Pope Urban II

Examples of Pope Urban II in the following topics:

• The First Crusade

  • The First Crusade (1095–1099), called for by Pope Urban II, was the first of a number of crusades intended to recapture the Holy Lands.
  • It was launched on November 27, 1095, by Pope Urban II with the primary goal of responding to an appeal from Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos, who requested that western volunteers come to his aid and help to repel the invading Seljuq Turks from Anatolia (modern-day Turkey).
  • Pope Urban II planned the departure of the crusade for August 15, 1096; before this, a number of unexpected bands of peasants and low-ranking knights organized and set off for Jerusalem on their own, on an expedition known as the People's Crusade, led by a monk named Peter the Hermit.
  • The response was beyond expectations; while Urban might have expected a few thousand knights, he ended up with a migration numbering up to 40,000 Crusaders of mostly unskilled fighters, including women and children.

• Crisis and Fragmentation

  • At the Council of Piacenza in 1095, envoys from Alexios spoke to Pope Urban II about the suffering of the Christians of the East, and underscored that without help from the West they would continue to suffer under Muslim rule.
  • Urban saw Alexios' request as a dual opportunity to cement Western Europe and reunite the Eastern Orthodox Churches with the Roman Catholic Church under his rule.
  • On 27 November 1095, Pope Urban II called together the Council of Clermont, and urged all those present to take up arms under the sign of the Cross and launch an armed pilgrimage to recover Jerusalem and the East from the Muslims.
  • In 1198 CE the pope called a new crusade to permanently secure Western Europe's hold on Jerusalem.

• The Crusades

  • Popes such as Gregory VII justified the subsequent warfare against the emperor's partisans in theological terms.
  • Historians have argued that the desire to impose Roman church authority in the east may have been one of the goals of the Crusades, although Urban II, who launched the First Crusade, never refers to such a goal in his letters on crusading.
  • In March 1095, Alexios sent envoys to the Council of Piacenza to ask Pope Urban II for aid against the Turks.
  • In July 1095, Urban turned to his homeland of France to recruit men for the expedition.
  • Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont, where he gave speeches in favor of a Crusade.

• The Fourth Crusade

  • The First Crusade arose after a call to arms in 1095 sermons by Pope Urban II.
  • One of Urban's main aims was to guarantee pilgrims access to the holy sites in the Holy Land that were under Muslim control.
  • Under the papacies of Calixtus II, Honorius II, Eugenius III, and Innocent II, smaller-scale crusading continued around the Crusader states in the early 12th century.
  • According to Benedict of Peterborough, Pope Urban III died of deep sadness on October 19, 1187, upon hearing news of the defeat.
  • His successor, Pope Gregory VIII, issued a papal bull that proposed a third crusade to recapture Jerusalem.

• The Development of Papal Supremacy

  • Pope Gregory I (c. 540–604) administered the church with strict reform.
  • With the exception of Pope Martin I, no pope during this period questioned the authority of the Byzantine monarch to confirm the election of the bishop of Rome before consecration could occur.
  • The conflict ended in 1122, when Emperor Henry V and Pope Calixtus II agreed on the Concordat of Worms, which differentiated between the royal and spiritual powers and gave the emperors a limited role in selecting bishops.
  • Papal supremacy was also increased by Urban II's launching in 1095 of the Crusades, which, in an attempt to liberate the Holy Land from Muslim domination, marshaled under papal leadership the aggressive energies of the European nobility.
  • Throughout the rest of the Middle Ages, popes struggled with monarchs over power.

• The Western Schism

  • During that time, three men simultaneously claimed to be the true pope.
  • After Pope Gregory XI died in 1378, the Romans rioted to ensure the election of a Roman for pope.
  • Urban VI, born Bartolomeo Prignano, the Archbishop of Bari, was elected.
  • Urban had been a respected administrator in the papal chancery at Avignon, but as pope he proved suspicious, reformist, and prone to violent outbursts of temper.
  • Many of the cardinals who had elected him soon regretted their decision; the majority removed themselves from Rome to Anagni, where, even though Urban was still reigning, they elected Robert of Geneva as a rival pope on September 20, 1378.

• The Investiture Controversy

  • The conflict ended in 1122, when Emperor Henry V and Pope Calixtus II agreed on the Concordat of Worms.
  • A brief but significant struggle over investiture also occurred between Henry I of England and Pope Paschal II in the years 1103–1107, and the issue also played a minor role in the struggles between church and state in France.
  • In 1075, Pope Gregory VII composed the Dictatus Papae.
  • One clause asserted that the deposal of an emperor was under the sole power of the pope.
  • The church would crusade against the Holy Roman Empire under Frederick II.

• The Church During the Italian Renaissance

  • While the schism was resolved by the Council of Constance (1414), a resulting reform movement known as Conciliarism sought to limit the power of the pope.
  • Although the papacy eventually emerged supreme in ecclesiastical matters by the Fifth Council of the Lateran (1511), it was dogged by continued accusations of corruption, most famously in the person of Pope Alexander VI, who was accused variously of simony, nepotism and fathering four children.
  • Pope Paul III came to the papal throne (1534–1549) after the sack of Rome in 1527, with uncertainties prevalent in the Catholic Church following the Protestant Reformation.
  • In addition to being the head of the Church, the Pope became one of Italy's most important secular rulers, and pontiffs such as Julius II often waged campaigns to protect and expand their temporal domains.
  • Furthermore, the popes, in a spirit of refined competition with other Italian lords, spent lavishly both on private luxuries but also on public works, repairing or building churches, bridges, and a magnificent system of aqueducts in Rome that still function today.

• Ethiopia and Eritrea

  • The Zagwe seem to have ruled over a mostly peaceful state with a flourishing urban culture.
  • Later, as the Crusades were dying out in the early 14th century, the Ethiopian King Wedem Ar'ad dispatched a thirty-man mission to Europe, where they traveled to Rome to meet the Pope and then, since the Medieval Papacy was in schism, they traveled to Avignon to meet the Antipope.
  • Artistic and literary advancement of the period came together with a decline in urbanization, as the Solomonic emperors did not have a fixed capital but rather moved around the empire in mobile camps.
  • Under the emperors Tewodros II (1855–1868), Yohannes IV (1872–1889), and Menelek II (1889–1913), the empire began to emerge from its isolation.
  • Under Emperor Tewodros II, Zemene Mesafint was brought to an end.

• Rise of the Holy Roman Empire

  • The formation of the Holy Roman Empire was initiated by Charlemagne's coronation as "Emperor of the Romans" in 800, and consolidated by Otto I when he was crowned emperor in 962 by Pope John XII.
  • In 800, Pope Leo III crowned the Frankish king Charlemagne Emperor of the Romans, reviving the title in Western Europe after more than three centuries.
  • After the death of Charles the Fat, those crowned emperor by the pope controlled only territories in Italy.
  • To resolve this conflict, the Byzantine princess Theophanu married Otto's son, Otto II, in April 972.
  • Otto II succeeded him as Holy Roman Emperor.