Read and answer with textual evidence to support your response 1. What are Pope Urban’s reasons for urging the Franks (a term for the French and for western Europeans generally in much Crusading literature) to take up arms and go to the Holy Land?2. What is the tone of his speech in presenting these reasons? Is this a rational appeal, or an emotional one? Or both? How important is religion in the appeal? What motivation an emotional one? Or both? How important is religion in the appeal? What motivations other than religious ones does Urban give?
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Pope Urban Preaches The First Crusade
Oxford First Source
Pope Urban Preaches The First Crusade
Pope Urban
Date: 1095
Subject: Period, Networks, Hierarchies, and Traditional
Worlds to 1500, Topic, War, Conflict, and Diplomacy,
Religion, Ideas, and Belief Systems, Region, Western
Europe
DOI: 10.1093/acref/9780199399680.013.0227
Abstract and Keywords
In response to requests from the Byzantine Empire for mercenaries to help them fight the Sejuk
Turks, who had overrun the heart of Asia Minor and taken much of the Holy Land in the
decades after defeating the Byzantines at Manzikert in 1071, Pope Urban II (1088–1099) called
for an armed pilgrimage to Jerusalem to free the Holy Land from the hands of the Saracens.
Preaching first at Claremont, in France, in 1095, his call met an immediate and overwhelmingly
enthusiastic response. This selection is one version (of five that we have) of the speech Pope
Urban II gave at Claremont in 1095 that launched the First Crusade.
Selected from Dana C. Munro, “Urban and the Crusaders,” Translations and Reprints from the
Original Sources of European History, Vol 1:2. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania (1895):
5–8.
Document
The Version of Robert the Monk
Oh, race of Franks, race from across the mountains, race chosen and beloved by God as
shines forth in very many of your works, set apart from all nations by the situation of your
country, as well as by your catholic faith and the honor of the holy church! To you our
discourse is addressed and for you our exhortation is intended. We wish you to know what a
grievous cause has led us to your country, what peril threatening you and all the faithful has
brought us.
From the confines of Jerusalem and the city of Constantinople a horrible tale has gone forth
and very frequently has been brought to our ears, namely, that a race from the kingdom of the
Persians,i an accursed race, a race utterly alienated from God, a generation forsooth which
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Pope Urban Preaches The First Crusade
has not directed its heart and has not entrusted its spirit to God, has invaded the lands of
those Christians and has depopulated them by the sword, pillage and fire; it has led away a
part of the captives into its own country, and a part it has destroyed by cruel tortures; it has
either entirely destroyed the churches of God or appropriated them for the rites of its own
religion. They destroy the altars, after having defiled them with their uncleanness.
They circumcise the Christians, and the blood of the circumcision they either spread upon the
altars or pour into the vases of the baptismal font. When they wish to torture people by a base
death, they perforate their navels, and dragging forth the extremity of the intestines, bind it to
a stake; then with flogging they lead the victim around until the viscera having gushed forth
the victim falls prostrate upon the ground. Others they bind to a post and pierce with arrows.
Others they compel to extend their necks and then, attacking them with naked swords, attempt
to cut through the neck with a single blow. What shall I say of the abominable rape of the
women? To speak of it is worse than to be silent.ii The kingdom of the Greeks is now
dismembered by them and deprived of territory so vast in extent that it can not be traversed in
a march of two months. On whom therefore is the labor of avenging these wrongs and of
recovering this territory incumbent, if not upon you? You, upon whom above other nations God
has conferred remarkable glory in arms, great courage, bodily activity, and strength to humble
the hairy scalp of those who resist you.
Let the deeds of your ancestors move you and incite your minds to manly achievements; the
glory and greatness of king Charles the Great,iii and of his son Louis, and of your other kings,
who have destroyed the kingdoms of the pagans, and have extended in these lands the
territory of the holy church. Let the holy sepulcher of the Lord our Savior, which is possessed
by unclean nations, especially incite you, and the holy places which are now treated with
ignominy and irreverently polluted with their filthiness. Oh, most valiant soldiers and
descendants of invincible ancestors, be not degenerate, but recall the valor of your
progenitors.
But if you are hindered by love of children, parents and wives, remember what the Lord says in
the Gospel, “He that loveth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me.” “Every one
that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or
lands for my name’s sake shall receive an hundredfold and shall inherit everlasting life.” Let
none of your possessions detain you, no solicitude for your family affairs, since this land which
you inhabit, shut in on all sides by the seas and surrounded by the mountain peaks, is too
narrow for your large population; nor does it abound in wealth; and it furnishes scarcely food
enough for its cultivators. Hence it is that you murder one another, that you wage war, and
that frequently you perish by mutual wounds. Let therefore hatred depart from among you, let
your quarrels end, let wars cease, and let all dissensions and controversies slumber. Enter
upon the road to the Holy Sepulcher; wrest that land from the wicked race, and subject it to
yourselves. That land which as the Scripture says “floweth with milk and honey,” was given by
God into the possession of the children of Israel. Jerusalem is the navel of the world; the land is
fruitful above others, like another paradise of delights. This the Redeemer of the human race
has made illustrious by His advent, has beautified by residence, has consecrated by suffering,
has redeemed by death, has glorified by burial.
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Pope Urban Preaches The First Crusade
This royal city, therefore, situated at the center of the world, is now held captive by His
enemies, and is in subjection to those who do not know God, to the worship of the heathens.
She seeks therefore and desires to be liberated, and does not cease to implore you to come to
her aid. From you especially she asks succor, because, as we have already said, God has
conferred upon you above all nations great glory in arms. Accordingly undertake this journey
for the remission of your sins, with the assurance of the imperishable glory of the kingdom of
heaven.
When Pope Urban had said these and very many similar things in his urbane discourse, he so
influenced to one purpose the desires of all who were present, that they cried out, “It is the will
of God! It is the will of God!” When the venerable Roman pontiff heard that, with eyes uplifted
to heaven he gave thanks to God and, with his hand commanding silence, said: Most beloved
brethren, today is manifest in you what the Lord says in the Gospel, “Where two or three are
gathered together in my name there am I in the midst of them.” Unless the Lord God had been
present in your spirits, all of you would not have uttered the same cry. For, although the cry
issued from numerous mouths, yet the origin of the cry was one. Therefore I say to you that
God, who implanted this in your breasts, has drawn it forth from you. Let this then be your warcry in combats, because this word is given to you by God. When an armed attack is made
upon the enemy, let this one cry be raised by all the soldiers of God: It is the will of God! It is
the will of God!
And we do not command or advise that the old or feeble, or those unfit for bearing arms,
undertake this journey; nor ought women to set out at all, without their husbands or brothers or
legal guardians. For such are more of a hindrance than aid, more of a burden than advantage.
Let the rich aid the needy; and according to their wealth, let them take with them experienced
soldiers. The priests and clerks of any order are not to go without the consent of their bishop;
for this journey would profit them nothing if they went without permission of these. Also, it is not
fitting that laymen should enter upon the pilgrimage without the blessing of their priests.
Whoever, therefore, shall determine upon this holy pilgrimage and shall make his vow to God
to that effect and shall offer himself to Him as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God,
shall wear the sign of the cross of the Lord on his forehead or on his breast. When, truly,
having fulfilled his vow be wishes to return, let him place the cross on his back between his
shoulders. Such, indeed, by the twofold action will fulfill the precept of the Lord, as He
commands in the Gospel, “He that taketh not his cross and followeth after me, is not worthy of
me.”
Notes
Review
1. What are Pope Urban’s reasons for urging the Franks (a term for the French and for
western Europeans generally in much Crusading literature) to take up arms and go to the
Holy Land?
2. What is the tone of his speech in presenting these reasons? Is this a rational appeal, or
Page 3 of 4
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FIRST SOURCE for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).
Subscriber: Normand Lambert; date: 12 November 2015
Pope Urban Preaches The First Crusade
an emotional one? Or both? How important is religion in the appeal? What motivations
other than religious ones does Urban give?
Notes:
(i) An archaic way of referring to the Turks
(ii) This list of charges is vastly exaggerated.
(iii) Charlemagne.
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