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Nipissing University HISTORY 3137(Fall 2012) – Crusade and Jihad First Written Assignment An analysis of Pope Urban II’s speech at Clermont Ever since the first crusade itself, a speech given by Pope Urban II’s at Clermont in central France to has been seen as the spark that led to a great explosion, an unprecedented campaign, involving people from many parts of Europe, in an effort to recover the Holy Sepulcher for Christendom. Some modern historians tend to deemphasize the speech, but there's no doubt that contemporaries, once Jerusalem had been taken, looked back to this one incident as a turning point. At the Internet Medieval Sourcebook, there are five different versions of the speech recorded. All of them were written some years later, when everyone knew how things had turned out, but some at least are the product of men who were present on the day the speech was delivered. More than records of what was said, they are records of what the writers thought was important about the entire crusading enterprise. Nevertheless, I am asking you to write an analysis of the speech(es) as a definer and motivator of a specific audience, the people, clerical and lay, who heard Pope Urban speak and who reacted positively. Although the writers are not modern reporters, they tried to present their readers with a picture of the Pope and his audience, and a credible report of the kind of speech that motivated so unprecedented event as the First Crusade. There are two possible ways at least of approaching this project. First, you can put yourself in the position of the Pope who is trying to move his audience. What values, images, and promises did he think would motivate his listeners? Second, what did the Pope (according to these writers) think his audience was like? These two approaches are really simply different emphases and are not mutually exclusive. Remember this paper like other papers is part of an ongoing conversation about the first crusade. I strongly suggest that you take a point raised by some modern or medieval writer and make your paper a reaction to that other person's view -- whether through agreement or some degree of disagreement. This will give your paper the kind of focus that will be satisfying to the reader. The speeches are found at http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/urban2-5vers.html Length: 8 pages Due: October 4 Worth: 20%