Pope Urban II — "Let those who have been for a long time plunderers, now become Christian knights…"
Let those who have been for a long time plunderers, now become Christian knights.
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More from Pope Urban II
"If you must have blood, bathe in the blood of the infidels."
"I say it to those present, I proclaim it to the absent, but Christ commands it."
"Let those who have hitherto been engaged in internecine warfare against the faithful, now go against the infidel."
"That land, as the Scripture says, 'floweth with milk and honey,' and Jerusalem is the navel of the world."
"They cut open the navels of those whom they have captured, pull out their entrails, and tie them to a stake, and then beat them until their entrails are all drawn forth."
About Pope Urban II (c. 1042-1099)
Pope (1088-1099) whose Council of Clermont speech (November 1095) launched the First Crusade — the founding event of nine centuries of Christian-Muslim military conflict. Closely associated with Pope Gregory VII (his predecessor on papal-imperial reform). For an intellectual contrast, see Saladin, Kurdish-Muslim Sultan of Egypt and Syria (1138-1193) — Saladin recaptured Jerusalem in 1187, undoing the First Crusade Urban II launched 92 years earlier. Saladin's chivalrous treatment of Christian prisoners became the canonical Muslim counter-image to Crusader brutality. The cleanest before/after pairing of the Crusades' moral arc.
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Understanding this quote
What it means
Stop robbing and fighting for selfish gain — redirect that same violent energy and skill toward a cause sanctioned by the Church. Become warriors in service of Christ rather than lawless bandits. The call reframes existing behavior as potentially honorable, offering former criminals a path to moral legitimacy through organized, religiously justified military service.
Relevance to Pope Urban II
Urban II was a Cluniac monk and reform-minded pope who sought to channel Europe's unruly warrior class toward ecclesiastical ends. At Clermont in 1095 he launched the First Crusade, and this phrase captures his core strategy: redirecting endemic feudal violence and brigandage into holy war, offering plenary indulgence as the spiritual reward for military obedience to Rome.
The era
Medieval Europe suffered chronic lawlessness from landless knights and mercenaries who raided and plundered between wars. The Peace of God and Truce of God movements had failed to curb this violence. Urban's Crusade call offered an ingenious solution: export it eastward under papal authority, simultaneously relieving internal disorder, reasserting Church moral leadership, and framing Jerusalem's recovery as divine imperative.
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