Hello, and welcome to today's history lesson.

My name is Mr. Merrett, and I'll be guiding you through today's lesson.

So, let's get started.

Today's lesson is looking at Pope Urban II's call to crusade.

And by the end of this lesson, we'll be able to explain why Urban II encouraged Christians to go on crusade.

In order to do that, we need to use some key terms. And our key terms for the day are pope, Church, and crusade.

The pope is the head of the Catholic Church.

The Church is the organisation of the Christian religion, that's Church with a capital C is the organised religion, church with a small C is the building itself.

And a crusade is a military expedition against a group considered by the papacy, the pope, to be an enemy of the Church.

Today's lesson will be comprised of three separate learning cycles, and our first learning cycle is looking at who was Urban II.

So, let's begin.

Now, the man who was to become Pope Urban II, the man who launched more than 200 years of religious warfare between Christians and Muslims, was born in 1035 to a wealthy family in Clermont in France.

And he was originally named Otho.

And Otho entered the church in 1050 and he rose quickly through the ranks.

In 1080, he was chosen by Pope Gregory VII to become bishop of Ostia, which is the port that services the city of Rome.

And the reason being is that he was a firm supporter for the pope's changes to the Church.

Pope Gregory VII died in 1085.

And after the short reign of Pope Victor III, Otho became pope in 1088, and he renamed himself Urban II.

Now, anybody who becomes a pope renames themselves.

They have a name that they were given at birth, and then when they are reborn as the pope, they're given themselves a new name.

So Otho became Urban, and he was the second pope to name himself Urban, so he became Urban II.

Now, let's have a quick check for understanding.

So true or false statement here, Otho of Clermont became Pope Urban II in 1395.

Is that true or is that false? All right, if you chose false, then congratulations, that is indeed a false statement.

But let's justify it now though.

Why is it a false statement? Is it false because Otho of Clermont became Pope Urban II in 1088 after Pope Gregory VII and Pope Victor III? Or is it false because Otho of Clermont became Pope Urban II in 1276 after Pope Innocent V and Pope Adrian V? So choose your justification now.

Okay, if you chose A, then congratulations, that is indeed correct.

Now, Urban II became head of the Roman Catholic Church at a difficult time.

Much of Western Europe was at war with itself.

For instance, French nobles were at war with each other.

The Holy Roman Empire was in almost a constant state of rebellion.

Spain and the whole Iberian Peninsula, so Spain and Portugal together, was torn apart by conflicts between Christians and Muslims. And added to this was quite a peculiar problem, certainly by today's standards, and that being that Urban II was not the only pope at the time.

There was another pope who was called Clement III, and he had been installed by the Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV in 1084.

And therefore this meant that Pope Urban II was the leader of a divided Church which was operating in a divided Europe.

Let's have a quick check for understanding again though.

So, I'd like you now to choose two problems that Pope Urban II had to deal with when he became pope.

Was it the fact that the Italian kingdoms were at war with each other and the Papal States? Was it the fact that the Holy Roman Empire was in a constant state of rebellion? Was it that another pope had been installed by the Holy Roman Emperor? Or was it that floods in Spain had washed away many churches along the coast? So choose two of those options on the screen now.

Okay, if you chose B and C, then congratulations, those are the correct answers! Right, let's go for our first tasks for today then.

So, what I'd like to do, I want you to think about what were Pope Urban II's biggest problems as head of the Roman Catholic Church from your perspective, so what do you think? And I've got four on the screen there for you.

The fact that the French lords are fighting, the Holy Roman Emperor, oh, sorry, the Holy Roman Empire was in rebellion, there were religious wars in Spain, and the fact that there were two popes.

So what I would like you to do, what do you think was the most important problem, the most significant problem, that Pope Urban II had to face and put that at the top, the second most significant problem goes underneath, and all the way down to the last problem there.

So, first, you'll order those four problems into what you think are the greatest to the least greatest problems that Urban had to face.

Once you've done that, I'd then like you to explain why you've chosen your biggest and smallest problems. So there's no right or wrong answer, that's not what this task is about.

This task is about you having an opinion and being able to justify and explain your opinion.

So that task two is really, really key, really, really important for this task.

So pause the video now, I want you to do this, and I'll see you once you've finished.

Okay, welcome back! Hopefully, you got on fine with that task.

So let's see what we can do for the first task then.

So organising the problems from what you think are the biggest problems down to the smallest problems. Now, as I said, there is no right or wrong answer to this task, it's entirely your opinion.

And on the screen in front of you, I've put down what I think.

And if what you've got is very different to me, it's absolutely fine, it genuinely doesn't matter, it's all about your opinion.

So from my perspective, I think that the fact there were two popes is the biggest problem.

There were religious wars in Spain is the next biggest problem.

The Holy Roman Empire was in rebellion was another problem, but not as big as the other two.

And from my perspective, that the fact that French lords were fighting was the least of Urban II's problems. Now, in terms of my justification, again, this is the key part here, this is why I think, what is our thinking, and hopefully your answer follows a similar sort of vein in terms of the level of explanation.

So I said, "I think the fact that there were two popes was Pope Urban II's biggest problem because Christians could choose to follow the other pope instead of him.

Plus it would be confusing for people and might make them lose their faith.

In my opinion, the smallest problem for Pope Urban II was the fact that French nobles were fighting each other, because this is a problem that the king of France could solve instead of the pope." So if you've got a very different answer than me, that genuinely doesn't matter, it's all about what your opinion is and how you can justify it.

So that's what I'm looking for with this task here.

Let's move on now though to our second learning cycle for today, which is the Council of Clermont.

Now, Pope Urban II worked tirelessly to secure his position as head of the Roman Catholic Church.

The presence of Clement III, he was called the antipope by Urban's supporters, meant that Urban's access to Rome was limited, and therefore it caused Urban to travel around Italy and France building support.

So, at various stages, the people of Rome preferred Clement III and then they preferred Urban II.

So effectively, Urban II was the pope, but he wasn't actually able to occupy the Papal Palace for extended periods of time.

It switched back and forth.

And even when he was in Rome, he frequently wasn't allowed into the Papal Palace there as well, the Apostolic Palace in what is now the Vatican City.

Now, Pope Urban II's most valuable supporters were the Normans, who had ventured to Sicily to conquer the island from the Muslims, and they were also in southern Italy as well and they conquered some lands from the Byzantine Empire as well.

Now, the Normans provided the muscle that Urban needed to force his way into Rome.

The reason that Urban II could sometimes venture into Rome was because he had the support of Norman soldiers, and they provided a garrison which kept him safe and allowed him to get in and out of Rome safely.

Now, although support for Urban amongst the residents of Rome regularly shifted, as I said, sometimes they were in favour of Clement III, sometimes they're more in favour of Urban II, his growing support amongst Christians in the rest of Europe meant that he had a great deal of authority by the mid 1090s, more than the antipope, Clement III, did at this point in time.

Right, let's have a quick check for understanding again.

So it's another true or false statement here.

So true or false? Pope Urban II spent time travelling around the Holy Roman Empire building support for the changes he made to the Church.

Is that true or is that false? Make your choice now.

Okay, if you chose false, then congratulations, that is indeed the correct answer.

But let's justify it now.

Why is that a false statement? Is it false because Pope Urban II travelled around France and Spain fighting back against Muslim advances? Or is it false because Pope Urban II travelled around Italy and France building support against antipope Clement III? So make your choice regarding the justification now.

Okay, if you chose B, then congratulations, that is indeed the correct answer.

Right, in 1095, representatives from the Byzantine Empire met with Pope Urban II to ask for his help in fighting the Seljuk Turks who had invaded Anatolia.

And Anatolia is a region of what is now, most of modern-day Turkey is Anatolia.

Urban promised to do what he could.

And in November of that year, he called a council in Clermont, so his home city, which was a great meeting of the most important members of the Church.

There were 300 leading churchmen from all across Europe as well as thousands of nobles and knights who also attended as well, and they met in Clermont for 10 days of discussion.

The meeting began as many Church councils often did.

This is not an irregular occurrence, there were regularly Church councils, and they often followed a similar sort of format, which is let's talk about the problems facing the Church at this point in time.

And at this point in time, the problem facing the Church was they were discussing various minor Church matters, they were sorting out arguments between nobles, most frequently was between the French nobles, they were trying to sort these issues out.

Now, on the final day of the council, history was made.

Urban gave a fiery speech to thousands of attendees, calling for them to go on crusade.

And on the screen in front of you now is a representation of Pope Urban II doing exactly that, he is preaching to the assembled masses to go on crusade.

Right, let's do a quick check for understanding again.

So, who did the Byzantine Empire ask Pope Urban II for help fighting against in 1095? Was it against the Abbasids, the Fatimids, or the Seljuks? Make your choice now.

Okay, if you chose C, the Seljuks, then congratulations, that is indeed the correct answer.

Right, let's go for our next task for today then.

So, I'm gonna put a source on the screen in just a moment.

And what I'd like you to do is have a little read through it and then I'd like you to think about this.

How did the pope encourage people to go on crusade? I'd like you to use three different colours to highlight where you can see, first of all, a call for revenge for the destruction of churches, then a call for an end to infighting and an instruction to fight others instead, and then finally, a call for defence of the Byzantine Empire.

So here is this source in front of you now, and this is a source, this is Robert the Monk's version of Pope Urban II's call to crusade.

He wrote it 11 years after the event.

So just to put that into context there a little bit.

In any case, this is part of Pope Urban II's speech and he says this: "An accursed race has invaded the lands of Christians and has depopulated them by the sword, pillage, which means stealing, and fire.

It has either entirely destroyed the churches of God or used them for the rites of its own religion.

Let hatred depart from among you, let your quarrels end, let war cease.

Enter upon the road to Jerusalem; take that land from the wicked race." Now, I've paraphrased this quote, the source itself, 'cause it's much longer, I've taken out bits of it there.

But in any case, read through the source again, find out where you can see a call for revenge for the destruction of churches, a call for an end to infighting and an instruction to fight others instead, and a call for defence of the Byzantine Empire, and then highlight them accordingly.

Pause the video now whilst you do that, and I'll see you in just a moment.

Okay, welcome back! Hopefully, you got on okay with that task here.

So, let's see what we've got here on the screen.

So, we can see that that first line there, "An accursed race has invaded the lands of Christians and has depopulated them by the sword, pillage, and fire." That is a call for defence for the Byzantine Empire.

So hopefully you correctly identified that.

That next sentence, "It has either entirely destroyed the churches of God or used them for the rites of its own religion." That is a call for revenge for the destruction of churches, and hopefully you saw that as well.

And that final section there, "Let hatred depart from among you, let your quarrels end, let war cease.

Enter upon the road to Jerusalem; take that land from the wicked race." And that is a call for an end to infighting and an instruction to fight others instead, and hopefully you identified that as well.

Let's move on now into our third and final learning cycle for today, which is the call to crusade.

Now, historians are unsure exactly what Urban said to the eager crowd on the 27th of November, 1095.

I've just shown you a section of Pope Urban II's speech there.

But the reality is, we don't actually know if that's what he said.

And the reason being is that there are five different versions of the speech.

There are at least five different people who recorded that speech.

They're all wildly different from each other, and they're all written down a long time after Pope Urban actually made that speech.

There was nobody there who, at the time, who listened to his words and wrote them down straightaway.

So, as a result, we have a variety of very, very different accounts of what Pope Urban II actually said on that day, which makes it difficult for us as historians to work out what is it that Pope Urban II actually wanted? What were his reasons for calling a crusade? There's only actually one person there, Robert the Monk, who was actually there at the time who then wrote down the speech.

But as I said in that previous slide, he wrote it down 11 years later.

So it's entirely possible that he forgot or he misremembered some of the things that Pope Urban II said.

So I would argue that he's probably our best source, but he is not a perfect source by any stretch of the imagination.

Now, as I said, historians, we cannot say for certain exactly what Pope Urban II wanted to achieve, and the reason being is that he was actually facing quite a number of issues at this point in time.

So it is possible that the pope called the crusade simply just to support the Eastern Orthodox Christians in the Byzantine Empire.

And they were being outnumbered by the Seljuks, and he may well have wanted to quite simply just come to their aid.

He may have hoped that this support would've reunited Christianity following the Great Schism, the great splits in the Christian Church, which occurred in 1054.

He may also have been concerned about the spread of Islam into Christian lands.

It's probably worth pointing out that at the same time that Pope Urban II called for a crusade against the Seljuks in Anatolia, he also called for a crusade in Spain as well at the same time.

Christians were already fighting Muslims there, and from what we can gather, Pope Urban II was concerned that some of those Christians would leave, they would leave that war, they'd leave that fight, and they'd travel across to Anatolia instead.

And Pope Urban II was very keen for them to remain where they were and to continue fighting in Spain and actually for others to join them there as well.

Now, it's entirely possible as well that Pope Urban II's motives may have had less to do with religion than what we expect.

Much of his time as pope up to this point had been spent struggling for power against the antipope Clement III.

So it's entirely possible that this call for crusade was simply a way for Urban to demonstrate his authority.

If he can call Christians to answer, then clearly it shows that he is more powerful, he's more worthy of being listened to, than the antipope Clement III was.

Many of the accounts of Urban's speech mentioned that he was upset with the violence occurring across France at this point in time.

He was born a Frenchman.

So it's entirely possible that he still retains a lot of love for that country.

At the very least, there are Christians fighting Christians in this land, so that's a reason for the pope to be concerned about what was happening.

But Urban II was born French, he spent a lot of time in France, he was very much involved in what was happening in France at that time.

He was, entirely possible, genuinely upset by the fact that French nobles were fighting each other.

So it's entirely possible that he called the crusades as a way to make those responsible for this violence to stop fighting each other and journey east to fight the Muslims instead.

So the crusades may simply have just been a convenient way to spare France from its rebellious nobles.

What's less likely is that Urban II wanted to specifically regain and capture Jerusalem.

It's entirely possible, and it's what a lot of the sources of Urban II's speech say what he wanted to happen.

However, it's worth pointing out Jerusalem was a very important city at this time, it was controlled by the Seljuks at that point in time when Pope Urban II made his speech, and it was located in the Holy Land, which is an area in the Middle East that was, and still is today, sacred to three major world religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

What we also know though is that Pope Urban II didn't actually mention Jerusalem in a lot of the letters that we have of his that he was writing to leading religious figures and leading nobles around Europe at this point in time.

So he's mentioned the crusade in these letters.

In these letters, he wasn't really speaking about retaking Jerusalem.

He was talking about other issues instead, which is why historians now, we're a little bit unsure as to whether it really was one of Pope Urban II's motives.

Having said that, spoiler alert, Jerusalem was retaken by the crusades and that it does feature in many of the accounts of Pope Urban II's speech.

So, we do have that to contend with as well.

In any case, regardless of his motives, historians are very clear on what happened next.

Thousands of people in Western Europe eagerly accepted the pope's call to crusade and they journeyed en masse to Muslim-controlled lands in the east.

The First Crusade had begun.

Right, let's have a quick check for understanding now.

So Pope Urban II called for a crusade to the east in Byzantine territory and where else? Was it in France, in Italy, or in Spain? Make your choice now.

Okay, if you chose C, Spain, then congratulations, that is indeed the correct answer.

Let's have another check for understanding though.

So Pope Urban II called for a crusade in the east.

Who did he call upon to go to defend the Byzantine Empire? Was it Christians from Western Europe? Was it the Eastern Orthodox Christians? Or was it the Seljuks from Anatolia? Make your choice now.

Okay, if you chose A, then very well done, that is indeed the correct answer.

Right, let's have one more check for understanding now.

It's a discussion question.

I'd like you to think about this.

Some historians say the pope was not interested in capturing Jerusalem because there's little mention of it in letters he wrote about the crusade.

I'd like you to think of at least one reason to support this view and one reason which goes against it.

So pause the video now if you need to, and I'll see you once you're finished.

Okay, welcome back.

Let's think about what we could have said here now then.

So, reasons to support the view could be that if it was important to Pope Urban II, then he would've written about it, which he didn't really.

Another reason to support the view is that if he talked about it, then other people would've written about it.

And, again, we don't really have many accounts from the time of that happening.

Having said that, there are arguments against this view, which is that maybe he did talk about it but it just wasn't written down.

Literacy rates weren't as high during this period in time as what they are today, the vast majority of people couldn't read and write, so maybe they just simply couldn't write it down.

You could've also said that maybe he wrote about it but the writing has been lost.

We don't have every single thing that was written down at this point in time available to us today.

Much of what was created at that point in time has been lost to us, and it's entirely possible that that includes some of Pope Urban II's letters as well.

Right, let's go for our next task for today then.

So, I'd like you to explain two reasons why Pope Urban II called for a crusade.

So you could choose from any of the following that I've included on the screen in front of you here.

So you could say it was to help the Byzantine Empire, to reunite the Church, to stop the spread of Islam, to assert his authority, to redirect violent French nobles, or to capture Jerusalem.

So choose two of those there on the screen in front of you, explain why they are reasons to go on a crusade.

Pause the video whilst you do this, and I'll see you once you're finished.

Okay, welcome back.

Hopefully, you got on fine with that task.

So let's think about what you could have written then.

So you could have said, "One reason why Pope Urban II called for a crusade was to stop the spread of Islam.

As well as fighting the Muslim Seljuks in Anatolia, Urban also called for Christians to fight in Spain against the Muslims who lived there, which suggests that pushing back against Muslim control was important to him.

Another reason was that Pope Urban II wanted to redirect violent French nobles.

This is because he was French, he spent a great deal of time in France, and many different accounts of his speech mention his upset with their violence." So you may have chosen two other reasons, which is absolutely fine, but hopefully what you have done, similar to me, is you've explained those reasons as well and explained why they are a reason for Pope Urban II to call a crusade at this point in time.

Right, let's summarise today's lesson then.

So Pope Urban II faced many problems as the head of the Roman Catholic Church at the end of the 11th century.

At the Council of Clermont in 1095, Pope Urban II called on Christians to go on crusade to help the Byzantine Empire against the Seljuk Turks.

Many people eagerly responded to the call for crusade.

Historians debate Pope Urban II's motivations to call for crusade, especially in relation to the problems he was facing at the time.

Thank you very much for joining me today.

Hopefully you've enjoyed yourself, hopefully you've learned something, and hopefully I'll see you again next time.

Bye-bye!.