Speech At The Council Of Clermont By Pope Urban II: Analysis

The speech at the Council of Clermont by pope Urban II was the defining moment in Crusades ideology, creating the foundation for the first large scale Crusades to take place. With the newly found five accounts of the Council I’ll try to paint an accurate picture as possible of what exactly occurred. There is no official transcript from pope Urban II; instead these documents provide first hand accounts of what occurred. Whether they are reliable or not is another matter. Since each document differs in content it’s best to look at the similarities that they each share as a way to piece together what possibly could have occurred. One of the most prominent and reoccurring patterns throughout the documents is the continuous use of God and biblical …show more content…
Another major reoccurring idea throughout is that paganism was continuously spreading through once Christian lands. Instead of just focusing on what God wanted and how one could obtain pardon for their sins on a Crusade, Urban II also uses fear as a tactic. Just how much emphasis was placed on the “pagans” who had taken over Jerusalem is questionable as each source differs greatly on this subject. Robert the Monk’s account has a great focus on the torture and death that was taking place, while Guibert de Nogent mentions it briefly, and other accounts have hints of spreading paganism and how it is effecting those Christians living underneath it, most of them exaggerated. Still if the danger and pain Christians living under Muslim rule and those who attempted to travel and where faced with hardship due to Muslim control of lands leading to Jerusalem and Jerusalem itself, one must conclude that although extremely embellished as a way to make those reading these accounts feel obligated to help their fellow Christians, that pope Urban II used the fear of the spreading pagan religion to hint that maybe Western Christianity is in just as much danger as Eastern