Which pope called the First Crusade at the Council of Clermont in 1095?

Pope Urban II called the First Crusade at the Council of Clermont in 1095.

Urban II proclaimed the expedition at Clermont in central France on 27 November 1095. His appeal urged western European Christians to aid the Byzantine Empire and recover Jerusalem and other holy places from Muslim rule. The speech helped launch a major movement of nobles, knights, clergy, and noncombatants toward the eastern Mediterranean.

Accounts of Urban’s speech differ substantially. The earliest surviving reports were written after the event and do not provide a verbatim transcript, so historians cannot establish every phrase he used. They agree, however, that the council and his appeal were central to the crusade’s beginning.

The First Crusade reached Jerusalem in 1099, when crusader forces captured the city. Urban did not live to see that outcome: he died in July 1099, shortly before news of Jerusalem’s capture reached western Europe. His successor, Paschal II, later supported the crusader states.