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Pope Urban II
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Urban II (1042-1099) was pope from 1088 to 1099. He laid the foundations for the papal monarchy, and his pontificate marked a turning point in the institutional organization of the papacy and in papal-imperial relations.
Otto (or Odo) de Lagery, who became Urban II, was born near Châtillon-sur-Marne of a great French noble family. He grew up at Reims, where he became archdeacon, and at Cluny, where he became a monk and then prior. In 1078 Gregory VII created him cardinal bishop of Ostia. Loyally supporting Gregory's reforming ideals, he represented the Pope on numerous successful missions to France and Germany.
On March 12, 1088, Otto was elected pope and took the name Urban II. Though he was a convinced Gregorian, he was less fiery and passionate than Gregory VII and more politically astute about realizing a program of reform. Whereas Gregory VII had neglected the ties that bound the papacy and southern Italy, Urban II carefully cultivated them, seeing in them a political means for resisting the German emperor.
Soon after his election Urban went to Sicily to renew the alliance with Roger Guiscard and to establish one with the Greek emperor, thus laying the foundations for the good relations that obtained between Rome and Byzantium throughout his pontificate.
In November 1088 Urban reestablished himself in Rome with the aid of Norman troops, which he used against the imperial antipope Clement III. Ten months later Urban left Rome for southern Italy to preside over a council of 70 bishops concerned with lay investiture. Together with comparable later councils in northern Italy, Germany, and France, this meeting symbolized Urban's effort to reform the Church throughout Europe along Gregorian lines, especially by isolating the hostile German emperor Henry IV. To further his aims against Henry, Urban sanctioned political marriages and formulated military alliances, chiefly the first Lombard League (1093). In November 1093 an assembly of rebellious German nobles made common cause with the Pope at Ulma, swearing obedience to his representative.
In March 1095 at Piacenza, Urban officiated at a reunion of the entire reform-oriented episcopate - by a chronicler's estimate a gathering of more than 4, 000 prelates and 30, 000 laymen. Also in attendance (and further bearing witness to the power of the Pope) were Henry IV's estranged wife, Praxedis, an embassy from Philip I of France, and an embassy from the Greek emperor seeking help against the Turks.
After the council adjourned, Urban triumphantly proceeded north, continuing with the work of restoring papal authority wherever it had been usurped by secular power. From Nov. 18 to Nov. 28, 1095, he convened a council at Clermont, France, where, in addition to excommunicating King Philip I of France, he reaffirmed the primacy of papal power over the entire Church. On November 27 Urban solemnly proclaimed the First Crusade against the infidels. By mobilizing Europe's chivalric elements to his cause, Urban proved that he had not only excluded the German emperor but that he had displaced him as leader of Europe. On July 15, 1099, the crusaders entered Jerusalem; but Urban died on July 29, 1099, before the news reached him. He was beatified on July 14, 1881.
Urban left behind the solid foundations of emerging papal monarchy. In seeking to create for the papacy a central governmental structure modeled on that of the French royal court, he invented the papal curia - an organ that put the papacy on an equal footing with the emerging feudal monarchies of Europe. His organizational efforts also included the discovery and use of legal texts for bolstering papal authority. In 1140 they were systematized in the famous Decretum of Gratian, which, because it emphasized the pope's legislative and dispensatory powers, became the starting point for 12th-century ecclesiastical law.
Further Reading
Virtually all studies of Urban II are in French or German. Good general studies in English which include Urban II are Henry Hart Milman, History of Latin Christianity (8 vols., 1861-1862; 4th ed., 9 vols., 1872); Ferdinand Gregorovius, History of the City of Rome in the Middle Ages (trans., 8 vols., 1894-1902); and Geoffrey Barraclough, The Medieval Papacy (1968).
| Columbia Encyclopedia: Urban II |
Urban II, c.1042-1099, pope (1088-99), a Frenchman named Odo (or Eudes) of Lagery; successor of Victor III. He studied at Reims and became a monk at Cluny. He went to Rome, as prior of Cluny, early in the reign of St. Gregory VII. The pope kept him there, finding in Odo one of his ablest assistants in the great reform; he made him cardinal and bishop of Ostia. Odo worked especially as legate in Germany. When he was elected pope, Urban pursued the cause of reform, undaunted by the opposition of Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV and his antipope, Clement III (Guibert of Ravenna). He began work in the lands that recognized him, those of the Normans (S Italy), of the Countess Matilda (Tuscany), and the Lombard cities. He could not stay in Rome until 1093, when the antipope was expelled. Urban's method was to travel about, summoning great councils of the whole population, to advertise and gain popularity for the reforms. The principal councils were at Piacenza (Mar., 1095), Clermont (Nov., 1095), Rome (1097), Bari (1098), and Rome again (1099). At Clermont, Urban preached a sermon that brought forth the First Crusade (see Crusades). At Bari the reunion of East and West was the theme; St. Anselm was the apologist for the West. Urban's resolute condemnation of Philip I of France in the matter of Philip's repudiation of his wife exemplifies his fearlessness. Without Urban's work, most of Gregory's reform movement would probably have been ephemeral. He was succeeded by Paschal II. Urban was beatified in 1881.
Bibliography
See study by F. J. Gossman (1960).
| Wikipedia: Pope Urban II |
| Urban II | |
|---|---|
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| Papacy began | March, 1088 |
| Papacy ended | 29 July 1099 |
| Predecessor | Victor III |
| Successor | Paschal II |
| Personal details | |
| Birth name | Otho de Lagery |
| Born | ca.1035 Lagery, County of Champagne, France |
| Died | July 29, 1099 Rome, Papal States, Holy Roman Empire |
| Other Popes named Urban | |
| Papal styles of Pope Urban II |
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| Reference style | His Holiness |
| Spoken style | Your Holiness |
| Religious style | Holy Father |
| Posthumous style | Blessed |
Pope Blessed Urban II (ca.1035 – 29 July 1099), born Otho de Lagery (alternatively: Otto, Odo or Eudes), was Pope from 12 March 1088 until his death. He is most known for starting the First Crusade (1095–99) and setting up the modern day Roman Curia, in the manner of a royal court, to help run the Church.
Pope Gregory VII named him cardinal-bishop of Ostia ca. 1080. He was one of the most prominent and active supporters of the Gregorian reforms, especially as legate in Germany in 1084, and was among the few whom Gregory VII nominated as possible successors to be Pope. Desiderius, abbot of Monte Cassino, who became Pope Victor III (1086–87), was chosen Pope initially, but, after his short reign, Otho was elected Pope Urban II by acclamation (March 1088) at a small meeting of cardinals and other prelates held in Terracina. He took up the policies of Pope Gregory VII, and while pursuing them with determination, showed greater flexibility, and diplomatic finesse. At the outset, he had to reckon with the presence of the powerful antipope Clement III (1080, 1084–1100) in Rome; but a series of well-attended synods held in Rome, Amalfi, Benevento, and Troia supported him in renewed declarations against simony, Investiture Controversy, and clerical marriages, and a continued opposition to Emperor Henry IV (1050–1106).
In accordance with this last policy, the marriage of the countess Matilda of Tuscany with Guelph of Bavaria was promoted, Prince Conrad was helped in his rebellion against his father and crowned King of the Romans at Milan in 1093, and the Empress (Adelaide or Praxedes) encouraged in her charges against her husband. In a protracted struggle also with Philip I of France (1060–1108), whom he had excommunicated for his adulterous marriage to Bertrade de Montfort, Urban II finally proved victorious.
Urban II had much correspondence with Archbishop Anselm of Canterbury, to whom he extended an order to come urgently to Rome just after the Archbishop's first flight from England, and earlier gave his approval to Anselm's work De Incarnatione Verbi (The Incarnation of the Word).
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Crusades
Urban II's crusading movement took its first public shape at the Council of Piacenza, where, in March 1095, Urban II received an ambassador from the Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos (1081–1118) asking for help against Muslim Turks, who had taken over most of formerly Byzantine Anatolia. A great council met, attended by numerous Italian, Burgundian, and French bishops in such vast numbers it had to be held in the open air outside the city. At the Council of Clermont held in November of the same year, Urban II's sermon proved incredibly effective, as he summoned the attending nobility and the people to wrestle the Holy Land and the eastern churches generally from the Seljuk Turks.
There exists no exact transcription of Urban II's speech. The five extant versions of the speech were written down quite a bit later, and they differ widely from one another. All versions of the speech except that by Fulcher of Chartres were probably influenced by the chronicle account of the First Crusade called the Gesta Francorum (dated c. 1102), whose author also gives a version of the speech. Fulcher of Chartres was present at the Council, but his version of Urban's speech was written 1100-1106; Robert the Monk may have been present, but his version dates about 1106. The two remaining versions are even later, and written by authors who did not attend the speech. The five versions of Urban's speech reflect much more clearly what later authors thought Urban II should have said about the First Crusade, than what Urban II himself actually did say to launch the First Crusade. In contrast, there are four extant letters written by Pope Urban II himself about crusading, to the Flemish (dated December 1095); to the Bolognese (dated September 1096); to Vallembrosa (dated October 1096); to Catalonian counts (dated either 1089 or 1096-1099). It is Urban II's own letters, rather than the paraphrased versions of his speech, that reveal his actual thinking about crusading. Nevertheless, the versions of the speech have had a great influence on popular conceptions and misconceptions about the Crusades, so it is worth comparing the five composed speeches to Urban's actual words. First, some selections from the speeches: Fulcher of Chartres has Urban say:
I, or rather the Lord, beseech you as Christ's heralds to publish this everywhere and to persuade all people of whatever rank, foot-soldiers and knights, poor and rich, to carry aid promptly to those Christians and to destroy that vile race from the lands of our friends. I say this to those who are present, it meant also for those who are absent. Moreover, Christ commands it.[1]
The chronicler Robert the Monk has put into the mouth of Urban II:
[...] this land which you inhabit, shut in on all sides by the seas and surrounded by the mountain peaks, is too narrow for your large population; nor does it abound in wealth; and it furnishes scarcely food enough for its cultivators. Hence it is that you murder one another, that you wage war, and that frequently you perish by mutual wounds. Let therefore hatred depart from among you, let your quarrels end, let wars cease, and let all dissensions and controversies slumber. Enter upon the road to the Holy Sepulchre; wrest that land from the wicked race, and subject it to yourselves. [...] God has conferred upon you above all nations great glory in arms. Accordingly undertake this journey for the remission of your sins, with the assurance of the imperishable glory of the Kingdom of Heaven.
Robert further claims:
When Pope Urban had said these [...] things in his urbane discourse, he so influenced to one purpose the desires of all who were present, that they cried out 'It is the will of God! It is the will of God!'. When the venerable Roman pontiff heard that, [he] said: Most beloved brethren, today is manifest in you what the Lord says in the Gospel, 'Where two or three are gathered together in my name there am I in the midst of them.' Unless the Lord God had been present in your spirits, all of you would not have uttered the same cry. For, although the cry issued from numerous mouths, yet the origin of the cry was one. Therefore I say to you that God, who implanted this in your breasts, has drawn it forth from you. Let this then be your war-cry in combats, because this word is given to you by God. When an armed attack is made upon the enemy, let this one cry be raised by all the soldiers of God: It is the will of God! It is the will of God![2]
Within Fulcher of Chartres account of pope Urban’s speech, there was a promise of remission of sins for who ever took part in the crusade.
All who die by the way, whether by land or by sea, or in battle against the pagans, shall have immediate remission of sins. This I grant them through the power of God with which I am invested. O what a disgrace if such a despised and base race, which worships demons, should conquer a people which has the faith of omnipotent God and is made glorious with the name of Christ! With what reproaches will the Lord overwhelm us if you do not aid those who, with us, profess the Christian religion! Let those who have been accustomed unjustly to wage private warfare against the faithful now go against the infidels and end with victory this war which should have been begun long ago. Let those who for a long time, have been robbers, now become knights. Let those who have been fighting against their brothers and relatives now fight in a proper way against the barbarians. Let those who have been serving as mercenaries for small pay now obtain the eternal reward. Let those who have been wearing themselves out in both body and soul now work for a double honor. Behold! on this side will be the sorrowful and poor, on that, the rich; on this side, the enemies of the Lord, on that, his friends. Let those who go not put off the journey, but rent their lands and collect money for their expenses; and as soon as winter is over and spring comes, let them eagerly set out on the way with God as their guide.[3]
It is disputed whether the famous slogan "God wills it" or "It is the will of God" (deus vult in Latin, Dieu le veut in French) in fact was established as a rallying cry during the council. While Robert the Monk says so, it is also possible that the slogan was created as a catchy propaganda motto afterwards.
Urban II's own letter to the Flemish confirms that he granted "remission of all their sins" to those undertaking a "military enterprise" to "liberate the eastern churches." One notable contrast with the speeches of Robert the Monk, Guibert of Nogent and Baldric of Dol is the lesser emphasis on Jerusalem itself, which Urban only once mentions as his own focus of concern: in the letter to the Flemish he writes "they (the Turks) have seized the Holy City of Christ, embellished by his passion and resurrection, and blasphemy to say---have sold her and her churches into abominable slavery." In the letters to Bologna and Vallembrosa he refers to the crusaders' desire to set out for Jerusalem rather than to his own desire that Jerusalem be freed from Muslim rule. Urban II refers to liberating the church as a whole or the eastern churches generally rather than to reconquering Jerusalem itself. The phrases used are "churches of God in the eastern region" and "the eastern churches" (to the Flemish), "liberation of the Church" (to Bologna), "liberating Christianity [Lat. Christianitatis]" (to Vallembrosa), and "the Asian church" (to Catalonian counts). Coincidentally or not, Fulcher of Chartres' version of Urban's speech makes no explicit reference to Jerusalem. Rather it more generally refers to aiding the crusaders' Christian "brothers of the eastern shore," and to their loss of Asia Minor to the Turks.[4].
Urban II died on July 29, 1099, fourteen days after the fall of Jerusalem to the Crusaders, but before news of the event had reached Italy; his successor was Pope Paschal II (1099–1118).
Urban II and Sicily
Far more subtle than the Crusades, but far more successful over the long run, was Urban II's program of bringing Campania and Sicily firmly into the Catholic sphere, after generations of control from the Byzantine Empire and the Aghlabid and Fatimid emirs in Sicily. His agent in the Sicilian borderlands was the Norman ruler Roger I (1091–1101). In 1098, after a meeting at the Siege of Capua, Urban II bestowed on Roger I extraordinary prerogatives, some of the very same rights that were being withheld from temporal sovereigns elsewhere in Europe. Roger I was to be free to appoint bishops ("lay investiture"), free to collect Church revenues and forward them to the papacy (always a lucrative middle position), and free to sit in judgment on ecclesiastical questions. Roger I was to be virtually a legate of the Pope within Sicily. In re-Christianizing Sicily, seats of new dioceses needed to be established, and the boundaries of sees established, with a church hierarchy re-established after centuries of Muslim domination.
Roger I's consort Adelaide brought settlers from the valley of the Po to colonize eastern Sicily. Roger I as secular ruler seemed a safe proposition, as he was merely a vassal of his kinsman the Count of Apulia, himself a vassal of Rome, so as a well-tested military commander it seemed safe to give him these extraordinary powers, which were later to come to terminal confrontations between Roger I's Hohenstaufen heirs.
Beatification
Pope Urban was beatified in 1881 with his feast day on July 29.[5]
See also
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Notes
- ^ Fulcher of Chartres' account of Urban's speech, Urban II: Speech at Council of Clermont, 1095, Five versions of the Speech (available as part of the Internet Medieval Sourcebook).
- ^ Robert the Monk's account of Urban's speech, Urban II: Speech at Council of Clermont, 1095, Five versions of the Speech (available as part of the Internet Medieval Sourcebook).
- ^ Fulcher of Chartres account of Urban's speech, Urban II: Speech at Council of Clermont, 1095, Five versions of the Speech (available as part of the Internet Medieval Sourcebook).
- ^ Quotes from Urban II's letters taken from "Crusades, Idea and Reality, 1095-1274"; Documents of Medieval History 4; eds. Louise and Johnathan Riley-Smith, London 1981, 37-40.
- ^ http://saints.sqpn.com/saintu05.htm
External links
- Five versions of his speech for the First Crusade from Medieval Sourcebook.
- FMG on Eudes de Châtillon, Bishop of Ostia, Pope Urban II, the son of Milon the seigneur of Châtillon in the 11th century
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| Preceded by Victor III |
Pope 1088–99 |
Succeeded by Paschal II |
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