Papst urban ii biography

A series of well-attended synods held in Rome , Amalfi , Benevento , and Troia supported him in renewed declarations against simony , lay investitures , clerical marriages partly via the cullagium tax , and the emperor and his antipope. He supported the rebellion of Prince Conrad against his father and bestowed the office of groom on Conrad at Cremona in He supported the theological and ecclesiastical work of Anselm , negotiating a solution to the cleric's impasse with King William II of England and finally receiving England's support against the Imperial pope in Rome.

Urban maintained vigorous support for his predecessors' reforms, however, and did not shy from supporting Anselm when the new archbishop of Canterbury fled England. Likewise, despite the importance of French support for his cause, he upheld his legate Hugh of Die 's excommunication of King Philip over his doubly bigamous marriage with Bertrade de Montfort , wife of the Count of Anjou.

The ban was repeatedly lifted and reimposed as the king promised to forswear her and then repeatedly returned to her. A public penance in ended the controversy, [ 17 ] although Bertrade remained active in attempting to see her sons succeed Philip instead of Louis. All of the sessions except the final one took place either in the cathedral of Clermont or in the suburban church of Notre-Dame-du-Port.

Though the council was primarily focused on reforms within the church hierarchy, Urban II gave a speech on 27 November at the conclusion of the council to a broader audience. Urban II's sermon proved highly effective, as he summoned the attending nobility and the people to wrest the Holy Land , and the eastern churches generally, from the domination of the Seljuks.

There exists no exact transcription of the speech that Urban delivered at the Council of Clermont. The five extant versions of the speech were written down some time later, and they differ widely from one another. As a better means of evaluating Urban's true motives in calling for a crusade to the Holy Lands, there are four extant letters written by Pope Urban himself: one to the Flemish dated December ; [ 29 ] one to the Bolognese dated September ; one to Vallombrosa dated October ; and one to the counts of Catalonia dated either or — Hence it is that you murder one another, that you wage war, and that frequently you perish by mutual wounds.

Let therefore hatred depart from among you, let your quarrels end, let wars cease, and let all dissensions and controversies slumber. Enter upon the road to the Holy Sepulchre ; wrest that land from the wicked race, and subject it to yourselves God has conferred upon you above all nations great glory in arms. Accordingly undertake this journey for the remission of your sins, with the assurance of the imperishable glory of the Kingdom of Heaven.

When Pope Urban had said these It is the will of God! When the venerable Roman pontiff heard that, [he] said: "Most beloved brethren, today is manifest in you what the Lord says in the Gospel, 'Where two or three are gathered together in my name there am I in the midst of them. For, although the cry issued from numerous mouths, yet the origin of the cry was one.

Therefore I say to you that God, who implanted this in your breasts, has drawn it forth from you. Let this then be your war-cry in combats, because this word is given to you by God. When an armed attack is made upon the enemy, let this one cry be raised by all the soldiers of God: It is the will of God! Within Fulcher of Chartres account of pope Urban's speech there was a promise of remission of sins for whoever took part in the crusade.

All who die by the way, whether by land or by sea, or in battle against the pagans, shall have immediate remission of sins. This I grant them through the power of God with which I am invested. It is disputed whether the famous slogan "God wills it" or "It is the will of God" deus vult in Latin, Dieu le veut in French in fact was established as a rallying cry during the council.

While Robert the Monk says so, [ 34 ] it is also possible that the slogan was created as a catchy propaganda motto afterwards. Urban II's own letter to the Flemish confirms that he granted "remission of all their sins" to those undertaking the enterprise to liberate the eastern churches. The crusading movement took shape at the Council of Piacenza, where in March Urban received an embassy from the Byzantine emperor Alexius I Comnenus, asking help against the Muslims, and where a great council met, attended by numerous Italian, Burgundian, and French bishops and by so vast a concourse of monks and laymen that the public meetings had to be held in the open air outside the city.

The still more enthusiastic Council of Clermont was held in November of the same year. Urban II died on July 29, , fourteen days after the fall of Jerusalem to the Crusaders, but before news of the event had reached Italy; his successor was Paschal II. However, at the urging of Bruno, he retired as archdeacon in before he even reached the age of At this point, he traveled to Cluny and entered a monastery.

As legate of the Holy Roman Empire in , he was one of the most famous and aggressive promoters of the Gregorian reforms. Gregory VII nominated him as one of three papabiles possible successors. Otho of Lagery was officially elected for Pope on March 12, In re-Christianizing Sicily, seats of new dioceses needed to be established, and the boundaries of sees established, with a church hierarchy re-established after centuries of Muslim domination.

Roger I's Lombard consort Adelaide brought settlers from the valley of the Po to colonize eastern Sicily. Roger I as secular ruler seemed a safe proposition, as he was merely a vassal of his kinsman the Count of Apulia, himself a vassal of Rome, so as a well-tested military commander it seemed safe to give him these extraordinary powers, which were later to come to terminal confrontations between Roger I's Hohenstaufen heirs.

In accordance with this last policy, the marriage of the countess Matilda of Tuscany with Guelph of Bavaria was promoted, Prince Conrad was helped in his rebellion against his father and crowned King of the Romans at Milan in , and the Empress Adelaide or Praxedes encouraged in her charges against her husband. In a protracted struggle also with Philip I of France — , whom he had excommunicated for his adulterous marriage to Bertrade de Montfort, Urban II finally proved victorious.

Urban II had much correspondence with Archbishop Anselm of Canterbury , to whom he extended an order to come urgently to Rome just after the Archbishop's first flight from England, and earlier gave his approval to Anselm's work De Incarnatione Verbi The Incarnation of the Word. His legacy is generally judged in the light of the Crusades.

The crusades had profound but localized effects upon the Islamic world, where the equivalents of "Franks" and "Crusaders" remained expressions of disdain. Muslims traditionally celebrate Saladin , the Kurdish warrior, as a hero against the Crusaders. In the twenty-first century, some in the Arab world, such as the Arab independence movement and Pan-Islamism movement, continue to call Western involvement in the Middle East a "crusade.

Yet for some time, even Saladin was happy to have the Crusader states as a buffer-zone between his territory and his Muslim rivals, and he entered treaties with the Crusaders, as did his successor. Urban II was a skilled tactician.

Papst urban ii biography

He wanted to place the papacy at the center of a unified Christian world but was surrounded by division. The Eastern and Western halves of the Church were divided, and far from Western Europe enjoying peace and stability, its knights were turning their swords against each other, instead of against a common enemy. By directing animosity towards the Muslim world, Urban II exerted temporal authority, controlling the armies of Europe to further his plan for a more united Europe.

At the same time, as he conducted an internal campaign of reform to make the Church more spiritual, and to improve standards of clerical conduct. Temporarily, he did succeed in enhancing papal authority and in unifying Europe behind his crusading venture. Over a longer period of time, however, his crusading ideal glorified conflict, compromised Christianity 's claim to be a religion of peace, permanently harmed Christina-Muslim relations and laid no enduring foundation onto which a more unified Europe could be built.

Once the Crusades ended, and ended in defeat, war at home again became a knightly preoccupation. New World Encyclopedia writers and editors rewrote and completed the Wikipedia article in accordance with New World Encyclopedia standards. This article abides by terms of the Creative Commons CC-by-sa 3.