The Council of Clermont was a mixed synod of ecclesiastics and laymen of the Catholic Church, called by Pope Urban II and held from 17 to 27 November 1095 at Clermont, Auvergne, at the time part of the Duchy of Aquitaine.
While the council is known today primarily for the speech Pope Urban gave on the final day, it was primarily a synod focused on implementing the Cluniac reforms, enacting decrees and settling local and regional issues. This also included the extension of the excommunication of Philip I of France for his adulterous remarriage to Bertrade of Montfort and a declaration of renewal of the Truce of God, an attempt on the part of the church to reduce feuding among Frankish nobles.
Pope Urban's speech on 27 November included the call to arms that would result in the First Crusade, and eventually the capture of Jerusalem and the establishment of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. In this, Urban reacted to the request by Byzantine emperor Alexius I Comnenus who had sent envoys to the Council of Piacenza requesting military assistance against the Seljuk Turks. Several accounts of the speech survive; of these, the one by Fulcher of Chartres, who was present at the council, is generally accepted as the most reliable.
Participants
The council was attended by about 300 clerics. No official list of the participants or of the signatories to the decrees of the Council survives. A partial list of some of the attendees can nonetheless be constructed.
Joannes, Cardinal Bishop of Porto
Dagobert, Archbishop of Pisa
Bruno, Bishop of Segni
Gualterius, Cardinal Bishop of Albano
Rangerius, O.S.B., Archbishop of Reggio Calabria
Richard, Cardinal Priest and Abbot of S. Victor in Marseille
Teuzo, Cardinal Priest of SS. Joannis et Pauli
Albertus, O.S.B., Cardinal Priest of Santa Sabina
Joannes Gattellus, the Pope's Chancellor
Gregory Papiensis, deacon
Hugo of Verdun, deacon
Hugues de Die, Archbishop of Lyon and Papal Legate
Amatus, Archbishop of Bordeaux and Papal Legate
Rainaldus, Archbishop of Reims
Richerius, Archbishop of Sens
Rollandus, Bishop of Dol
Dalmatius, Archbishop of Narbonne
Bernard of Sédirac, Archbishop of Toledo and Legate in Spain
Hoellus (Hoël,) Bishop of Le Mans
Geoffrey of Vendôme, Cardinal Priest of the titular church of Santa Prisca on the Aventine Benedict, Bishop of Nantes Petrus, Bishop of Poitiers Ivo, Bishop of Chartres Joannes, Bishop of Orléans Roger, Bishop of Beauvais Radulfus (Raoul), Archbishop of Tours Hilgot, former Bishop of Soissons, monk of Marmoutiers
Speech
There are six main sources of information about this portion of the council:
A letter that was written by Urban himself in December 1095 referring to the council; The anonymous Gesta Francorum ("The Deeds of the Franks" dated c. 1100/1101); Fulcher of Chartres, who was present at the council, in his Gesta Francorum Iherusalem peregrinantium (c. 1100–1105); Robert the Monk, who may have been present at the council, in Historia Hierosolymitana (1107); Baldric, archbishop of Dol (written c. 1105); Guibert de Nogent, Dei gesta per Francos (1107/8).
The five versions of the speech vary widely in their details. The account by Fulcher, who is known to have been present at the council, is generally considered the most reliable version.
Urban's own letter, written in December 1095 and addressed to the faithful "waiting in Flanders," does lament that "a barbaric fury has deplorably afflicted and laid waste the churches of God in the regions of the Orient". Urban does allude to Jerusalem, saying that this barbaric fury has "even grasped in intolerable servitude its churches and the Holy City of Christ, glorified by His passion and resurrection". He calls upon the princes to "free the churches of the East", appointing Adhemar of Le Puy as the leader of the expedition, to set out on the day of the Assumption of Mary (15 August 1096).
The Gesta Francorum does not give an account of the speech at any length, it merely mentions that Urban called upon all to "take up the way of the Lord" and be prepared to suffer much, assured of their reward in heaven. It goes on to emphasize how news of Urban's call to arms quickly spread by word of mouth "through all the regions and countries of Gaul, the Franks, upon hearing such reports, forthwith caused crosses to be sewed on their right shoulders, saying that they followed with one accord the footsteps of Christ, by which they had been redeemed from the hand of hell."