nov 27, 1095 - Pope Urban gives Speech, Crusades
Description:
Clermont, France
The Pope's movement took its first public shape at the Council of Piacenza, where, in March 1095,[15] Urban II received an ambassador from the Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos asking for help against the Muslim Seljuk Turks who had taken over most of formerly Byzantine Anatolia.[16] A great council met, attended by numerous Italian, Burgundian, and French bishops in such vast numbers it had to be held in the open air outside[citation needed] the city of Clermont. Though the Council of Clermont held in November of the same year was primarily focused on reforms within the church hierarchy, Urban II gave a speech on 27 November 1095 to a broader audience.[17] Urban II's sermon proved highly effective, as he summoned the attending nobility and the people to wrest the Holy Land, and the eastern churches generally, from the control of the Seljuk Turks.[18]
There exists no exact transcription of the speech that Urban delivered at the Council of Clermont. The five extant versions of the speech were written down some time later, and they differ widely from one another.[19] All versions of the speech except that by Fulcher of Chartres were probably influenced by the chronicle account of the First Crusade called the Gesta Francorum (written c. 1101), which includes a version of it.[20] Fulcher of Chartres was present at the Council, though he did not start writing his history of the crusade, including a version of the speech until c. 1101.[21] Robert the Monk may have been present,[22] but his version dates from about 1106. The five versions of Urban's speech reflect much more clearly what later authors thought Urban II should have said to launch the First Crusade than what Urban II actually did say.
As a better means of evaluating Urban's true motives in calling for a crusade to the Holy Lands, there are four extant letters written by Pope Urban himself: one to the Flemish (dated December 1095);[23] one to the Bolognese (dated September 1096); one to Vallombrosa (dated October 1096); and one to the counts of Catalonia (dated either 1089 or 1096–1099). However, whereas the three former letters were concerned with rallying popular support for the Crusades, and establishing the objectives, his letters to the Catalonian lords instead beseech them to continue the fight against the Moors, assuring them that doing so would offer the same divine rewards as a conflict against the Seljuks.[24] It is Urban II's own letters, rather than the paraphrased versions of his speech at Clermont, that reveal his actual thinking about crusading. Nevertheless, the versions of the speech have had a great influence on popular conceptions and misconceptions about the Crusades, so it is worth comparing the five composed speeches to Urban's actual words. Fulcher of Chartres has Urban saying this:
I, or rather the Lord, beseech you as Christ's heralds to publish this everywhere and to perse all people of whatever rank, foot-soldiers and knights, poor and rich, to carry aid promptly to those Christians and to destroy that vile race from the lands of our friends. I say this to those who are present, it is meant also for those who are absent. Moreover, Christ commands it.
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