At the end of the Council of Clermont, probably on 27 November 1095, Pope Urban II addressed the crowd gathered outside the cathedral. The event was carefully stage-managed. The bishop of Le Puy had been primed to come forward at the conclusion of the sermon to take the Cross, the new ceremony marking the adoption of this novel form of martial penance; the cries of Deus lo volt! (God wills it!) were unlikely to have been entirely spontaneous. To be effective, ritual, ceremony and theatre need direction and planning. Of the five later contemporary accounts of what Urban actually said, none is reliable, each being composed after 1099, representing interpretations of what Urban could or should have said in the light of subsequent events and their theological exposition. However, two were composed by members of Urban’s audience that November day in 1095, although this is very far from a guarantee of accuracy. One of these was written, probably before 1107, by Robert, a Benedictine monk whose scholarly achievements had led to his misguided appointment as abbot of St Remy in Rheims, in which capacity he attended the Council of Clermont. An unfailingly incompetent administrator, he was removed from his abbacy in 1097 and later from running the priory at Senuc a few months before his death in 1122. Judged by the number of surviving twelfth-century manuscripts, Robert’s Historia Hierosolymitana proved easily the most popular account of the events of 1095–9, perhaps because of the clear interpretative gloss imposed by the author on his material, at least some of which derived from oral or written accounts of veterans.
His version of Pope Urban’s speech at Clermont follows.
‘O 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 honour 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,* an accursed race, a race utterly alienated from God, a generation forsooth which 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. The kingdom of the Greeks is now dismembered by them and deprived of territory so vast in extent that it cannot be traversed in a march of two months. On whom therefore is the labour 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, 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 Sepulchre of the Lord our Saviour, 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 valour 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.” “Everyone 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 a 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 Sepulchre; 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. This royal city, therefore, situated at the centre 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 succour, 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 eloquent 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 war-cry 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 he wishes to return, let him place the Cross on his back between his shoulders. Such, indeed, by the twofold action will fulfil 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.” ’
The other retrospective account of Urban’s Clermont speech by one who was there was composed perhaps within ten years of the event by Fulcher of Chartres. While lacking the honed rhetoric of Robert of Rheims, Fulcher was none the less keen to portray a particular aspect of Urban’s message, one determined by its outcome. As a resident of newly conquered Jerusalem and chaplain to King Baldwin I, Fulcher wished to emphasise the need for settlement in the east rather than stress the fate of Jerusalem; it was, when he wrote, already in Christian hands. His version of Urban’s speech, therefore, as part of one general aim of his Historia to recruit aid and settlers, chose to highlight the need to help the Church in the east, not the Holy City specifically.
In the year 1095 after the Incarnation of Our Lord, while Henry the so-called emperor* was reigning in Germany and King Philip in France, evils of all kinds multiplied throughout Europe because of vacillating faith. Pope Urban II then ruled in the city of Rome. He was a man admirable in life and habits who strove prudently and vigorously to raise the status of Holy Church ever higher and higher.
Moreover he saw the faith of Christendom excessively trampled upon by all, by the clergy as well as by the laity, and peace totally disregarded, for the princes of the lands were incessantly at war quarrelling with someone or other. He saw that people stole worldly goods from one another, that many captives were taken unjustly and were most barbarously cast into foul prisons and ransomed for excessive prices, or tormented there by three evils, namely hunger, thirst and cold, and secretly put to death, that Holy Places were violated, monasteries and villas consumed by fire, nothing mortal spared, and things human and divine held in derision.
When he heard that the interior part of Romania [Asia Minor] had been occupied by the Turks and the Christians subdued by a ferociously destructive invasion,* Urban, greatly moved by compassionate piety and by the prompting of God’s love, crossed the mountains and descended into Gaul and caused a council to be assembled in Auvergne at Clermont, as the city is called. This council, appropriately announced by messengers in all directions, consisted of 310 members, bishops as well as abbots carrying the crozier.
On the appointed day† Urban gathered them around himself and in an eloquent address carefully made known the purpose of the meeting. In the sorrowing voice of a suffering Church he told of its great tribulation. He delivered an elaborate sermon concerning the many raging tempests of this world in which the faith had been degraded, as was said above.
Then as a suppliant he exhorted all to resume the powers of their faith and arouse in themselves a fierce determination to overcome the machinations of the devil, and to try fully to restore Holy Church, cruelly weakened by the wicked, to its honourable status as of old.
‘Dearest brethren,’ he said, ‘I, Urban, supreme pontiff and by the permission of God prelate of the whole world, have come in this time of urgent necessity to you, the servants of God in these regions, as a messenger of divine admonition. I hope that those who are stewards of the ministry of God shall be found to be good and faithful, and free from hypocrisy.
‘For if anyone is devious and dishonest, and far removed from the moderation of reason and justice, and obstructs the law of God, then I shall endeavour with divine help to correct him. For the Lord has made you stewards over his household so that when the time comes you may provide it with food of modest savour. You will be blessed indeed if the Lord of the stewardship shall find you faithful.
‘You are called shepherds; see that you do not do the work of hirelings. Be true shepherds, always holding your crooks in your hands; and sleeping not, guard on every side the flock entrusted to you.
‘For if through carelessness or neglect a wolf carries off a sheep you will certainly not only lose the reward prepared for you by our Lord, but after first having been beaten by the rods of the lictor you will be summarily hurled into the abode of the damned.
‘In the words of the Gospel, “You are the salt of the earth.”* But if you fail how will the salting be accomplished? Oh, how many men must be seasoned! It is needful for you to salt with the corrective salt of your wisdom the ignorant who gape overmuch after the lusts of the world. Otherwise they will be putrefied by their transgression and be found unseasoned when the Lord speaks to them.
‘For if he shall find in them worms, that is sins, because of your slothful performance of duty he will forthwith order them, despised, cast into the abyss of filth. And because you will not be able to restore such loss to him he will straightway banish you, damned in his judgement, from the presence of his love.
‘But one that salteth ought to be prudent, far-seeing, modest, learned, peacemaking, truth-seeking, pious, just, equitable and pure. For how can the unlearned make others learned, the immodest others modest, and the impure others pure? If one hates peace how can one bring about peace? Or if one has soiled hands how can one cleanse those who are soiled of other pollution? For it is read, “If a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit.”*
‘Accordingly first correct yourselves so that then without reproach you can correct those under your care. If you truly wish to be the friends of God then gladly do what you know is pleasing to him.
‘Especially see to it that the affairs of the Church are maintained according to its law so that simoniacal heresy in no way takes root among you. Take care that sellers and buyers, scourged by the lash of the Lord, be miserably driven out through the narrow gates to utter destruction.
‘Keep the Church in all its ranks entirely free from secular power, cause a tithe of all the fruits of the earth to be given faithfully to God, and let them not be sold or retained.
‘Whoever shall have seized a bishop, let him be accursed. Whoever shall have seized monks or priests or nuns, and their servants, or pilgrims and traders, and despoiled them, let him be accursed. Let thieves and burners of houses, and their accomplices, be banished from the Church and excommunicated.†
‘ “Thereafter we must consider especially”, said Gregory, “how severely punished will be he who steals from another, if he is infernally damned for not being generous with his own possessions.” For so it happened to the rich man in the familiar Gospel story.‡ He was not punished for stealing from another, but because having received wealth he used it badly.
‘By these evils it has been said, dearest brethren, that you have seen the world disturbed for a long time and particularly in some parts of your own provinces as we have been told. Perhaps due to your own weakness in administering justice scarcely anyone dares to travel on the road with hope of safety for fear of seizure by robbers by day or thieves by night, by force or wicked craft, indoors or out.
‘Wherefore the truce commonly so called,* which was long ago established by the holy fathers, should be renewed. I earnestly admonish each of you to enforce it strictly in your own diocese. But if anyone, smitten by greed or pride, willingly infringes this truce, let him be anathema by virtue of the authority of God and by sanction of the decrees of this council.’
When these and many other matters were satisfactorily settled, all those present, clergy and people alike, spontaneously gave thanks to God for the words of the lord pope Urban and promised him faithfully that his decrees would be well kept. But the pope added at once that another tribulation not less but greater than that already mentioned, even of the worst nature, was besetting Christianity from another part of the world.
He said, ‘Since, O sons of God, you have promised him to keep peace among yourselves and to sustain faithfully the rights of Holy Church more sincerely than before, there still remains for you, newly aroused by godly correction, an urgent task which belongs to both you and God, in which you can show the strength of your good will. For you must hasten to carry aid to your brethren dwelling in the east, who need your help for which they have often entreated.
‘For the Turks, a Persian people, have attacked them, as many of you already know, and have advanced as far into Roman territory as that part of the Mediterranean which is called the Arm of St George.† They have seized more and more of the lands of the Christians, have already defeated them in seven times as many battles, killed or captured many people, have destroyed churches, and have devastated the kingdom of God. If you allow them to continue much longer they will conquer God’s faithful people much more extensively.
‘Wherefore with earnest prayer I, not I, but God exhorts you as heralds of Christ to urge repeatedly men of all ranks whatsoever, knights as well as foot-soldiers, rich and poor, to hasten to exterminate this vile race from our lands* and to aid the Christian inhabitants in time.
‘I address those present; I proclaim it to those absent; moreover Christ commands it. For all those going thither there will be remission of sins if they come to the end of this fettered life while either marching by land or crossing by sea, or in fighting the pagans. This I grant to all who go, through the power vested in me by God.
‘Oh, what a disgrace if a race so despicable, degenerate and enslaved by demons should thus overcome a people endowed with faith in Almighty God and resplendent in the name of Christ! Oh, what reproaches will be charged against you by the Lord himself if you have not helped those who are counted like yourselves of the Christian faith!
‘Let those’, he said, ‘who are accustomed wantonly to wage private war against the faithful march upon the infidels in a war which should be begun now and be finished in victory. Let those who have long been robbers now be soldiers of Christ. Let those who once fought against brothers and relatives now rightfully fight against barbarians. Let those who have been hirelings for a few pieces of silver now attain an eternal reward. Let those who have been exhausting themselves to the detriment of body and soul now labour for a double glory. Yea, on the one hand will be the sad and the poor, on the other the joyous and the wealthy; here the enemies of the Lord, there his friends.
‘Let nothing delay those who are going to go. Let them settle their affairs, collect money, and when winter has ended and spring has come, zealously undertake the journey under the guidance of the Lord.’
After these words were spoken and the audience inspired to enthusiasm, many of them, thinking that nothing could be more worthy, at once promised to go and to urge earnestly those who were not present to do likewise. Among them was a certain bishop of Le Puy, Adhemar by name,* who afterwards acting as vicar apostolic prudently and wisely governed the entire army of God and vigorously inspired it to carry out the undertaking.
So when these matters which we have mentioned were decided in the council and firmly agreed upon by all, the blessing of absolution was given and all departed. After they had returned to their homes they told those who were not informed of what had been done. When the edict of the council had been proclaimed everywhere through the provinces, they agreed under oath to maintain the peace which is called the Truce [of God].
Indeed finally many people of varied calling, when they discovered that there would be remission of sins, vowed to go with purified soul whither they had been ordered to go.†
Oh, how fitting, and how pleasing it was to us all to see those crosses made of silk, cloth-of-gold or other beautiful material which these pilgrims, whether knights, other laymen or clerics sewed on the shoulders of their cloaks. They did this by command of Pope Urban once they had taken the oath to go. It was proper that the soldiers of God who were preparing to fight for his honour should be identified and protected by this emblem of victory. And since they thus decorated themselves with this emblem of their faith,‡ in the end they acquired from the symbol the reality itself. They clad themselves with the outward sign in order that they might obtain the inner reality.
The success of Urban’s preaching campaign stunned observers. One of them, a northern French Benedictine scholar, Guibert of Nogent (1053–before 1125), recalled his impressions in his Gesta Dei per Francos (The Deeds of God through the Franks), mainly compiled between 1104 and 1108. Using other written accounts, the memories of veterans such as Robert II, count of Flanders, and his own observations, as well as placing the events in a wide historical context, he perpetuated the rather misleading impression that the expedition had been the work specifically of the Franks (i.e. those living in the kingdom of the Franks, which could include Lorrainers as well as northern and southern Frenchmen).
Pope Urban, whose name was Odo before becoming pope, was descended from a noble French family* from the area and parish of Rheims, and they say, unless the report is in error, that he was the first French pope. A cleric, he was made a monk of Cluny, after the abbot of glorious memory who aided Hugo;† not long afterwards he was made prior, and then, because of his abilities, he was appointed bishop of the city of Ostia, by order of Pope Gregory VII; finally, he was elected supreme pontiff of the apostolic see. His greatness of spirit was made manifest when he urged that the journey be undertaken, because when he first showed how it was to be done the whole world was astonished. His death, resplendent in miracles, attests to the state of his mind. According to what the bishop who succeeded him at Ostia wrote,‡ many signs were seen after he was dead and buried; a certain young man stood at his tomb, and swore by his own limbs that no sign had ever been given or might be given by the merit of Urban, who was called Odo. Before he could move a step, he was struck dumb, and paralysed on one side; he died the next day, offering testimony to the power of Urban. This great man, although honoured with great gifts, and even with prayers, by Alexius, prince of the Greeks, but driven much more by the danger to all of Christendom, which was diminished daily by pagan incursions (for he heard that Spain was steadily being torn apart by Saracen invasions), decided to make a journey to France, to recruit the people of his country. It was, to be sure, the ancient custom for pontiffs of the apostolic see, if they had been harmed by a neighbouring people, always to seek help from the French, [as had] the pontiffs Stephen and Zacharias, in the time of Pepin and Charles …* More respectful and humble than other nations towards blessed Peter and pontifical decrees, the French, unlike other peoples, have been unwilling to behave insolently against God. For many years we have seen the Germans, particularly the entire kingdom of Lotharingia, struggling with barbaric obstinacy against the commands of St Peter and of his pontiffs.† In their striving, they prefer to remain under a daily, or even eternal excommunication rather than submit. Last year while I was arguing with a certain archdeacon of Mainz about a rebellion of his people, I heard him vilify our king and our people, merely because the king had given a gracious welcome everywhere in his kingdom to His Highness Pope Paschal and his princes; he called them not merely Franks, but, derisively, ‘Francones’.‡ I said to him, ‘If you think them so weak and languid that you can denigrate a name known and admired as far away as the Indian Ocean, then tell me upon whom did Pope Urban call for aid against the Turks? Wasn’t it the French? Had they not been present, attacking the barbarians everywhere, pouring their sturdy energy and fearless strength into the battle, there would have been no help for your Germans, whose reputation there amounted to nothing.’ That is what I said to him. I say truly, and everyone should believe it, that God reserved this nation for such a great task. For we know certainly that, from the time that they received the sign of faith that blessed Remigius§ brought to them until the present time, they succumbed to none of the diseases of false faith from which other nations have remained uncontaminated either with great difficulty or not at all. They are the ones who, while still labouring under the pagan error, when they triumphed on the battlefield over the Gauls, who were Christians, did not punish or kill any of them, because they believed in Christ. Instead, those whom Roman severity had punished with sword and fire, native French generosity encased in gold and silver, covered with gems and amber. They strove to welcome with honour not only those who lived within their own borders, but they also affectionately cared for people who came from Spain, Italy or anywhere else, so that love for the martyrs and confessors, whom they constantly served and honoured, made them famous, finally driving them to the glorious victory at Jerusalem. Because it has carried the yoke since the days of its youth, it will sit in isolation, a nation noble, wise, warlike, generous, brilliant above all kinds of nations. Every nation borrows the name as an honorific title; do we not see the Bretons, the English, the Ligurians call men ‘Frank’ if they behave well? But now let us return to the subject.
When the pope crossed our borders, he was greeted with such great joy by crowds in the cities, towns and villages, because no one alive could remember when the bishop of the apostolic see had come to these lands. The year of the incarnate Word 1097 was hastening to its end,* when the bishop hastily convoked a council, choosing a city in Auvergne, Clermont. The council was even more crowded because of the great desire to see the face and to hear the words of such an excellent, rarely seen person. In addition to the multitudes of bishops and abbots, whom some, by counting their staves, estimated at approximately four hundred, learned men from all of France and the dependent territories flowed to that place. One could see there how he presided over them with serene gravity, with a dignified presence, and with what peppery eloquence the most learned pope answered whatever objections were raised. It was noted with what gentleness the most brilliant man listened gently to the most vehemently argued speeches, and how little he valued the social position of people, judging them only by God’s laws.
Then Philip, king of the French, who was in the thirty-seventh year of his reign, having put aside his own wife, whose name was Berta, and having carried off Bertrada, the wife of the count of Anjou,* was excommunicated by the pope, who spurned both the attempts by important people to intercede for the king, and the offers of innumerable gifts. Nor was he afraid because he was now within the borders of the kingdom of France. In this council, just as he had planned before leaving Rome and seeking out the French for this reason, he gave a fine speech to those who were in attendance. Among other things which were said to exceed the memories of the listeners, he spoke about this project. His eloquence was reinforced by his literary knowledge; the richness of his speech in Latin seemed no less than that of any lawyer nimble in his native language. Nor did the crowd of disputants blunt the skill of the speaker. Surrounded by praiseworthy teachers, apparently buried by clouds of cases being pressed upon him, he was judged to have overcome, by his own literary brilliance, the flood of oratory and to have overwhelmed the cleverness of every speech. Therefore his meaning, and not his exact words, follow: ‘If, among the churches scattered through the whole world, some deserve more reverence than others because they are associated with certain people and places, then, because of certain persons, I say, greater privileges are granted to apostolic sees; in the case of places, some privilege is granted to royal cities, as is the case with the city of Constantinople. We are grateful for having received from this most powerful Church the grace of redemption and the origin of all Christianity. If what was said by the Lord remains true, namely that “salvation is from the Jews”, and it remains true that the Lord of the Sabbath has left his seed for us, lest we become like those of Sodom and Gomorrah, and that Christ is our seed, in whom lies salvation and blessing for all people, then the earth and the city in which he lived and suffered is called holy by the testimony of Scripture. If this land is the inheritance of God, and his holy temple, even before the Lord walked and suffered there, as the sacred and prophetic pages tell us, then what additional sanctity and reverence did it gain then, when the God of majesty took flesh upon himself there, was fed, grew up, and moving in his bodily strength walked here and there in the land? To abbreviate a matter that could be spun out at much greater length, this is the place where the blood of the Son of God, holier than heaven and earth, was spilled, where the body, at whose death the elements trembled, rested in its tomb. What sort of veneration might we think it deserves? If, soon after Our Lord’s death, while the city was still in the possession of the Jews, the evangelist called it sacred, when he said, “Many bodies of the saints that have been asleep here have awoken, and come to the Holy City, and they have been seen by many,”* and it was said by the prophet Isaiah, “His tomb will be glorious,”† since this very sanctity, once granted by God the sanctifier himself, cannot be overcome by any evil whatsoever, and the glory of his tomb in the same way remains undiminished, then, O my dearly beloved brothers, you must exert yourselves, with all your strength, and with God leading you and fighting for you, to cleanse the holiness of the city and the glory of the tomb, which has been polluted by the thick crowd of pagans, if you truly aspire to the author of that holiness and glory, and if you love the traces that he has left on earth. If the Maccabees‡ once deserved the highest praise for piety because they fought for their rituals and their temple, then you too, O soldiers of Christ, deserve such praise, for taking up arms to defend the freedom of your country. If you think you must seek with such effort the thresholds of the apostles and of others, then why do you hesitate to go to see and to snatch up the Cross, the blood, and to devote your precious souls to rescuing them? Until now you have waged wrongful wars, often hurling insane spears at each other, driven only by greed and pride, for which you have deserved only eternal death and damnation. Now we propose for you battles which offer the gift of glorious martyrdom, for which you will earn present and future praise. If Christ had not died and been buried in Jerusalem, had not lived there at all, if all these things had not taken place, surely this fact alone should be enough to drive you to come to the aid of the land and the city: that the law came from Sion and the word of God from Jerusalem. If all Christian preaching flows from the fountain of Jerusalem, then let the rivulets, wherever they flow over the face of the earth, flow into the hearts of the Catholic multitude, so that they may take heed of what they owe to this overflowing fountain. If “rivers return to the place whence they flow, so that they may continue to flow,”* according to the saying of Solomon, it should seem glorious to you if you are able to purify the place whence you received the cleansing of baptism and the proof of faith. And you should also consider with the utmost care whether God is working through your efforts to restore the Church that is the mother of churches; he might wish to restore the faith in some of the eastern lands, in spite of the nearness of the time of the Antichrist. For it is clear that the Antichrist makes war neither against Jews, nor against pagans, but, according to the etymology of his name, he will move against Christians. And if the Antichrist comes upon no Christian there, as today there are scarcely any, there will be no one to resist him, or any whom he might justly move among. According to Daniel and Jerome his interpreter, his tent will be fixed on the Mount of Olives, and he will certainly take his seat, as the apostle teaches, in Jerusalem, “in the temple of God, as though he were God”,† and, according to the prophet, he will undoubtedly kill three kings pre-eminent for their faith in Christ, that is, the kings of Egypt, of Africa and of Ethiopia. This cannot happen at all, unless Christianity is established where paganism now rules. Therefore if you are eager to carry out pious battles, and since you have accepted the seedbed of the knowledge of God from Jerusalem, then you may restore the grace that was borrowed there. Thus through you the name of Catholicism will be propagated, and it will defeat the perfidy of the Antichrist and of the antichristians. Who can doubt that God, who surpasses every hope by means of his overflowing strength, may so destroy the reeds of paganism with your spark that he may gather Egypt, Africa and Ethiopia, which no longer share our belief, into the rules of his law, and “sinful man, the son of perdition”,* will find others resisting him? See how the Gospel cries out that “Jerusalem will be trodden down by the Gentiles, until the time of the nations will be fulfilled.”† “The time of nations” may be understood in two ways: either that they ruled at will over the Christians, and for their own pleasures have wallowed in the troughs of every kind of filth, and in all of these things have found no obstruction (for “to have one’s time” means that everything goes according to one’s wishes, as in “My time has not yet come, but your time is always ready,”‡ and one customarily says to voluptuaries, “You have your time”), or else the “time of nations” means the multitudes of nations who, before Israel is saved, will join the faith. These times, dearest brothers, perhaps will now be fulfilled, when, with the aid of God, the power of the pagans will be pushed back by you, and, with the end of the world already near, even if the nations do not turn to the Lord, because, as the apostle says, “there must be a falling away from faith.”§ Nevertheless, first, according to the prophecies, it is necessary, before the coming of the Antichrist in those parts, either through you or through whomever God wills, that the empire of Christianity be renewed, so that the leader of all evil, who will have his throne there, may find some nourishment of faith against which he may fight. Consider, then, that Almighty Providence may have destined you for the task of rescuing Jerusalem from such abasement. I ask you to think how your hearts can conceive of the joy of seeing the Holy City revived by your efforts, and the oracles, the divine prophecies fulfilled in our own times. Remember that the voice of the Lord himself said to the Church, “I shall lead your seed from the east, and I shall gather you from the west.”¶J The Lord has led our seed from the east, in that he brought forth for us in a double manner* out of the eastern land the early progeny of the Church. But out of the west he assembled us, for through those who last began the proof of faith, that is the westerners (we think that, God willing, this will come about through your deeds), Jerusalem’s losses will be restored. If the words of Scripture and our own admonitions do not move your souls, then at least let the great suffering of those who wish to visit the Holy Places touch you. Think of the pilgrims who travel the Mediterranean; if they are wealthy, to what tributes, to what violence are they subjected; at almost every mile they are compelled to pay taxes and tributes; at the gates of the city, at the entrances of churches and temples, they must pay ransoms. Each time they move from one place to another they are faced with another charge, compelled to pay ransom, and the governors of the Gentiles commonly coerce with blows those who are slow to give gifts. What shall we say about those who have taken up the journey, trusting in their naked poverty, who seem to have nothing more than their bodies to lose? The money that they did not have was forced from them by intolerable tortures; the skin of their bones was probed, cut and stripped, in search of anything that they might have sewn within. The brutality of these evildoers was so great that, suspecting that the wretches had swallowed gold and silver, they gave them purgatives to drink, so that they would either vomit or burst their insides. Even more unspeakable, they cut their bellies open with swords, opening their inner organs, revealing with a hideous slashing whatever nature holds secret. Remember, I beg you, the thousands who died deplorably, and, for the sake of the Holy Places, whence the beginnings of piety came to you, take action. Have unshakeable faith that Christ will be the standard-bearer and inseparable advance guard before you who are sent to his wars.’
The superb man delivered this speech, and by the power of the blessed Peter absolved everyone who vowed to go, confirming this with an apostolic benediction, and establishing a sign of this honourable promise. He ordered that something like a soldier’s belt, or rather that for those about to fight for the Lord, something bearing the sign of the Lord’s Passion, the figure of a Cross, be sewn on to the tunics and cloaks of those who were going. If anyone, after accepting this symbol, and after having made the public promise, then went back on his good intentions, either out of weak regretfulness, or out of domestic affection, such a person, according to the pope’s decree, would be considered everywhere an outlaw, unless he came to his senses and fulfilled the obligation which he had foully laid aside. He also cursed with a horrible anathema all those who might dare to harm the wives, sons and possessions of those who took up God’s journey for all of the next three years.
Finally, he entrusted the leadership of the expedition to the most praiseworthy of men, the bishop of the city of Le Puy (whose name, I regret, I have never discovered or heard*). He granted him the power to teach the Christian people as his representative, wherever they went, and therefore, in the manner of the apostles, he laid hands upon him and gave him his blessing as well. How wisely he carried out his commission the results of this wonderful effort demonstrate.
And so, when the council held at Clermont at the octave of blessed Martin in the month of November† was over, the great news spread through all parts of France, and whoever heard the news of the pontiff’s decree urged his neighbours and family to undertake the proposed ‘path of God’ (for this was its epithet). The courtly nobility were already burning with desire, and the middle-level knights were bursting to set out, when lo, the poor also were aflame with desire, without any consideration for the scarcity of their resources, and without worrying about suitably disposing of their homes, vineyards and fields. Instead, each sold his assets at a price much lower than he would have received if he had been shut up in a painful prison and needed to pay an immediate ransom. At this time there was a general famine, with great poverty even among the very wealthy, since even though there were enough things, here and there, for sale for some people, they had nothing or scarcely anything with which those things could be bought. Masses of poor people learned to feed often on the roots of wild plants, since they were compelled by the scarcity of bread to search everywhere for some possible substitute. The misery that everyone was crying out about was clearly threatening to the powerful people as they watched, and, while each man, considering the anguish of the starving mob to be of little importance, became fastidiously parsimonious, fearing that he might squander the wealth for which he had worked hard by spending money too easily, the thirsty hearts of the avaricious, who rejoiced that the times smiled upon their brutal rates of interest, thought of the bushels of grain they had stored through the fertile years, and calculated how much their sale would add to their accumulating mountains of money. Thus, while some suffer terribly, and others swiftly go about their business, Christ, ‘breaking the ships of Tarshish with a powerful wind’,* resounded in everyone’s ears, and he ‘who freed those who were in adamantine chains’† broke the shackles of those desperate men whose hearts were ensnared by greed. Although, as I just said, hard times reduced everyone’s wealth, nevertheless, when the hard times provoked everyone to spontaneous exile, the wealth of many men came out into the open, and what had seemed expensive when no one was moved was sold at a cheap price, now that everyone was eager for the journey. As many men were rushing to depart (I shall illustrate the sudden and unexpected drop in prices with one example of those things that were sold), seven sheep brought an unheard-of price of five pennies. The lack of grain became a surfeit, and each tried to get whatever money he could scrape together by any means; each seemed to be offering whatever he had, not at the seller’s but at the buyer’s price, lest he be late in setting out on the path of God. It was a miraculous sight: everyone bought high and sold low; whatever could be used on the journey was expensive, since they were in a hurry; they sold cheaply whatever items of value they had piled up; what neither prison nor torture could have wrung from them just a short time before they now sold for a few paltry coins. Nor is it less absurd that many of those who had no desire to go, who laughed one day at the frantic selling done by the others, declaring that they were going on a miserable journey, and would return even more miserable, were suddenly caught up the next day, and abandoned all their goods for a few small coins, and set out with those at whom they had laughed.
Who can tell of the boys, the old men, who were stirred to go to war? Who can count the virgins and the weak, trembling old men? Everyone sang of battle, but did not say that they would fight. Offering their necks to the sword, they promised martyrdom. ‘You young men’, they said, ‘will draw swords with your hands, but may we be permitted to earn this by supporting Christ.’*
Indeed they seemed to have a desire to emulate God, ‘but not according to knowledge’,† but God, who customarily turns many vain undertakings to a pious end, prepared salvation for their simple souls, because of their good intentions. There you would have seen remarkable, even comical things; poor people, for example, tied their cattle to two-wheeled carts, armed as though they were horses, carrying their few possessions, together with their small children, in the wagon. The little children, whenever they came upon a castle or a city, asked whether this was the Jerusalem to which they were going.
At that time, before people set out on the journey, there was a great disturbance, with fierce fighting, throughout the entire kingdom of the Franks. Everywhere people spoke of rampant thievery, highway robbery; endless fires burned everywhere. Battles broke out for no discernible reason, except uncontrollable greed. To sum up briefly, whatever met the eye of greedy men, no matter to whom it belonged, instantly became their prey. Therefore the change of heart they soon underwent was remarkable and scarcely believable because of the heedless state of their souls, as they all begged the bishops and priests to give the sign prescribed by the above-mentioned pope, that is, the crosses. As the force of powerful winds can be restrained by the gentle rain, so all of the feuds of each against the other were put to rest by the aspiration embedded undoubtedly by Christ himself.
Whatever Urban said, the Council of Clermont issued a decree concerning the eastern expedition for those attending to take home with them to publicise the cause. The copy held by Lambert, bishop of Arras, is unequivocal about destination (Jerusalem), purpose (liberation of the eastern Church) and reward (pure motives attracting plenary remission of all penance for confessed sin): ‘Whoever goes on the journey to free the Church of God in Jerusalem out of devotion alone, and not for the gaining of glory or money, can substitute the journey for all penance for sin.’*
The Clermont speech was only one of many delivered by Urban on his French tour in 1095–6. By February 1096, he was in Anjou and the Loire valley. The same year, the count of Anjou himself, Fulk Rechin (‘the Sour’, 1067–1109), described the pope’s visit.
I wish to recall certain signs and prodigies which occurred during the last year of this period [1068–96] and which concerned not only our own land but the entire kingdom of Gaul, as the sequence of events later demonstrated. At this time stars fell from the heavens on to the earth like hailstones. This vision filled many people with wonder and struck them with a great terror. This sign was followed by a great wave of mortality throughout the kingdom of France and by a period of scarcity that was terrible. In our own city of Angers one hundred of our leading men perished and more than two thousand of the lesser folk.
Near the approach of Lent, the Roman pope Urban came to Angers and exhorted our people to go to Jerusalem in order to hunt the pagan people who had occupied this city and all of the lands of the Christians as far as Constantinople. For this reason the pope consecrated the church of St Nicholas on the day of Septuagesima [10 February 1096] and translated the body of my uncle Geoffrey from the chapter house into this church. This same apostolic man decided and ordained by a papal privilege that every year, on the day of the anniversary of the consecration which he had performed, a public feast would be celebrated and that the seventh part of the penances of those who attended would be remitted.
Departing, he went to Le Mans [14 February 1096] and from there to Tours. There he held a venerable council whose decrees were later published. During mid-Lent he was crowned and led a solemn procession from the church of St Maurice to that of St Martin [23 March 1096]. He gave me a golden flower which he held in his hand, and I decided that I and my successors would always carry that flower on the feast of Palm Sunday in memory and for my love of him. On the Palm Sunday that followed his departure, the church of St Martin burned down. The pope moved on to Saintes and celebrated the feast of Easter there.
Meanwhile Urban demonstrated sophisticated skills as promoter and propagandist, employing all available media: sermons; ceremonies; parades; legates; private conversation; and letters, a number of which survive indicating the main developing lines of the pope’s thinking and aspirations.
Urban, bishop, servant of the servants of God, to all the faithful, both princes and subjects, waiting in Flanders; greeting, apostolic grace, and blessing.
Your brotherhood, we believe, has long since learned from many accounts that a barbaric fury has deplorably afflicted and laid waste the churches of God in the regions of the orient. More than this, blasphemous to say, it has even grasped in intolerable servitude its churches and the Holy City of Christ, glorified by his Passion and Resurrection. Grieving with pious concern at this calamity, we visited the regions of Gaul and devoted ourselves largely to urging the princes of the land and their subjects to free the churches of the east. We solemnly enjoined upon them at the Council of Auvergne [the accomplishment of] such an undertaking, as a preparation for the remission of all their sins. And we have constituted our most beloved son, Adhemar, bishop of Puy, leader of this expedition and undertaking in our stead, so that those who, perchance, may wish to undertake this journey should comply with his commands as if they were our own, and submit fully to his loosings or bindings, as far as shall seem to belong to such an office. If, moreover, there are any of your people whom God has inspired to this vow, let them know that he [Adhemar] will set out with the aid of God on the day of the Assumption of the Blessed Mary,* and that they can then attach themselves to his following.
Urban, bishop, servant of the servants of God, to his dear sons among the clergy and people of Bologna, greetings and apostolic benediction.
We give thanks for your goodness, that you remain always steadfast in the Catholic faith, situated as you are in the midst of schismatics and heretics† … and therefore we urge you, most beloved of the Lord, that you persist manfully along the path of truth and that your virtuous beginnings will lead to a better ending, since it is not he who begins a task, but he who perseveres in it until the end who will be saved … We have heard that some of you have conceived the desire to go to Jerusalem, and you should know that this is pleasing to us, and you should also know that if any among you travel, not for the desire of the goods of this world, but only those who go for the good of their souls and the liberty of the churches, they will be relieved of the penance for all of their sins, for which they have made a full and perfect confession, by the mercy of Almighty God and the prayers of the Catholic Church, as much by our own authority as that of all the archbishops and bishops in Gaul, because they have exposed themselves and their property to danger out of their love of God and their neighbour. To neither clerics nor monks, however, do we concede permission to go without the permission of their bishops or abbots. Let it be the bishops’ duty to permit their parishioners to go only with the advice and provision of the clergy. Nor should young married men rashly set out on the journey without the consent of their spouses.
We have heard that some of you want to set out with the knights who are making for Jerusalem with the good intention of liberating Christianity. This is the right kind of sacrifice, but it is planned by the wrong kind of person. For we were stimulating the minds of knights to go on this expedition, since they might be able to restrain the savagery of the Saracens by their arms and restore the Christians to their former freedom: we do not want those who have abandoned the world and have vowed themselves to spiritual warfare either to bear arms or to go on this journey; we go so far as to forbid them to do so. And we forbid religious – clerics or monks – to set out in this company without the permission of their bishops or abbots in accordance with the rule of the holy canons. The discretion of your religious profession must prevent you in this business from running the risk of either insulting the apostolic see or endangering your own souls. We have heard it said that your confrère, the abbot of the monastery of St Reparata, is considering leaving the Order shared by your congregation in common. And so in this present letter we send him an order, and by that we mean we forbid him to dare to rule the same monastery any longer without the permission of your common abbot, whom you call your major abbot. And if he does not obey, he or anyone else who perhaps dares to leave your congregation should be cut offwith the sword of apostolic excommunication.
Given at Cremona on the seventh day of October. We want you to read this letter to the assembled monks and lay brothers and to let the other monasteries know its contents.*
We beseech most carefully your lordships on behalf of the city or rather the Church of Tarragona† and we order you to make a vigorous effort to restore it in every possible way for the remission of sins. For you know what a great defence it would be for Christ’s people and what a terrible blow it would be to the Saracens if, by the goodness of God, the position of that famous city were restored. If the knights of other provinces have decided with one mind to go to the aid of the Asian Church and to liberate their brothers from the tyranny of the Saracens, so ought you with one mind and with our encouragement to work with greater endurance to help a Church so near you resist the invasions of the Saracens. No one must doubt that if he dies on this expedition for the love of God and his brothers his sins will surely be forgiven and he will gain a share of eternal life through the most compassionate mercy of our God. So if any of you has made up his mind to go to Asia, it is here instead that he should try to fulfil his vow, because it is no virtue to rescue Christians from the Saracens in one place, only to expose them to the tyranny and oppression of the Saracens in another. May Almighty God arouse in your hearts a love of your brothers and reward your bravery with victory over the enemy.
The question of motive appears prominently in many analyses of the First Crusade; it also preoccupied contemporary planners and commentators: only right intention, as the Clermont decree insisted, could attract the offered spiritual privileges, the many setbacks on the march being explained away as the consequence of sin. While on any intimate personal level the thoughts of individuals are irrecoverable, publicly at least, in deals struck by departing crusaders with monasteries to raise capital on property, letters and wills, there runs a strong current of active piety. Much may represent the gloss supplied by the clerical scribe or monkish adviser. However, given the high cost of crusading in material terms, few could have had many realistic expectations of purely mercenary profit. While acquisition of temporal goods was intrinsic in the progress and survival of any eleventh-century army, the journey to Jerusalem presented unique difficulties, in its expense, physical effort, persistent dangers and likelihood of death; most of those who embarked in 1096 neither came back nor saw Jerusalem. The crusade was presented as an armed pilgrimage, its temporal purpose of reconquest underpinned by its spiritual imperative of penance.
Although by no means all surviving land charters echo penitential sentiments of a guilt-ridden yet pious military aristocracy, the donation to the abbey of St Peter of Chartres by the local nobleman Nivello in 1096 provides testimony of one man’s burden that he hoped the armed pilgrimage to Jerusalem would alleviate.
Anyone who is the recipient of pardon through the grace of heavenly atonement and who wants to be more completely freed from the burden of his sins, whose weight oppresses the soul of the sinner and prevents it from flying up to heaven, must look to end his sins before they abandon him. And so I Nivello, raised in a nobility of birth which produces in many people an ignobility of mind, for the redemption of my soul and in exchange for a great sum of money given me for this, renounce for ever in favour of St Peter* the oppressive behaviour resulting from a certain bad custom, handed on to me not by ancient right but from the time of my father, a man of little weight who first harassed the poor with this oppression. Thereafter I constantly maintained it in an atrociously tyrannical manner. I had harshly worn down the land of St Peter, that is to say Emprainville and the places around it, in the way that had become customary, by seizing the goods of the inhabitants there. This was the rough nature of this custom. Whenever the onset of knightly ferocity stirred me up, I used to descend on the aforesaid village, taking with me a troop of my knights and a crowd of my attendants, and against nature I would make over the goods of the men of St Peter for food for my knights.
And so since, in order to obtain the pardon for my crimes which God can give me, I am going on pilgrimage to Jerusalem which until now has been enslaved with her sons, the monks have given me 10 pounds in denarii towards the expenses of the appointed journey, in return for giving up this oppression; and they have given 3 pounds to my sister, called Comitissa, the wife of Hugh, viscount of Châteaudun, in return for her consent; 40 solidi to Hamelin my brother; with the agreement of my son Urso and my other relatives, whose names are written below. If in the course of time one of my descendants is tempted to break the strength of this concession and is convicted of such an act by the witnesses named below, may he, transfixed by the thunderbolt of anathema, be placed in the fires of hell with Dathan and Abiram, to be tormented endlessly. And so, to reinforce my confirmation of this, I make the sign of the Cross with my own hand and I pass the document over to my son called Urso and my other relatives and witnesses for them to confirm by making their signs. And everyone ought to note that I make satisfaction to St Peter for such abominable past injuries and that I will forever desist from causing this restless trouble, which is now stilled.