The Opening Of The Crusades: Pope Urban II

Part I of Essay
The series of crusades initiated in the eleventh century brought the West into greater contact with Byzantium and Islam. These crusades demonstrated the expansiveness of the West during the High Middle Ages as well as the increasing power and activism of the papacy. The fi ....

Part II of Essay
.... the lord pope went forth into a certain spacious plain, for no building was large enough to hold all the people. The pope then, with sweet and persuasive eloquence, addressed those present in words something like the following saying: "Oh, race of Franks, race from across the mountains, race beloved and chosen by God, as is clear from many of your works, set apart from all other nations by the situation of your country as well as by your Catholic faith and the honor which you render to the holy Church: to you our discourse is addressed, and f ....