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Programme Two looks at the crucial Third Crusade.

After the death of the prophet Mohammed in the year 632, Muslims expanded from their base in what is now Saudi Arabia to win control of, amongst other places, the city of Jerusalem.

But Jerusalem had great religious significance not only for Muslims but for Christians too. And in 1095 Pope Urban II had had enough: he issued a call to arms saying Christians should retake the city.

“From Jerusalem a grievous report has repeatedly been brought to our ears; that a race wholly alienated from God, violently invaded the lands of those Christians and has depopulated them by pillage and fire. On whom, therefore, is the labour of avenging those wrongs and of recovering this territory incumbent if not upon you? Undertake this journey eagerly for remission of your sins, with the assurance of the reward of imperishable glory in the kingdom of heaven.”
Pope Urban II, 1095

This is a file from the Wikimedia Commons. Wikipedia: Pope Urban II

Urban II’s crusading movement took its first public shape at the Council of Piacenza, where, in March 1095, Urban II received an ambassador from the Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos (1081–1118) asking for help against Muslim Turks, who had taken over most of formerly Byzantine Anatolia. A great council met, attended by numerous Italian, Burgundian, and French bishops in such vast numbers it had to be held in the open air outside the city. At the Council of Clermont held in November of the same year, Urban II’s sermon proved incredibly effective, as he summoned the attending nobility and the people to wrestle the Holy Land and the eastern churches generally from the Seljuk Turks.

There exists no exact transcription of Urban II’s speech. The five extant versions of the speech were written down quite a bit later, and they differ widely from one another. All versions of the speech except that by Fulcher of Chartres were probably influenced by the chronicle account of the First Crusade called the Gesta Francorum (dated c. 1102), whose author also gives a version of the speech. Fulcher of Chartres was present at the Council, but his version of Urban’s speech was written 1100-1106; Robert the Monk may have been present, but his version dates about 1106. The two remaining versions are even later, and written by authors who did not attend the speech…