Pope Urban II: Call to Crusade

Questions for Further Study

• 1.: The ostensible reason for Urban’s call to the Crusade was to liberate the holy city of Jerusalem. Did Urban have other motives? If so, what were those motives?
• 2.: In what particular ways did Urban appeal to knights and the nobility to join the Crusade? What promises did Urban hold out to the crusaders? What rhetorical devices did he use, at least according to some of the records of his sermon?
• 3.: The records of Urban’s sermon differ in several important ways. What are these differences? Explain the extent to which different listeners were, in effect, hearing different sermons. Further, explain how the various witnesses might have skewed their record of the pope’s speech for particular motives.
• 4.: Why do you think so many people responded to the pope’s call for military action in a faraway land? What impulses did Urban seem to have tapped into?
• 5.: It is said that Urban’s call to the Crusade fundamentally transformed the relationships between Christians, Muslims, and even Jews and that the effects of this transformation are still being felt in the modern world. Do you believe that this is an accurate assessment? Do you believe that it is fair to essentially blame modern problems on thousand-year-old events? Explain.