Why Did Urban Call for a Crusade in 1095? Essay Example

thought to be threatening Eastern Christians. It was at this point that Alexius summoned the pope’s help to rid the area of the ‘pagans’.

It was Alexius’ call for help that provided Urban with a stable reason for launching the crusade. 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 o 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”. The Council of Clermont was the peak of Urban’s French tour. It was attended by a large range of archbishops, bishops and abbots from places around Europe like Anglo-Normandy, Austria and Italy.

The clerics had been asked to bring powerful political figures with them. It was Urban’s hope that bringing together clerics and military figures would effectively increase the ‘word of mouth’ for the crusade and maximise the impact of his recruitment. Once Urban rose to

make his speech he painted an awful, and somewhat false account of what the Turks were doing in Byzantium at the time. Accounts of the speech suggest that what Urban was saying was similar to everything he had previously mentioned on his French tour.

His speech included his main aims for the crusade. Firstly, he wanted to host a penitential journey to recover the Holy Sepulchre and liberate Christians in the East. It was then made clear that he wanted to eliminate all Muslims from this area, by the use of violence, and to recapture Jerusalem. The majority of the crowd were wary about using violence to win back the Holy Land as violence was condemned by the bible, but Urban stated that the bible has been misinterpreted and that it was only a sin to kill other Christians: killing Muslims was acceptable. He offered anyone who went on this military pilgrimage full remission of their sins if they made it to the Holy Land and helped recapture it.

However he also warned that if anyone turned back once they had made a pledge they would automatically be excommunicated from the church. The crowd had been convinced that this journey would be one with an ultimate finishing point and marvellous rewards, and they responded by making crosses and attaching them to their clothes whilst shouting ‘God Wills It’. The speech at the Council also addressed other issues related to church discipline. For example the speech emphasised papal spiritual and temporal authority by granting anyone who went on the crusade full remission of his or her sins.

It was Urban’s first declaration of the concept of a Holy War.At

this time, ceremonies were a major way of capturing peoples’ imaginations, and in giving this speech with such a large audience, Urban was sure to win over many members of the public who would want to go on this journey for him. The numbers of men, women and children fired up by the idea of a crusade was possibly also increased by the fact that the Pope timed the speech to fall just at the start of the season of advent, and his subsequent visits through France to coincide with Lent, - both times when Christians were most open to the concept of penance. Jerusalem had always been known to the Christians as an ideal city, or a holy city- the walls had been touched by Christ himself- so in visiting the area, one was to be blessed by the sheer presence of Christ. The remoteness and association of the city with Christ meant that the city became a crucial pilgrimage destination.

Urban himself had been brought up around these very ideas in Cluny, where relics of Jerusalem and cardinals in Rome surrounded him. He highlighted these views and ideas in his speech to convince the audience of the religious nature of the expedition.Urban called his crusade a ‘Holy War’ rather than an ‘armed crusade’, to make it seem that killing someone had been given the papal blessing- Urban’s intention was far more radical than a pilgrimage. One of the most important questions about the Pope calling for this crusade in 1095, was the timing of this speech.

Did Urban call for the crusade because Jerusalem was under more threat than previously? Or were the pilgrims really

under a greater threat from Muslims? Or was it simply that the political and religious background in Europe at that moment meant that the time was right for Urban’s introduction of the concept of ‘guiltless, meritorious violence’ (God’s war)? , In trying to answer this question, one has to take into account the limitations of the resources which give us details of how the crusade came about and what happened during the speech. Firstly, the clerical writers who recorded what Urban said at his speech would have been particularly biased and therefore in modern times, we can never be positive about what was actually said at Clermont. Also, all accounts of the speech were retrospective and written after the success of the First Crusade, so everything written may actually have been influenced by the success of the campaign and because the writers were happy about their achievements. In conclusion, in discussing the reasons for Pope Urban’s call for a crusade in 1095 we need to consider why it was Urban II who made the call, why he demanded a crusade and why he chose Clermont in November 1095 to make that call.

Urban’s aristocratic background and his experiences at Cluny gave him a strong belief in the importance of Jerusalem to Christianity and an understanding of the military leanings of the nobility. He had wanted to liberate the Christians in Eastern Europe and Northern Africa from the Muslims and at the same time he wished to liberate Jerusalem – the ultimate pilgrimage destination. Urban wanted to convince people that the trip would be used to free other Christians whilst gaining back territory which was rightfully theirs.

Whilst the crusade could also have been called up in response to a letter seeking aid from Alexius Comnenus, the emperor of Byzantium, this was probably a very secondary consideration With all the events which were occurring in the world, Urban had successfully chosen to launch the crusade at a time when the Christian West was ready to put a stop to the fighting in the East by eliminating all opposition to the Christians. It was also the perfect time for the Pope’s message of ‘guiltless, meritorious violence’.