Causes and Pope Urban II: by Olivia Rossi Pope Urban II was the 159th pope in the Roman Catholic Church. In his reign, from 1088-1099, Pope Urban II was best known for his influence in the First Crusade. For those unknowing of the crusades, it was a series of raids done by the Christians in order to get back the land that the Muslim people had taken, specifically Jerusalem. The whole purpose of fighting was to unite the Roman Church of the West and the Greek Church of Byzantium. The hope to fight the crusades was to have both sides converge in the name of Christ and settle their differences by defeating a mutual enemy of Muslims. Previously in history Alexius, the Byzantine emperor, had been excommunicated from the Roman Church, and in order to try and make amends, Pope Urban II had retracted his excommunicating.
Alexius had earlier taken Urban II off the Greek Church’s list of diptychs, which were basically people worth praying to, so after Urban’s peace offering of withdrawing his excommunication, Alexius said he was going to put him back on the list, if Urban did a another grand gesture, so when Alexius, asked for support while fighting the Turks, Pope Urban was very adamant about helping him, in order to restore the order to churches, and unite them. Urban II uses all his resources to try to unite the churches, and make it a better system in general. During this aid, the Christian Crusaders soon developed a new goal, that being to retake Jerusalem from the Muslims’ control. Previously, all the Catholic Popes have been having great difficulty in rallying the people to fight for this cause for crusade armies, and it was not until Pope Urban II start giving his sermons to rally troops.
He made sermons to convince men to sign up, and worded his requirements carefully so that only young able bodied men signed up for the Crusading armies, and not only that, but also that they were able to fight and could afford to pay the costs. Urban spoke so eloquently that he convinced the faithful Catholics to join in the bloodshed, but also that it was a righteous cause, saying “God wills it.” That God was willing for the Muslims to be destroyed because they occupied the city of Jerusalem. And that the Turkish people were destroying their many well deserved rights to Jerusalem and the destruction of their righteous city. Urban hoped to draw more people in by the promise of heaven and not having to confess to your sins and do penance. And people believed it, which is one of the reasons why Pope Urban made such an impact and why the first Crusade was such a success.
This was the case that he propagandized in order for the crusaders to rally for his cause with his personal endorsement and also other pope's endorsements.Pope Urban went out to publicize the Crusades. Telling each bishop to heighten what they tell about the Crusades. He made the war mean more than just going out to fight and create bloodshed. He made it about Christendom, which is what made the crusaders so passionate. This led to the name Crusade, when the crusaders would march around with crosses on their chests. Pope Urban II’s speeches are what made the First Crusade the only, for the most part, successful one. Pope Urban II’s legacy was that he helped make the only successful crusade, because all the rest of them were failures. Alas Pope Urban died two weeks after the crusaders successfully took back Jerusalem, but he didn’t know he had succeeded.