Submitted by: Submitted by Shah98
Views: 12
Words: 2014
Pages: 9
Category: World History
Date Submitted: 03/21/2016 10:01 AM
What in your view, was the short term significance of Pope Urban II and the Papal response to Alexius Comnenus?
The short term significance of Pope Urban II and the papal response to Alexius Comnenus led to four main consequences. Firstly, Pope Urban II brought unity amongst the divided Christians by promoting a brotherhood amongst the people. Pope Urban II secondly portrayed the first crusade to be a holy war against the Muslims and thirdly saw the call as an opportunity to increase the influence of the papacy. This led to Pope Urban II having more influence in the Vatican, and therefore an increased spread of Christianity in the Eastern countries. Pope Urban II encouraged the crusaders to fight against the Seljuk Turks in order to retrieve Jerusalem, which is the holy land of the Christians. The fourth significance was the impact the crusades had on the Muslim forces: the celebratory results of the crusades for the Christians meant losses and damages for the Muslims. The most significant factor out of the four is that Pope Urban II brought Christian Unity amongst the divided Christians, and this is supported throughout many of the contemporary sources researched.
Christian unity was the most significant consequence of Pope Urban II and the papal response to Alexius Comnenus. Due to the great schism, there was a formal division between the State church of the Roman Empire into Eastern (Greek) and Western (Latin) branches. Pope Urban II's motives was to bring unity between the Latin Romans in the West as in 1095, there was conflict between them. Urban II’s response to Alexius Comnenus's call for help was beneficial due to the divisions amongst the Christians in the west. Baldric of Dol's interpretation of Pope Urban II’s speech at Clermont proves the notion that Urban II brought Christian Unity, Balderic states “you are sons of the same Christ and the same Church'” which shows Pope Urban II promoting a brotherhood and a brethren amongst the Christians,...