|
|
|
|
|
Pope Urban II, Crusade Instigator > 
Urban is best known for starting the First Crusade. Urban's crusading movement took its first public shape at the Council of Piacenza, where in March 1095 Urban received an ambassador from the Byzantine emperor Alexius I Comnenus, asking for help against the Muslims. 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 the city. At the Council of Clermont held in November of the same year, Urban's sermon proved the most effective single speech in European history, as he summoned the French people to wrest the Holy lands from the hands of the Turks. France, he said, was already overcrowded and the Holy Lands of Canaan were overflowing with milk and honey. He asked the Frenchmen to turn their swords in favour of God's service, and the assembly replied Dieu le veult! -- "God wills it!"
Urban II died on July 29, 1099, fourteen days after the fall of Jerusalem to the Crusaders, but before news of the event had reached Italy; his successor was Paschal II.
|
