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Excerpt from "Urban II: Speech at the Council of Clermont 1095."
Speech given by Pope Urban II; Reprinted in Source Book for Medieval History; Edited by Oliver J. Thatcher and Edgar HolmesMcNeal; Published in 1905

Excerpt from "The Decline of Christian Power in the Holy Land, 1164: Letter from Aymeric, Patriarch of Antioch toLouis VII of France" (1164)
Originally written by Aymeric, Patriarch of Antioch; Reprinted in "Letters of the Crusaders," from Translations and Reprints from theOriginal Sources of European History; Edited by Dana C. Munro;Published in 1896

It is important to remember that the Crusades got their start by the written and spoken word. The emperor of the Byzantine Empire in the late eleventh century, Alexius I, wrote to the pope in Rome asking for help against the threat of...