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.