The Knight's Site

On the last Tuesday of November, in the year 1095, Pope Urban ll preached a sermon in the southern French city of Clermont that set off such a fire of zeal among Christians, both rich and poor, in the West, that 100,000 men and women of all classes took up the Cross.

The sermon was a riot of contradiction. Jerusalem had been occupied by the Muslims for over 400 years by the time Urban spoke, but he made it sound as though the Christians were all of a sudden being slaughtered, tortured, and foully persecuted by the Muslims. And not just in Jerusalem. Everywhere in the East, it seemed.

"Men with their entrails cut out and dangling."

"People dragged through the streets, flogged, and their throats cut."

"Blood from circumcisions poured into the baptismal fonts."

"Evils done to women too vile to mention out loud." And on, and on. The truth was that, prior to the Crusade, the Muslims were probably more accepting of different religions than were the Christians.

Now it would be just as wrong to say that all was sweetness and light between the two. They had their spats. At the beginning of the 11th. century, for instance, the Christians suffered for ten years under the unbalanced leadership of one they called the Mad Caliph Hakim. His fun and games came to and end when he declared himself a living god and turned on his Muslim followers. Exit Hakim.

Various tensions gripped the city and the surrounding countryside, but nothing of an unspeakable nature. Urban made it sound as though Jerusalem had suddenly exploded in a hate-filled bloodbath. Two principal situations probably urged him to preach the Crusade.

In March of 1095, Urban convened a major ecclesiastical council at the Italian city of Piacenza. Halfway through, an embassy arrived from Constantinople, the capital of the mighty Byzantine Empire, and asked for military aid. It seemed their Muslim neighbours were becoming altogether too frisky and they feared attack. At first, Urban assured them that their problem would be considered most thoughtfully and prayerfully. But then he saw that he could knit it in to his second problem; knights continually at war throughout France and Normandy, making the lives of the ordinary people unbearable.

His master stroke was calling for a Holy War against the Infidel, where those who took part would have their sins expunged, for they'd be soldiers of Christ. While they were at it, they could sort out the problems fomenting in Constantinople. This would put the Emperor, Alexius the First, Comnenus, in Urban's debt.

What Urban didn't expect, was the incredible re-action to his call to arms. It should be remembered that sin was everywhere in those far off days. Virtually everyone was illiterate, the monks being the exception. The rest of the people, high and low born, had to rely on illustrations on churches and other religious houses to give them some idea of what to expect in the afterlife. And these illustrations were pretty grim, too, in the main. Often beautifully executed, nevertheless they showed men and women being dragged down into the pit of hell by demons with vicious, blood-soaked teeth and claws which was enough to terrify the populace.

The Bible, too, made it none too clear what was right and what was wrong, and that, only if you could find someone to read it to you. So what was sin? The knights knew they committed sin when they killed each other over their myriad territorial disputes, which was why they often gave very generous endowments to religious houses in an effort to save their souls. But when people found that their sins, whatever they may be, would be wiped out by setting out on pilgrimage, the result was immediate and immense.