The speech of Pope Urban II 1095 at Clermont in the versions of the Gesta Francorum and Baldric of Dol

Seminar paper from the year 2006 in the subject Classic Philology - Latin philology - Medivial and Modern Latin, grade: Gut (B), Indiana University (Department for Classical Studies), course: Readings of Medieval Latin, language: English, abstract: At the council of Clermont, a mixed synod of ecclesiastics and laymen of the Catholic Church, Pope Urban II delivered his most famous address which led thousands of knights and ordinary people to take the cross and march to the East, what is considered to be the begin of the Crusades. Several versions of this famous speech have come to us, and among the most important and most cited versions of the speech are the one of Baldric of Dol and the version of the Gesta Francorum by an anonymous author.

By comparing these two versions of the speech we are able to extract the reflections of the speech and the following events by every single author, which is inevitable for answering the question whether the Crusades were a spontaneous response to the Council of Clermont or a long and carefully developed plan for the conquest of the East.