Pope Urban II
Pope Urban II, born Odo of Châtillon, was one of the most influential popes of the medieval period. Elected in 1088, he was a reforming churchman who continued the Gregorian Reform movement, seeking to free the Church from secular interference and assert papal primacy over Christian Europe. His most consequential act came on November 27, 1095, at the Council of Clermont, where he delivered a stirring sermon calling on Western Christians to take up arms and march to the Holy Land to aid Eastern Christians and recapture Jerusalem from Muslim rule. His speech ignited the popular imagination and launched the First Crusade, one of the defining military and religious movements of the medieval world. Urban II died on July 29, 1099, just two weeks after the Crusaders captured Jerusalem, without learning of the success of his great enterprise. His call at Clermont set in motion two centuries of crusading that would transform relations between Christian Europe, the Byzantine Empire, and the Islamic world.
- Lived: 1035 CE – 1099 CE
- Nationality: italian
- Roles: religious_leader
