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