John of Abbeyville and a Theology of War

Abstract

In August 1095, Pope Urban II crossed the Alps into France, and in November travelled to Clermont, where he celebrated a great council whose consequences for the Church and Christian society have yet to be fully assessed. At the end of the working sessions — after matters pertaining to ecclesiastical reform and the marital irregularities of King Philip of France had been settled — the Pope preached a public sermon calling for a holy war against the Seldjuk Turks. According to the reports of Fulcher of Chartres, Robert of Reims, Baudri of Dol, ecclesiastics who had attended the council and heard the sermon, and Abbot Guibert of Nogent5 (who had not been present, but whose testimony is reliable), Urban depicted the Turks murdering Christians in the East and desecrating Christian sacred places, particularly the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Such belligerency, as he apparently represented it, was ascribed to Turkish hatred of Christ, and interpreted as evidence of their heinous scheme to eliminate Christianity by destroying the tangible evidence of Christ's life on earth. In highly charged language, inspired by Psalm 78: I — 'God, the heathen have come into your inheritance' — Pope Urban evoked the compassion of his audience for Christ's suffering city, and urged them to arm themselves for a holy war of liberation.