Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont

As a response to the Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Comnenos' plea for help against the Seljuk Turks in 1095, Pope Urban II gave his famous speech at Mount Clermont, essentially preaching for them to help out their Christian brethren, which then led to the first crusade. My argument will be based on this very sermon, however, an important thing to note about this speech, is that there is no direct account of what was actually said. What we do have, is five different accounts of the contents of his speech, which were all written by churchmen who did so within a relatively short time after the sermon. Of these, Fulcher of Chartres' account is the one my argument shall be based on, although the four others, namely Robert the Monk, The Gesta fracorum et aliorum Hierosolymytanorum (The Deeds of the Franks, unknown authorship, which later writers used as a source), Balderic of Dol, and Guibert of Nogent's accounts certainly will be taken into consideration, and indeed used as tools of comparison. The reasons I have chosen Fulcher of Chartres' account over any other are as follows: firstly, he is the one most likely to have been present at the sermon, and he is also the only one of these men who participated in the following crusade. It is also the earliest account, written in (approximately) 1100-1101. Most interestingly, though, is this account's lack of the Holy Sepulchreⁱ – or even Jerusalem - as the target of the Crusade, and this leads perfectly into what I aim to illustrate here – that Jerusalem was not initially Pope Urban II's primary concern at the time he gave his sermon at Mount Clermont, but that his interests rather lay with improving the relations with the Byzantine Empire.

It is quite unlikely that historians will ever know precisely how Urban II phrased the sermon preaching the First Crusade at Mount Clermont, unless we discover some previously unknown evidence, suggesting otherwise. While it is true that the five accounts we do have were all written quite shortly after the sermon, but most of the chroniclers, namely Robert the Monk, Baldric of Dol and Guibert de Nogent have stated that they did not give the precise account of what Urban II said, but rather the general idea of it. Indeed, this was the general practise of historical writing in Medieval Europe, and there is no evidence supporting that Fulcher of Chartres nor the author of the Gesta fracorum did things differently than Robert, Baldric or Guibert. This is rather important information concerning the mindset of historians – or chroniclers – of the time, and explains why all of the accounts of Urban II's speech are so wildly different in many regards. While the authenticity of the source itself is unquestionable, the contents of it, however, may not be. As explained previously, these men were not necessarily concerned with writing down precisely what took place, but instead to give the general gist of it, which may very well have included rewriting certain parts, omitting others, or rephrasing some parts, for example if they wanted to give it a biblical reference.

It is certainly strange, however, that while Fulcher of Chartres' account does not even mention Jerusalem, – nor hint at it – others have, and even more peculiarly, quite vividly.

"Consider, therefore, that the Almighty has provided you, perhaps, for this purpose, that through you He may restore Jerusalem from such debasement. Ponder, I beg you, how full of joy and delight our hearts will be when we shall see the Holy City restored with your little help, and the prophet's, nay divine, words fulfilled in our times." ⁱⁱ

Guibert of Nogent writes here, with elaboration, that Urban II preached for the recapture of Jerusalem. A detail worth remembering at this point, is that Guibert wrote not only from his own memory, but also taken other sources such as the Gesta Francorum into account. One would think, that if Urban II did mention Jerusalem in his initial speech, the chronicler to have written down an account of it first (and therefore, following this logic, would have the memory most firmly in his mind), would not have forgot to include such a vital detail. There is also the argument that since every account of the sermon was written down after the end of the First Crusade, their memory would certainly have deteriorated, and could have filled in blanks with the knowledge they now have – that the Crusaders did capture Jerusalem in the end, and somehow try to make it seem like that was the plan all along. Sadly, we do not know how extensively these people took notes at the time, if they wrote it down shortly afterwards in a shorter format, or if their entire account was written years after the speech, with no aid other than their memory, and other sources.

While capturing Jerusalem may not have been Urban II's primary concern at the time – giving pilgrims access to it certainly was. Since the Byzantine Empire had lost such large areas of Asia Minor, pilgrims were having increasingly overwhelming difficulties getting access to the Church of the Holy Sepulchreⁱⁱⁱ, let alone the city of Jerusalem, which was perceived as unacceptable by him, and was certainly one of the reasons he so readily sent help to the Byzantine Empire. Alexios I Comnenos did not expect the amount of soldiers that arrived at Constantinople – rather a small, professional mercenary force.

“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 race from the lands of our friends.“ ^iv

As this passage illustrates, Pope Urban II never intended to send a highly trained mercenary force to The Byzantine Empire's aid, but rather every able-bodied man in the western world. Now, one could argue that the reason Urban II settled for sending the wrath of Western Europe upon the Seljuk Turks, rather than a comparatively smaller, more skilled mercenary group, was the perceived threat to Christianity as a whole. The Catholic Church did (and does) have many theological differences with their eastern brethren – but the thought-process of the Catholic Christians at the time, was that they would rather have misled brothers on their borders (who would also allow them to pass unharmed through their lands), than heathens (who would not), as illustrated – yet again – in Fulcher's chronicle:

“O what a disgrace if such a despised and base race, which worships demons, should conquer a people which has the faith of omnipotent God and is made glorious with the name of Christ!“^v

Not only are they perceived as heathens, but also demon-worshippers. As far as Muslims go, they certainly do not worship demons, but it all stems from the ignorance of the time, which was not an attribute only Christians possessed.^vi

Whether or not Urban II thought of recapturing Jerusalem at the time when he made the speech, may not be that relevant after all, for example, Cowdrey (1984: XVI 181) argues that

“The chronicles indicate that from as early as thirteen weeks after the Council of Clermont, Urban was certainly speaking of an expedition which had Jerusalem as its goal.”

Now, seeing as (in Fulcher of Chartres' account) he does not mention Jerusalem, could it be that having the city as the Crusade's target was an afterthought, or merely an unintended coincidence, as Barker (1923: 13) points out? Surely, these two viewpoints are compatible – but it is both dependent on Fulcher of Chartres' account being the correct one, and that Cowdrey's argument is valid. This is quite a speculative topic, as much as I have tried to delve into the debate around this speech, as well as conflicting accounts of the sermon, it all boils down to the fact that these are all biased accounts written by churchmen, their way of writing history allows them to sugar-coat events if they deem it necessary, and they have no illusion of being objective about it. From the research I have done, and reasoning used in this essay, I think that in comparison to all other sources we have available, Fulcher of Chartres' account does seem to be the most reliable. Therefore, the idea that Pope Urban II was not primarily concerned with capturing Jerusalem when he first preached the Crusade seem the most likely, however, it did become the goal about thirteen weeks after the Council of Clermont, if it had not been so in the back of his mind all along.

iThe Church of the Holy Sepulchre was the most important church in all of Christendom – the site of Jesus' crucifixion.

iiGuibert of Nogent reporting Pope Urban II's sermon. Paragraph 5.

iiiRunciman, Steven (1951) The First Crusade, Cambridge University Press: London – Pp. 42.

ivFulcher of Chartres reporting Pope Urban II's sermon. Paragraph 4.

vIbid. Paragraph 5.

viAs a side-note, Muslims viewed Catholics as polytheists – a misunderstanding of the Holy Trinity.