Lesson Plan: The Gregorian Watershed Date: 22.11.

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Length of Session: 50 minutes
Seminar Aims What is a Crusade?

How did contemporaries understand Pope Urban’s call to arms?

What are the features that defined the first crusade?

Supporting Power-point.
Materials /
Handouts
Room Equipment / Projector.
Arrangement

Timing Subject/Headin Activity/Notes PP slides

g
0-3 Introduction & - Ask for any questions on the lecture 1-3
minutes housekeeping - Remind them of assessment deadlines.
- Explain seminar aims
3 – 15 What is a - 5-10 minute class discussion: open question, no wrong 4
minutes crusade? answers.
- Explain this is merely about exploring our pre-
conceptions of the loaded term that is ‘crusade’
- What is a crusade?
15-40 Contemporary - 10 minute group work, 10 minute class discussion 5
minutes Perspectives - How do contemporary accounts view Urban’s call to
arms – are there any commonly understood
aims/features?
- How do they differ?
- Do we think contemporary accounts accurately convey
Urban’s vision of the crusade?
40-50 What defined - 10 minutes class discussion: 6
minutes the first - Based on the accounts, what are the most prominent
crusade? features of the first crusade?
- What is a crusade?

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Issues to cover
Slide 4: What is a crusade? (Explain how the term is very loaded and means different things
to different people)
- Violent religious affair?
- Moral?
- Political?
- Alt right statement of identity?

Slide 5: How do contemporary accounts view Urban’s call to arms – what are the
commonly understood aims? How do they differ from one another? Do they accurately
reflect Urban’s vision for the crusade?
- Some remarkably similar themes emerge from several of the sources: the
centrality of Jerusalem as an aim for the venture. The wider aim of liberating the
eastern Church from the grip of non Christian forces. The view of the event as a
kind of pilgrimage, (armed), with a specifically stated spiritual reward – full
remission of sins. Specific mention of an act of devotion to join – taking the cross,
and of the Pope’s role in calling the event. Some common ground too on the view
of the event as a development in the idea of warfare, and specifically of its turning
from a purely evil thing into something that can be done for God too.
- Where we have different points is over the issue of who should go. Some sources
present the event as being open to, (or at least appealing to) everyone. Everyone
being swept up in the zealotry and all wanting to go, despite the problems it
causes in terms of the social hierarchy. Others however mention it as having more
strict rules in place about who could go, which one of Urban’s letters in fact sets
out.
- This is important, because it suggests there’s a disconnect between his vision of
the crusade and how it was received by contemporaries: his letter sets out strict
rules on who can go, outright forbidding monks and clerks without the permission
of their superiors, and saying ideally he wants knights and the like to go. His vision
is essentially of a military venture, wrapped up in pilgrimage language. The appeal
of it however clearly spreads well beyond the purely military members of society
and affects large numbers of ordinary folk too, which Urban clearly has trouble
controlling since he sets out provisions against certain types going. Strongly
suggests the sources only represent his views to some degree, but are perhaps a
more accurate reflection of how society at large responded to his summons.
Slide 6: What defined the first crusade? What is a crusade?
- Based on the accounts, 5 key things really: Jerusalem, retaking the Holy Land,
Taking the Cross, Spiritual reward, and the overwhelmingly positive response the
summons had.

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 - In terms of definition for crusade in this period, we’ve got a much better idea of it
based on the above. Called by a pope with a stated objective, taking of the cross,
and a specifically set out spiritual reward.
Reflections: