In the same way, anyone that took it upon them to forsake the goods of this world, in order to crusade in the Holy Land would be able to inherit eternal life. Pope Urban reportedly also promised a complete remission of their sins to whoever promised to undertake and take part in the First Crusade to liberate the East from libels and heathens. He said, "...advance boldly, as knights of Christ, and rush as quickly as you can to the defense of the Eastern Church. For she it is from whom the joys of your whole salvation have come forth, who poured into your mouths the milk of divine wisdom, which set before you the holy teachings of the gospel." The great crowd of people then rushed forward, and proclaimed loudly, "It is the Will of God! It is the Will of God!" Pope urban answered them saying that yes, indeed, it was the true will of God hat the crusade to save the Middle East must be launched immediately, and that God had proven His will by uniting them all in their cry for liberation. They must remember, said Pope Urban, that since it was God Himself that had placed this cry upon their hearts, it must be taken up as a battle cry, and that they must now proceed to embroider the sign of the Cross on their clothes. When the meeting was finished, Pope Urban II wrote a letter to all the crusaders, with a gist of his speech, and also with the additional reassurance to all the people that they would be able to achieve a remission of all their sins if they were to join in the crusade with him.

It is often stated through history that the amazing response to his speech must have startled even the Pope Urban himself. This was because large numbers of Franks answered his call for the crusade, from far and near, and streamed towards the East with a great amount of enthusiasm. The appeal for the crusade appealed to thousands of people, from all classes, including knights, lesser nobles, churchmen, bishops, archbishops and so on, but no Kings and higher ranking persons. The success of the First Crusade can perhaps be explained by the fact that the conditions that prevailed among the followers of Islam during this time were just right for it. For example, the Seljuk principalities in Syria and in Asia Minor were military states, and their leader was an individual who held a military regime, and imposed their authority over the rest of the population. This type of dictatorship per se, was the cause of a lot of wars of conquest. Therefore, when the Crusaders, under the directorship of Pope Urban II attacked the Turks in North Syria, for example, the Egyptians stepped in to drive the Turks who had been occupying Jerusalem until then, out. As a matter of fact, even when the Crusaders were almost about to take over Jerusalem, the neighboring Shiites did nothing to help them, their own neighbors. The First Crusaders, therefore, met with little or not resistance wherever they ventured and this were something that stood them in good stead.

Conclusion

To conclude it must be stated that the first Crusade called by Pope Urban II was a great success indeed, and many thousands of people were involved in the historic attempt made to re-capture Jerusalem from heathen Muslims. Today, the First Crusade can be termed a 'Holy War' wherein devout Christians and those people who had been promised absolution and remission of their sins by the Pope took part enthusiastically in the crusade. They had also managed to wrest control of Jerusalem back from the Muslims who had captured it and paved the way for many more similar crusades to fight for what one thought was right. Indeed, it was after the conquest of Jerusalem by the First Crusaders that the Kingdom of Jerusalem was created, and...

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