The First Crusade And The Idea Of Crusading

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The First Crusade, a Holy Expedition
Peace and tranquility in the eastern Mediterranean seemed secure for years to come in or around the eleventh century, but little did anyone know what loomed on the horizon. Jonathan Riley-Smith, a professor and specialist in ecclesiastical history at the University of Cambridge depicts in detail the holy war fought on Christ’s behalf in an attempt to liberate the people and the baptized members of the churches under Muslim rule, as well as the liberation of a place, that place being Jerusalem.
The word crusade, which is derived from the Latin word crux, or cross, is in reference to the crusaders who were motivated by God, and in turn accepted the vow proposed by Urban II by bearing the cross on their skin or sewn onto their clothing in show of faith to the man they all believed in, Christ. At a gathering in Clermont, France in November of 1095, Pope Urban II preached the Crusade, known throughout France as the via Dei or way of God, to a mostly clerical assembly. It is made apparent to the reader that this concept of divine war for Christ introduced by Urban II, was not the first time a proposition like this had arisen. In fact, Pope Gregory VII sought to control this very same movement in 1074 by calling for the milities Christi, or knights of Christ to go to the aide of the Byzantine Empire. According to Riley-Smith, there was no apparent difference between the movement proposed by Pope Gregory VII and Urban II; accept the fact that it was now popular, twenty years later.
The council in Clermont inspired the churchmen that were present, but in using a false sense of imagery, Pope Urban II essentially put these men in danger by presenting a very intricate set of ideas, in fundamentally simple terms. Nonetheless, it is said that the first bands of crusaders, mostly unskilled peasants and women left in the spring of 1096, before the order of Urban II, which was said to be on the Feast...