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Pope Urban II Began the Crusades
By Joy J. Fine
Pope Urban ll was born Odo de Lagery, sometimes noted as Otto, to a French aristocratic family somewhere between 1035 and 1045. His actual birthday is unknown. He was given a good religious education and eventually became an archdeacon. He worked his way up until in the late 1070s he was promoted to cardinal. Odo was a strong supporter of the Pope and worked hard to drum up support for him and what he was trying to do for the people. He was his chief advisor for ten years. Then Pope Gregory Vll died and the next Pope, Victor lll, died shortly after. That was when Odo was voted in as the next leader of the Roman Catholics. This was in 1088 and although he was at that time in exile he moved to Rome six years later after running the church from afar.
Odo became Pope Urban ll and was the leader of the Catholic Church until his death in 1099. His is most remembered for his famous speech of 1095 in which the idea of a holy crusade was first voiced by him. It was actually Pope Gregory Vll who first expressed the idea saying that Europe needed cleansing so it would be protected. At that time he was talking mainly about the Turks, but they were only the beginning point. What he wanted was to free all the Catholic churches from their oppressors. Pope Urban ll was smart; he knew how to stir the people up. He promised that those who fought and died for this cause would not do penance for their earlier sins but would go straight to heaven. But, the crusades were about more than just freedom of religion. They were to oust those who were not members of the clergy from owning churches, to stop the layman from making sacred things for the churches or selling what they made as religious items. He wanted the churches and everything associated with them to be run and benefit only those who were clergy.
Though much of his original words were lost some records remain of some of what he said. Pope Urban ll is believed to have called for this crusade because of what he claimed the Turks had done to the churches. He is said to have called for the people to fight against these people who defiled the churches and the altars inside of them. He said that they flogged their victims, good Catholics, cut them open and pulled out their intestines, tied them to stakes, cut off their heads and raped their women. He continued by telling those who would listen that these Turks were out to destroy all of the Catholics’ churches and if they could not destroy them they would taint them so they could not be used. In other cases they would simply take them over to be used for their own filthy religion. Pope Urban ll had no trouble using these images to inspire his followers to raise arms against those who were despoiling their churches.
Many historians believed that his motivation may have been not as fanatical as it turned out to be. They think that Pope Urban ll was trying to unify the churches of Europe. They claim that he was only trying to ensure the safety of those who wanted to make the pilgrimage to the holy land and that his goals were to strengthen the powers of the Catholic Church by unifying the people by giving them a common goal; to fight against a common enemy. Whatever his true motivation his words began the First Crusade.
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