Medieval Fake News? The Lost word of the Council of Clermont. 

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‘From the confines of Jerusalem and the city of Constantinople a horrible tale has gone forth… an accursed race, a race utterly alienated from God, a generation forsooth which has not directed its heart and has not entrusted its spirit to God, has invaded the lands of those Christians and has depopulated them by the sword, pillage and fire.’

 

This supposed start of a call to arms uttered by Pope Urban II on the 27th of November 1095 to several hundred members of the Catholic Church was to change the course of history. This was the beginning of the speech that sparked and inspired countless medieval Christian offenses against their religious counterparts; formed the basis for the European Crusading Ideology that was to follow for the next 500 years; and is even to blame for two Englishmen, dressed in Crusader costumes, being strip-searched at the 2022 Qatar World Cup.

 

But, there is just a slight problem. Despite its monumental significance, no one knows who was at the Council of Clermont in 1095. No one knows what exactly Urban II really said to this unidentifiable group. And any surviving evidence, including the extract above, seem to have been produced several years after the council had concluded. So how can historians truly understand what happened? How can a speech so pivotal to European and Asian history have been lost to posterity? And, perhaps, should we consider the documentation of Urban’s speech one of the earliest cases of fake news?

 

While there are numerous accounts of Urban’s speech, their validity can easily be questioned. This articles opening extract was taken from an account of the entire First Crusade called Historia Iherosolymitana which was written by a man known as Robert the Monk. Unsurprisingly, Robert was a French Monk believed to have lived sometime roughly between 1055 and 1122. There is general agreement among historians that his chronicle was written in 1107 about a decade after the Council of Clermont; what there is no agreement on is whether Robert heard the speech firsthand. Robert claims he had been commissioned to write the chronicle because he had been present at the council but this is the only verifiable piece of evidence for his whereabouts on 27th November 1095 – questionable to say the least! Regardless of whether Robert had, or had not personally listened to Urban, perhaps he should be commended for his ability to remember the speech verbatim 12 years after it had been narrated. Or one could assume Robert utilised some of his own creative licence and his account is not truly perfect.

 

This issue of retrospective reconstruction plagues virtually all near contemporary accounts of the speech. The most accurate account is widely considered to be from Fulcher of Chartres, who was assumed to have been at the council given his status and proximity to Clermont in 1095. His 1101 Gesta Francorum Iherusalem peregrinantium, or to give it its English title A history of the expedition to Jerusalem, traced his own journey from the Council across Europe to the Middle East to fight in the crusades. But even this account was produced some six years later after the council when Fulcher had returned from combat. It has been suggested by some that Fulcher’s account is actually the basis for Robert’s work! And even worse, other well circulated accounts like that of William of Malmesbury are thought to have been produced over 30 years after the speech and are combinations of both Robert and Fulcher’s writings. Accounts of Urban’s oration seem almost like a medieval game of Chinese whispers where misinformation became disseminated across countries and kingdoms… sound familiar?

 

So how have historians unpicked the speech and attempted piece it together across the past millennia? One tactic deployed has been attempts to pull together various accounts of the address in order to draw out some of the general themes present. From this, a flavour of what Urban might have implied can be assembled. Clearly there were strong appeals to the Christian world to prevent the suffering of those in the east at the hands of the vicious Saracens. And it was probably promised that those who went would be given a remission for all their sins.

 

Ultimately, however, precisely what Urban said has been lost forever. And one of the most critical speeches in all of human history, along with its entire audience, will remain a mystery. Forever a jigsaw, which historians, amateur or academic alike, will continue to solve for yet another millennia