throughout Europe. The crusades had been military campaigns during the time of Medieval England against the Muslims of the Middle East. In 1076 the Muslims had captured Jerusalem which happen to be the holy of holy places for Christians. This was due to the fact Jesus had been born in Bethlehem and spent most of his life in Jerusalem. He was crucified on Calvary hill,

Urban’s public call to launch the crusade was made when he addressed the council at Clermont. However this was not a sudden notion but had been carefully planned.. He arrived in France in late July of 1095,- the first visit by a pope to France for over 50years - and began travelling around the country visiting various towns and villages, interviewing bishops, abbots and powerful nobles. It was during these four months that he had the chance to meet and discuss ideas with seasoned war veterans, such as Raymond of Toulouse and Adhemar of Monteil. It is likely that these influential people already knew of Urban’s plans for a crusade well before the Clermont speech. In addition, after the Clermont Council Urban was very keen to coincide most of his visits to the French towns with the national saints days of the regions, so ensuring large crowds for his speeches and increasing the chances of recruiting soldiers for his “Holy war”.

Patrick Geary’s “Readings in Medieval History” contains four accounts of the invasion of the Middle East by the Europeans in 1095 A.D. These accounts all cite different motives for the first crusade, and all the accounts are from the perspective of different sides of the war. The accounts all serve to widen our perspective, we hear from the Christian and Middle Eastern side of the conflict. Fulcher of Chartres claims, Pope Urban the Second urged all Christians to intervene in the “East” at the council of Claremont, saying it was a sign of “Strength of good will”. (Readings in Medieval History, Geary, page 396).

The primary target of the First Crusade (and the intended target of many more crusades), preached by Urban II at the Council of Clermont in 1095, was Jerusalem. In the version of this sermon by Robert the Monk, Urban urges those present to admire rulers who “have extended…the territory of the Holy Church”, and to “enter upon the road to the Holy Sepulchre; wrest that land from the wicked race, and subject it to yourselves. That land which as

On November 27, 1095, Pope Urban II gave a supposedly important speech at the end of a church meeting in Clermont, France. In it he had called upon the nobleness of the Franks, to go to the East and assist their Christian “brothers”, the Byzantines, against the attacks of the Muslim Turks. He also apparently encouraged them to liberate Jerusalem, the most sacred and holy city in Christendom, for the Muslims had ruled it since taking it from the Christian Byzantines in A.D. 638. The Crusades were a series of wars between Christians and others to take back Jerusalem.

According to Dana C. Munro, the first crusades began under the papacy of Pope Urban II. From whom delivered a speech in 1096 at the Council of Clermont that led thousands to take up the cross. It is from that moment on the Popes always felt the crusades were their task and under their inspiration believing that the crusades were God’s work and they were His agents. Let us consider the words of Pope Urban II according to Fulk of Chartres, “I speak to those who are present, I shall proclaim it to the absent, but it is Christ who commands. Moreover, if those who set to thither lose their lives on the journey, by land or sea, or in fighting against the heathen, their sins shall be remitted in that hour; this I grant through the power of God vested in me. ”

The Crusades was a very important moment in human history, it showed the clashes between religions for land that most people considered to be sacred or holy. There isn’t one Crusade but rather a series of them, but we’ll be looking primarily at the First Crusade, Second Crusade, Third Crusade, and a little bit of the Fourth. It all starts in Rome (Nov 27th 1095) where Pope Urban the Second receives an important message from Byzantine Emperor Alexios the First where he pleads for help in supressing the Turkish troops. After receiving the message the Pope (standing in a field outside the city of Clermont) calls for the public to join the military excursion to the Middle East, and swiftly declares a Crusade with the primary objective of securing holy sites [Jaspert, Nikolas. The Crusades]. What followed was a large migration of troops from France and Italy on August and September of 1096. The

The Crusades, a series of wars, are an extremely important part of history in the 12th century, occurring during the Middle Ages. The Middle East or the Holy Land was always a place that Christians traveled to to make pilgrimages. The Seljuk Turks eventually took control of Jerusalem and all Christians were not allowed in the Holy City. As the Turks power grew, they threatened to take over the Byzantine Empire and Constantinople. The Byzantine Emperor, Alexius I, asked Pope Urban II for help and Pope agreed, hoping to strengthen his own power. He He united the Christians in Europe and In 1095, Pope Urban II waged waged war against muslims in order to “reclaim the holy land.”

The First Crusade was called in 1095 by Pope Urban II in November. It was here that the Pope made a proposal: “Whoever for devotion alone, but not to gain honour or money, goes to Jerusalem to liberate the Church of God can substitute this journey for all penane” (Phillips, 21). Pope Urban II saw the first crusade as a chance for knights to direct their energy towards a spiritually rewarding experience, namely the recovery of the Holy City of Jerusalem from Islam. Knights were told that in return for their efforts their sins

The Crusades were an important part of World History during the post classical era. Between 1096 and 1270, the Europeans attempted to acquire Christian sacred areas from the Muslims ("The Crusades"). Supported by Western Europe, Christian armies were sent to take over the Holy Land and other surrounding areas ("Crusades"). The Holy Land surrounds Jerusalem and, to this day, contains sacred sites to Christians, Jews, and Muslims ("Crusades"). These sacred sites were very important to people of these religions and many pilgrimages occurred there ("Crusades"). During the eleventh century, Muslims acquired the Holy Land and expanded their empire ("Crusades"). This prompted Alexius Comnenus, the Byztantine emperor, to write to Pope Urban II in need of trying to reacquire this sacred land ("The Crusades"). This prompted the start of the Crusades. There were four major Crusades and several others that occurred ("Crusades"). The first was probably the most significant out of all of them. The First Crusade allowed for the capture of The Holy Land and also prompted an influence of Middle Eastern culture and ideas to Western Europe.

In Pope Urban II’s speech he said “On this account I, or rather the Lord, beseech you as Christ's heralds to publish this everywhere and to persuade all people of whatever rank, foot-soldiers and knights, poor and rich, to carry aid promptly to those Christians and to destroy that vile {disgusting} race from the lands of our friends... Moreover, Christ commands it.” By saying this he commanded that all Christians should take part in the battle to regain the holy land. Many of these people listened to Pope Urban II’s command to fight for the Holy Land and were influenced to take part in the Crusade based on religious devotion. However, as the Crusaders began to fight for the Holy Land, they learned that fighting for the regain of the Holy Land also had many benefits. These benefits included “great silver {lamps} weighing forty-four Syri- an pounds, as well as a hundred and fifty smaller silver {candelabras} and more than twenty gold ones, and a great deal more booty.” People not only fought in the Crusades for their religion but to acquire other rewards as well. This illustrates that the Crusades had not only began due to religious devotion but of economic and political gain

The Crusaders faced a multitude of obstacles. They didn’t have a consistent or widely accepted leader, no consensus about the relations with the churchman who went with them, no clear definition of what the pope would do during the crusading and no agreement with the

Turkish slaughter of 3000 Christians in the Holy City was the beginning of the long, awful number of brutal events in the Crusades. After the Emperor of The Byzantine, was menaced by the Seljuk Turks, he was forced to request aid from the west, and the Western European’s reply was instantaneous, “On November 1095, Pope Urban II calls for a Ccrusade in a famous speech at the Council Of Clermont” (Cline). The appeal by Pope Urban II was the thing that lit up the beginning of the First Crusade, putting a will to fight in the heart of the Christians, to recover the Holy Lands. Although there were nine crusades in total. People are likely to consider the first crusade to be the most important, because it was the beginning of the Crusades.

Some reasons for the crusades were based off religion. Both Christians and Muslims consider Jerusalem a holy place. Both also wanted control of the city because it would please their god. Pope Urban II should defend their fellow brethren in the East. Even though Eastern Orthodox was a different branch of Christians that didn’t follow the pope, he still considered them his “brethren” and wanted to help them fight for their