This Day in History: Pope Urban II Orders the First Crusade

This Day in History:, Pope Urban II Orders
the First Crusade.
November 27, 1095.
During a speech to
several hundred clerics
and noblemen at the
Council of Clermont in France.
Pope Urban II called on all Christians
in Europe to war against Muslims in
order to reclaim the Holy Land.
In what was perhaps the most
influential speech of the Middle Ages,
Urban called out, “Deus vult!” or “God wills it!”.
Christians had been
barred from entering
Jerusalem by the Seljuk Turks.
Urban’s war cry roused
between 60,000 and
100,000 people who
marched on Jerusalem.
The sheer number of respondents was
eventually enough to triumph against
the Muslim armies.
It was the first of seven
military campaigns fought
over the next two centuries
known as the Crusades