Pope Urban named Adhemar, the bishop of Le Puy, as his representative on the expedition and its spiritual leader. He had been on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem nine years before. Following Adhemar’s example, everyone joining the expedition had a cross of red material sewn onto the corner of his coat, symbolising that like Jesus they too carried a cross. Clerics and monks were not to take the cross without the permission of their bishop or abbot. The elderly and infirm were discouraged, the newly married should have the permission of their wives, and no one should go without consulting his spiritual advisor. Otherwise anyone taking the cross was vowing to complete the journey to Jerusalem, and if he failed to set out or turned back too soon he would be punished with excommunication.
The first great secular lord to join the expedition was Count Raymond of Toulouse, who led the knights of Provence, and soon others joined. Robert, the duke of Normandy, who was the son of William the Conqueror, led the knights of northern France; Bohemond, prince of Taranto, led the Norman knights of southern Italy, among them his nephew Tancred; and Godfrey of Bouillon led the knights of Lorraine. Subject in theory to Adhemar, who represented the Pope, these barons became the secular leaders of the campaign, and together with their followers, family and friends, they brought to the expedition many of the most enterprising, experienced and formidable fighting men of Europe.
But Urban had launched a movement greater than he knew, and in the belief that the apocalypse was at hand thousands of peasants, artisans and other ordinary people, often very poor, took the cross for the eastward march to liberate the Holy Land. fet of all those who set out-the rich, the poor, the humble and the noble-only one in twenty would live to see Jerusalem.
World History
