of Clermont (1095) and their lack of support to Pope Urban’s project, the quest for power in Rome came to a crucial turning point after the Great Schism. Pope Gregory VII (1073-1085) initiated a new conception of the Church and the role of the papacy within it. His ideas and reforms about the supremacy of the Roman pontiff and that the popes were responsible for the right order in the world, which could only be obtained through righteous Christian violence directed by the papacy, forms the basis for the Crusades. What must be stressed is the fact that the appeal for the First Crusade made by Pope Urban II can be neither isolated, nor minimized from the host of conflicts and clashes with European secular rulers and its quest for religious
