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1095. NOVEMBER. IN THE AUVERGNE, A MOUNTAINOUS REGION IN CENTRAL FRANCE . . .

The growing assembly of abbots, bishops, archbishops, princes, nobles, lords, and laymen gathered inside the great church hall in Clermont and awaited the arrival of the pope. When they finally caught sight of his tonsured head ambling down the aisle, it was clear that Urban II was less than happy. The long year of touring had carried the pontiff to several French and Mediterranean regions, then to northern Italy, where an ecclesiastical conclave at Piacenza tested his patience and the results were far from what he had expected. And besides, Piacenza in the spring had been far more climatically rewarding than the bitter November cold of Clermont, in this the year of our Lord 1095.

Urban II rose from his seat and addressed the council, beginning with his report on the church’s situation in the Near East. Aside from the problem of the Seljuk Turks having overrun Asia Minor and seizing control of much of the Levant—including the city of Jerusalem—these troublesome people had also shut off access to the Christian holy places, contrary to their more tolerant Arab predecessors.

And he was not finished. Urban also had a problem with the Christians. He had seen clerics trafficking in church property, nobles and monarchs, at home and abroad, who, wallowing in luxury, constantly violated the laws of the church on peace by picking fights with Arabs purely for material gain. And as for their knights, well, they were behaving more like mercenaries.

After his rant—some would argue a justifiable one—Urban worked up enough zeal among the assembled throng to initiate a crusade and reclaim the Christian holy places from the infidels and thus channel all this destructive energy into something worth fighting for: “I, or rather, the Lord, beseech you as Christ’s heralds to publish this everywhere and to pursue 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. I say this to those who are present, it is meant also for those who are absent. Moreover, Christ commands it.”¹

Having warmed up, the pope then made his way out of the church, ascended a wooden platform, and began to address an even larger gathering whose numbers had strained the available meeting area of the Champet and the services the town was able to provide: “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 . . . 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.”²

Shouts of “Deus vult, Deus vult” rose agreeably above the frozen fields of Clermont.³ “God wills it, God wills it.” Soon this would fester into a purulent propaganda slogan for the recruitment of thousands of foot soldiers.

Despite the languid air, Urban’s motivational speech seemed to be having a far more resuscitating effect than it had had back in Piacenza. So he continued, with an added flourish of rabble-rousing: “They overturn and desecrate our altars . . . they will take a Christian, cut open his stomach, and tie his intestine to a stake; then stabbing at him with a spear, they will make him run, until he pulls out his own entrails and falls dead on the ground.”⁴

The pope then employed bait guaranteed to rally the swelling of participants to his cause.

All who die by the way, whether by land or by sea, or in battle against the pagans, shall have immediate remission of sins. This I grant them through the power of God with which I am invested. 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! With what reproaches will the Lord overwhelm us if you do not aid those who, with us, profess the Christian religion! Let those who have been accustomed unjustly to wage private warfare against the faithful now go against the infidels and end with victory this war which should have been begun long ago. Let those who for a long time, have been robbers, now become knights. Let those who have been fighting against their brothers and relatives now fight in a proper way against the barbarians. Let those who have been serving as mercenaries for small pay now obtain the eternal reward. Let those who have been wearing themselves out in both body and soul now work for a double honor. Behold! On this side will be the sorrowful and poor, on that, the rich; on this side, the enemies of the Lord, on that, his friends. Let those who go not put off the journey, but rent their lands and collect money for their expenses; and as soon as winter is over and spring comes, let them eagerly set out on the way with God as their guide.⁵

Curiously, for all of the pope’s talk addressing the liberation of the Holy Lands, including his letters that followed, hardly any mention was made of two of its most important holy places. The chronicler Fulcher de Chartres, who was present during the speech at Clermont, makes no mention of Urban II discussing the liberation of Jerusalem or its holiest temple, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher—the site of Christ’s burial—only of him asking to “aid promptly those Christians and to destroy that vile race [the Turks] from the lands of our friends.”⁶

But exactly how much aid did those Christians need? Following the conquest of Palestine by the Arabs in AD 637, only a quarter of Jerusalem, including the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, was left in the hands of Christians. Naturally, this only swelled the numbers of Christian pilgrims to this and other sites associated with the life of the avatar Jeshua ben Joseph, otherwise known as Jesus. However, not only was access to the sacred sites allowed and maintained under the Arabs, Christian worship was tolerated too; even Mohammed directed his followers to face the site of Solomon’s Temple during prayer,⁷ for it was also respected by Muslims as a place of great sacredness. This tolerance prevailed into the tenth century under the caliphs of Egypt, who solemnly promised protection for travelers. In fact, life under the infidel was not as tough as expected; even the tax burden was lighter than under previous Christian rule.

But in 1065 this optimistic picture changed when the Arabs’ unruly Turkish neighbors, led by the barbaric Emir Ortok, conquered and plundered the city of God, whereupon three thousand citizens were massacred. Ortok violently suppressed any remaining Christians, and then for sport imprisoned or killed visiting pilgrims unless each paid one piece of gold as the price of admission into the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.

That is assuming any pilgrim even reached the city alive. Due to the political destabilization, bands of lawless brigands roamed the plains of Palestine seeking hapless tourists, while Bedouin horsemen led desultory attacks on pilgrims from beyond the River Jordan. Not surprisingly, such behavior engendered strong sympathy and fervor from many of the European bishops and barons stirred by Urban II’s impassioned speech to assemble vast armies on a crusade to wrestle formerly Christian sites from the Seljuk Turks and give safe passage to pilgrims.

And yet for all the pope’s rhetoric, there may have been those present who perceived an ulterior motive. Five months earlier, one of the few highlights at the Council of Piacenza—at least for Urban II—was the reception by the pope of envoys sent from Constantinople by Emperor Commenus. The Byzantine emperor had a big problem: for a number of years the Turks had been eating away at his empire, having already gobbled up most of Anatolia, Syria, and Palestine. The council proved a most opportune moment for Commenus: Urban was close by, geographically speaking, and seven years earlier, this promising new pope had overturned Commenus’s excommunication from the church. So the portents looked fortuitous for another small favor from one of Commenus’s few friends, particularly if it included dispatching an army of new knights by way of Constantinople.

Commenus was a shrewd manipulator. His ambassadors not only exaggerated the need for an army, but just in case the pope faltered, they also were to remind him that Jerusalem was presently under restrictive Seljuk control, with the rights of visitation of pilgrims at stake. In any event, Urban’s performance at Clermont succeeded beyond both men’s wildest dreams, and within months tens of thousands volunteered to rid the Near East of Turks and recapture the holy places.

The Council of Clermont.

One person who required little excuse to embark on this Crusade was an ardent monk of small stature from Amiens named Peter the Hermit. In his lifetime Peter had been a soldier and a married father of five children, as well as a noble and a vassal of Count Eustache of Boulogne.⁸ And yet Peter renounced everything to become a reclusive monk, except for the one time he made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. He was horrified at the treatment of pilgrims there, so much so that he was granted an audience with Simeon, the city’s patriarch, during which Peter promised to canvass nobles across the whole of Europe, even the pope, on his behalf: “I shrink not from taking upon me a task for the salvation of my soul; and with the help of the Lord I am ready to go and seek out all of them, solicit them, show unto them the immensity of your troubles, and pray them all to hasten on the day of your relief.”⁹

Simeon could hardly turn down such an offer of help, especially given Peter’s character references. His contemporary Guibert de Nogent said of him:

His outside made but a very poor appearance; yet superior powers swayed this miserable body; he had a quick intellect and a penetrating eye, and he spoke with ease and fluency. We saw him at that time scouring city and town, and preaching everywhere; the people crowded round him, heaped presents upon him, and celebrated his sanctity by such great praises that I remember not that like honor was ever rendered to any other person. He displayed great generosity in the disposal of all things that were given him. He restored wives to their husbands, not without the addition of gifts from himself, and he re-established, with marvellous authority, peace and good understanding between those who had been at variance. In all that he did or said he seemed to have in him something divine.¹⁰

Peter the Hermit.

So generous was Peter the Hermit to the poor and so honored for his great piety was he that even the hairs of his mule were plucked as holy relics.

Encouraged by Peter’s eagerness, Simeon accepted the pilgrim’s offer and handed him some letters prior to his departure.

Peter, dressed in his woolen tunic and serge cloak, with arms and feet bare, succeeded in meeting with Urban II in Rome and handed him Simeon’s letters discussing the dire situation in the Holy Land. This was just the beginning of his recruitment drive along the arduous route back to the French lands. Years of errant preaching while living on nothing but a little bread, wine, and some fish finally paid off, and on this frigid November afternoon in Clermont he now stood on a sturdy wooden platform beside Urban II.

The frail hermit spoke first, his skin and skeleton precariously held together by his zeal, but still he addressed the open space, now carpeted by an endless ragtag army of followers whom he had converted to march on the Holy Land. Guibert de Nogent would comment that Peter looked much like his donkey and smelled considerably worse. Peter shared with the crowd the tortures, tribulations, miseries, and humiliations suffered by the Christian pilgrims, himself included, at the hands of the Turks.

“God wills it, God wills it.”

There was little left for Urban II to stoke the fervor of the mob aside from an obviously overpatriotic speech capped by a unique selling proposition: “Take ye, then, the road to Jerusalem for the remission of your sins, and depart assured of the imperishable glory which awaits you in the kingdom of heaven.”

“God wills it, God wills it.”

Pope Urban II.

Drunk on hope and religion, it is doubtful that few remained behind in the freezing drizzle to hear the coordinated date of departure for the entire Crusade, which was to be led by knights and commence the following August on the Feast of the Assumption. Or for that matter, to take in the final portion of Urban’s speech, requesting restraint: “We ordain not, and we advise not, that the journey be undertaken by the old or the weak, or such as be not suited for arms, and let not women set out without their husbands or their brothers . . . and no layman shall commence the march save with the blessing of his pastor.”¹¹

But in times characterized by an economy based on plunder, the promise of a remission of sins and the glory of the kingdom of heaven was sufficient to incite three armies combining some 120,000 poorly equipped peasants. No sooner was the winter snow replaced by spring than in March 1096 central Europe was one long, unprepared, unorganized swarm of men, women, children, farmers, even the infirm, marching in three, sometimes five “armies” of nonmilitary personnel. Peter the Hermit headed one. A second was led by another colorful character, a former lord from the Île-de-France who, like Peter, sought a truer, mystical experience of God and thus renounced his worldly possessions to march to Jerusalem. He would be known as Walter the Penniless.

This was the People’s Crusade.

Along the punishing road east to Constantinople many inquired desperately upon arriving at every new village, “Is this Jerusalem?”