An Influential Period Of Christian History

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.

Fulcher of Chartres noted that during the meeting with the council of dignitaries in the city of Clermont, France Pope Urban II gave an eternal decree to all Christians that were willing fight the war.2 He promised that any Christian who died in the defense of Jerusalem would be given remission of all sins. Pope Urban II explicitly states “I grant them through the power of God.”3 By giving such a promise that all sins would be forgiven in death, Pope Urban alleviated the fear any Crusader had of being punished by God of wrongdoing. For some that alone was enough justification to go to battle. This “promise” also gives greater

According to Baldric's version of Pope Urban II's speech calling for holy war, the Pope's chief motive was to rescue or liberate Jerusalem from Muslim control, for the purpose of spreading Christianity (namely, Roman Catholicism.) Baldric wrote about the speech favorably, from a post-crusade perspective, biased by his support of the crusades and his knowledge of the victories achieved.

L. The main reason the crusades started was to take Jerusalem from the Turks. Before 1087, Christian pilgrims frequently traveled to Jerusalem, “the holy land”. However, according to document 6, “from 1087 onwards, turks stopped christian pilgrims from entering Jerusalem.” Basically, the Turks claimed Jerusalem as their own, and prevented any pilgrimages. Pope Urban II was not happy about this. He called European Christians to war in 1095 to recapture Jerusalem. According to Document 1, he says, “I, or rather, the Lord, beseech you as christ's heralds to publish this everywhere and persuade all people of whatever rank, foot-soldiers and knights, poor and rich….to destroy that vile race from the lands of our friends.” Basically, Pope Urban II is urging the people to fight the Turks, and win 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 Papacy in Rome sanctioned the First Crusade and Pope Urban II preached for a great Christian expedition to capture Jerusalem, the Holy Lands from the Muslims. During this time religion permeated every aspect of life. The Christian kings and peasants believed that every human being was judged in death and one way to absolve oneself of sin was to die in the name of the Lord, therefore dying in the Crusades would purify the soul allowing them to go straight to heaven. Consequently, “thousands of laymen and clergy took up the cross and younger sons of the upper-class had military advantages to become Crusaders” (Fiero, 2017). At this particular time, the church acknowledged and vindicated fighting and killing in the name of God, resulting in the Crusaders slaughtering all enemies of Christ; hundreds of men, women, and children plus the “entire Jewish populations of Cologne and Mainz became victims” (Fiero, 2017). The First Crusade set a dangerous precedent, the rise of organized anti-Jewish persecution and each subsequent Crusade resulted in renewed attacks on the Jews. The persecution of Jews reached a climax during the Crusades.

It has been told by Albert of Aachen’s account that Jesus once approached Peter the Hermit while sleeping in Jerusalem. Jesus came to instruct the mere mortal to “…cleanse the Holy Places of Jerusalem and restore the service of the saints” (Tyerman 33). For these Holy Places held the presence of another faith; the Jews, or as the Christians would refer to them, the murderers of he who was nailed to the cross. Peter would go on to attempt to carry out Jesus’s will, which will consequently lead to the death of thousands of men, women, and children. This complex phenomenon will be known as the crusades forevermore. The concept of how the First Crusade was justified has been disputed among historians for several years. While some may believe the crusades were justified because they purified the lands, it is actually true that they fought for selfish reasons in mind and to annihilate the Jews.

The age leading up to the first crusade is detailed by many current historians, as well as Pope Urban II, as a time period where inhabitants "rage[d] against [their own] brothers and cut each other [to] pieces" (Peters, Baldric of Dol, 31) for economic and social advancement. In spite of these references, many people today believe that the Pope instigated the crusades for the sole reason of reclaiming Jerusalem. However, other motivations such as supplementary religious factors and the chance for economic, social, and political gain also played major roles. These motivations were not experienced supremely by the Pope; in fact he needed to instill these inspirations in all Christians to evoke their will to fight. The holy land had long

This crusade would grant remission of sin to those who undertook the crusade. Harris again remarks on the similarities, “The reaction in the papal curia when news arrived that Constantinople had fallen was much the same as it had been when Jerusalem had been lost to Saladin in 1187” (pg 195 2nd Edition). Pope Urban IV justifies this new crusade by saying that without Constantinople, the way to Jerusalem was blocked and any efforts to retake the Holy Land would fail. This call to crusade is similar to the one that launches the Third Crusade led by Richard Coeur de Lion to retake Jerusalem. However, here these parallels end. Unlike in the Third Crusade, Pope Urban IV's call for crusade fails and no armies are sent forth. At least none that could constitute a strict crusade due to a lack of promised remission of

he subject of the crusades is still a very controversial topic that spans across various time periods and has religious, social, and political implications. The first crusade started off as a widespread pilgrimage that ended as a military expedition resulting in the recapture of Jerusalem in 1099. The crusades initiated from a call from help from Alexius for the protection of Constantinople and the recovery of Anatolia. For centuries textbooks have repeated with routine regularity, that the immediate cause, of the Crusades was the Turkish conquest of the Near East, which apparently was a very real threat to Christendom, that had to be countered by military action. With this in mind, the primary purpose of this essay is to identify the various reasons that contributed to the start of the first crusade, while disproving the fact that the first Crusade was a response to a military threat. In discovering the true cause of the first crusades it is necessary to examine it from all aspects from the start to the finish.

It is clear that the Pope is prompting Christians to remember that they are set aside by God and therefore must engage in these crusades. The Pope constantly highlights it is only natural for these Christians to take up arms against the Muslims especially when they are “valiant soldiers and descendants of invincible ancestors” . By encouraging the Christians to believe they are the rightful defenders of the holy land and will not be harmed the Pope is giving his men hope and enticing them furthermore to fight. Evidently, he understands that his men will feel obliged to act when they will be fighting for the land “in which [they] received the grace of redemption and the source of all Christianity” . By linking their religious consciousness to the need to act, the Pope is heartening them to act and partake.

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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

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Going against modern day religious beliefs, in 1095AD the Christians went to war to claim the holy city of Jerusalem, massacring the Muslims in a bloody attempt to worship their God. Pope Urban II’s speech at Clermont inspired by claims made by the Byzantium Emperor encouraged the Christians to partake in the First Crusade in an attempt to liberate Jerusalem. The religious and economic factors were the most relevant to cause this crusade, with some influence from desired political gain and little from social factors unrelated to religion. The immediate consequences were positive for the Christians and negative for the Muslims, but the First Crusade launched an ongoing conflict between the Christians and Muslims which had positive and negative consequences for both sides. There are a number of relevant modern sources which examine the causes and consequences of the First Crusade, but, while there are many medieval sources, they do not explicitly discuss the causes and consequences of the war. In order to fully comprehend the First Crusade, it is necessary to analyse the religious, economic, and political factors, as well as the short-term, long-term, and modern consequences.