Clermont
A cathedral city in Auvergne in central France. Urban II held a council here in November 1095 and called for the expedition that became the First Crusade.
Clermont, now part of Clermont-Ferrand, was the bishop’s city of Auvergne. Fulcher of Chartres says that Urban II called a council there, that some 310 bishops and abbots attended, and that it met in November (Fulcher of Chartres, History 1.1) (Fulcher of Chartres, History 1.6). Urban himself refers to it simply as the council of Auvergne (Urban II, Letters, to the faithful in Flanders (December 1095)).
What happened here
- 1095 to 1099, firm dateThe First Crusade
In 1095 Pope Urban II calls the knights of the West to go east in arms for the remission of their sins. Four years later the armies storm Jerusalem and massacre its defenders and inhabitants, as their own writers report.