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Y203: The Crusades and the Crusader States 1095–1192

The First Crusade: situation in Western Europe, Urban II’s aims and appeal at Clermont

  • 2 things to know
  • Unit group 2

Overview

Recall questions on the situation in Western Europe, the idea of Holy War, the Appeal of Alexius 1095, urban II’s aims and appeal at Clermont.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

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Key term

Why must the accounts of Urban's sermon be treated with caution?

Key term

How was the crusade spread beyond Clermont?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    Describe the condition of Western Europe on the eve of the First Crusade.

    Model answer

    Its population and wealth were growing, its knightly class fought constantly among themselves, the Church was asserting its independence and leadership under the reforming papacy, and pilgrimage and the cult of relics dominated popular devotion.

  2. 2

    What had happened to Byzantium in the decades before 1095?

    Model answer

    Defeat by the Seljuk Turks in 1071 had cost it most of Anatolia, its richest recruiting ground, and although Alexius I had steadied the empire he lacked the manpower to recover the lost provinces.

  3. 3

    Explain the political and religious divisions in the Islamic Near East in 1095.

    Model answer

    The Seljuk empire had fragmented after the deaths of its sultan and vizier in 1092 into rival princes and atabegs, notably the feuding brothers at Aleppo and Damascus, while the Sunni Seljuks were also the enemies of the Shi'a Fatimid caliphate in Egypt.

  4. 4

    How did Christian thinking come to permit a holy war?

    Model answer

    The idea of a just war fought at God's command was combined with the papacy's readiness to bless armies fighting for the Church, so warfare could be presented not merely as permissible but as an act of penance earning spiritual reward.

  5. 5

    What did Alexius I ask of the West in 1095, and what did he get?

    Model answer

    He appealed for a force of western troops to help him recover Anatolia, and instead received several independent armies of tens of thousands under their own princes, whose aims and destination were not his.

  6. 6

    What appeal did Urban II make at Clermont in November 1095?

    Model answer

    He called on the knights of the West to stop fighting one another and go to the aid of the eastern Christians and to liberate Jerusalem, promising that the expedition would count as full penance for their sins.

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