Source--Robertus Monachus, _Historia Iherosolimitana_ [Robert the Monk, "History of the Crusade to Jerusalem"], Bk. I., Chap. 1. Reprinted in _Recueildes Historiens des Croisades: Historiens Occidentaux_ (Paris, 1866), Vol. III., pp. 727-728. Adapted from translation by Dana C. Munro in _Univ. of Pa. Translations and Reprints_, Vol. I., No. 2, pp. 5-8. [Sidenote: The Council of Clermont] In the year of our Lord's Incarnation one thousand and ninety-five, a great council was convened within the bounds of Gaul, in Auvergne, in the city which is called Clermont. Over this Pope Urban II. presided, with the Roman bishops and cardinals. This council was a famous one on account of the concourse of both French and German bishops, and of princes as well. Having arranged the matters relating to the Church, the lord Pope went forth into a certain spacious plain, for no building was large enough to hold all the people. The Pope then, with sweet and persuasive eloquence, addressed those present in words something like the following, saying: [Sidenote: Pope Urban appeals to the French] "Oh, race of Franks, race beyond the mountains [the Alps], race beloved and chosen by God (as is clear from many of your works), set apart from all other nations by the situation of your country, as well as by your Catholic faith and the honor you render to the holy Church: to you our discourse is addressed, and for you our exhortations are intended. We wish you to know what a serious matter has led us to your country, for it is the imminent peril threatening you and all the faithful that has brought us hither. [Sidenote: The ravages of the Turks] "From the confines of Jerusalem and from the city of Constantinople a grievous report has gone forth and has been brought repeatedly to our ears; namely, that a race from the kingdom of the Persians, an accursed race, a race wholly alienated from God, 'a generation that set not their heart aright, and whose spirit was not steadfast with God' [Ps., lxxviii. 8], has violently invaded the lands of those Christians and has depopulated them by pillage and fire. They have led away a part of the captives into their own country, and a part they have killed by cruel tortures. They have either destroyed the churches of God or appropriated them for the rites of their own religion. They destroy the altars, after having defiled them with their uncleanness.... The kingdom of the Greeks [the Eastern Empire] is now dismembered by them and has been deprived of territory so vast in extent that it could not be traversed in two months' time. [Sidenote: Urban recalls the zeal and valor of the earlier Franks]