Council of Clermont The Council of Clermont was a mixed synod of ecclesiastics and laymen of the Catholic Church , which was held from November 18 to November 28 , 1095 at Clermont , France . Pope Urban II ' s speech on November 27 was the starting point of the First Crusade . Background . In 1095 Byzantine emperor Alexius I Comnenus sent envoys to the west requesting military assistance against the Seljuk Turks . The message was received by Pope Urban II at the Council of Piacenza . Later that year , in November , Urban called the Council of Clermont to discuss the matter further . In convoking the council , Urban urged the bishops and abbot s whom he addressed directly , to bring with them the prominent lords in their provinces . The Council lasted from November 19 to November 28 , and was attended by nearly 300 clerics from throughout France . Urban discussed Cluniac reforms of the Church , and also extended the excommunication of Philip I of France for his adulterous remarriage to Bertrade of Montfort . On November 27 , Urban spoke for the first time about the problems in the east . He promoted Western Christians ' fight against the Muslims who had occupied the Holy Land and were attacking the Eastern Roman Empire . Six sources . There are six main sources of information about this portion of the council : the anonymous " Gesta Francorum " ( " The Deeds of the Franks " dated c . 1100 / 1101 ) , which influenced all versions of the speech except that by Fulcher of Chartres , who was present at the council ; Robert the Monk , who may have been present ; Baldric , archbishop of Dol ; and Guibert de Nogent , who were not present at the council . All of these accounts were written down quite a bit later than the council ; they follow different literary traditions and differ consequently widely from one another . More important than the five composed speeches from the later sources , which tend to be colored by the authors ' own views of crusading , is a letter that was written by Urban himself in December of 1095 referring to the council . Speech . According to Fulcher of Chartres who wrote a version of the speech in " Gesta Francorum Jerusalem Expugnantium " , Urban addressed various abuses of the church such as simony and the lack of adherence to the Peace of God : In Fulcher ' s version of the speech , Urban does not mention Jerusalem at all . Urban does however cite the need of the eastern Byzantine Empire for aid against Muslim attack : A call for Orthodoxy . In " Historia Iherosolimitana " by Robert the Monk , writing in 1106 / 7 , an extended version of the speech presents the call to the " race of the Franks " as a peroration climaxing Urban ' s call for orthodoxy , reform and submission to the Church . Robert records that the pope asked western Christians , poor and rich , to come to the aid of the Greeks in the east , because " " Deus vult " , " ( " God wills it " ) , the rousing cry with which Urban ended his final address . Robert records that Urban promised remission of sins for those who went to the east , although the ' Liber Lamberti ' , a source based on the notes of Bishop Lambert of Arras , who attended the Council , indicates that Urban offered the remission of all penance due from sins , what later came to be called an indulgence . Robert makes Urban deliver a classical battle speech ; he emphasizes reconquering the Holy Land more than aiding the Greeks ; the intervening decades , and the events of the First Crusade had certainly shifted the emphasis . According to Robert , Urban listed various gruesome offenses of the Muslims : " They circumcise the Christians , and the blood of the circumcision they either spread upon the altars or pour into the vases of the baptismal font . " and more alleged atrocities expressed in inflammatory images that were derived from hagiography . Perhaps with the wisdom of hindsight , Robert makes Urban advise that none but knight s should go , not the old and feeble , nor priests without the permission of their bishops , " for such are more of a hindrance than aid , more of a burden than advantage . . . nor ought women to set out at all , without their husbands or brothers or legal guardians . " About the same time , Baldrick , archbishop of Dol , also basing his account generally on " Gesta Francorum , " reported an emotional sermon focusing on the offenses of the Muslims and the reconquest of the Holy Land in terms likely to appeal to chivalry . Like Fulcher he also recorded that Urban deplored the violence of the Christian knights of Gaul . " It is less wicked to brandish your sword against Saracens , " Baldrick ' s Urban cries , comparing them to the Amalekites . The violence of knights he wanted to see ennobled in the service of Christ , defending the churches of the East as if defending a mother . Baldrick asserts that Urban , there on the spot , appointed the bishop of Puy to lead the crusade . Guibert , abbot of Nogent also made that Urban emphasize the reconquest of the Holy Land more than help to the Greeks or other Christians there . This emphasis may , as in the case of Robert and Baldric , be due to the influence of the Gesta Francorum ' s account of Jerusalem ' s reconquest . Urban ' s speech , in Guibert ' s version , emphasized the sanctity of the Holy Land , which must be in Christian possession so that prophecies about the end of the world could be fulfilled . On the last day of the council , a general call was sent out to the knights and nobles of France . Urban apparently knew in advance of the day that Raymond IV of Toulouse , exemplary for courage and piety , was fully prepared to take up arms . Urban himself spent a few months preaching the Crusade in France , while papal legates spread the word in the south of Italy , during which time the focus presumably turned from helping Alexius to taking Jerusalem . The general population , upon hearing about the Council , likely understood this to be the point of the Crusade in the first place . Urban ' s own letter , addressed to the faithful " waiting in Flanders , " does lament the fact that Turks , in addition to ravaging the " churches of God in the eastern regions , " have seized " the Holy City of Christ , embellished by his passion and resurrection — and blasphemy to say it — have sold her and her churches into abominable slavery . " Yet he does not explicitly call for the reconquest of Jerusulem . Rather he explicitly calls for the military " liberation " of the Eastern Churches , and appoints Adhemar of Le Puy to lead the Crusade , to set out on the day of the Assumption of Mary , August 15 .