SOURCE: “Causes Leading to the Crusades,” in The Crusades, Scribner, Armstrong and Co., 1906, pp. 1–19.

In the following essay, Cox reviews the events preceding Pope Urban II's call for a Holy War in 1095, focusing on the ongoing pilgrimages to Palestine and their relationship to the call-to-arms of the Crusades.

The Crusades were a series of wars, waged by men who wore on their garments the badge of the Cross as a pledge binding them to rescue the Holy Land and the Sepulchre of Christ from the grasp of the unbeliever. The dream of such an enterprise had long floated before the minds of keen-sighted popes and passionate enthusiasts: it was realized for the first time when, after listening to the burning eloquence of Urban II. at the council of Clermont, the assembled multitude with one voice welcomed the sacred war as the will of God. If we regard this...