Crusades

Crusades Pope Urban II had called the Christians to join him in a Holy War to reclaim the Holy Lands as an act of Christianity, but there were many activities that took place that weren’t characteristics of Christianity. The Crusades were a smokescreen for Pope’s craving for power and control. The Crusades were the idea of Pope Urban II, a wise Frenchman. On November 18, 1095 AD, Pope Urban II opened the Council of Clermont. Nine days later, the Pope made a very important speech just outside the French city of Clermont-Ferrand. In his speech, he asked the people to help the Christians’ effort to restore peace to the East. The Crusades had originally been to help the Churches in the East, but the now it was to reclaim the Holy Land, especially Jerusalem from the Muslims. Pope Urban II stayed in France until September 1096 in hopes of providing leadership for the First Crusaders. Urban had originally hoped for the crusading army to be composed of mostly knights and other warriors, but his speech had already began spreading throughout the west, and many people of different social classes started joining the crusading army. (Foss, Michael. pg. 23) Because of this crusades, pg, urban, army, war, people, holy, crusading, been, power, way, pope, speech, poor, life, help, east, religious, one, join, ii, crusaders, because, reclaim, reasons, over, michael, major, knights, jonathan, joined, group, factor, even, course, city, christians, become, anything, almost, western, west, urban’s, turks, reason, probably, part, opportunity, muslims, lands, joining