SOURCE: “Proclamation of the Crusade” in The Crusades: A Documentary Survey, The Marquette University Press, 1962, pp. 14–23.

In the following essay, Brundage offers a brief account of the events directly preceding Pope Urban II's Council of Clermont sermon. An eyewitness report of the Pope's sermon directly follows.

I

The fruitless efforts of Pope Gregory VII to secure military forces to fight in the East failed in stemming the Turkish threat to Byzantium. Turkish advance into Byzantine territory in Asia Minor continued apace after 1074 and the consequences for Byzantium were nearly disastrous. Provincial governors and army commanders, one after another, revolted against the governments of successive emperors at Constantinople, while the Normans, who had already ousted the Byzantines from their colonies in southern Italy and Sicily, added to the difficulties of the Greek emperors by invading the Empire's Balkan provinces. Chaos threatened to overwhelm the only powerful Christian government in...