[Sidenote: Beginning of the Crusades.]

And just as if the success of these diabolical schemes was not a
sufficient triumph, fortune at this moment gave the Pope a chance of
superseding the Emperor in the eyes of all Europe, by inaugurating a
great popular movement of which under different circumstances the
Emperor would have been the natural leader. In 1085 the Eastern
Emperor Alexius had appealed to Henry against the Normans, but now
Henry was a negligible quantity--excommunicated, crowned Emperor by an
anti-pope, not likely to undertake a distant expedition. In 1095,
therefore, when Alexius needed aid against the Seljuk Turks, it was to
the Pope that he sent his envoys, who appeared at the Synod of
Piacenza. Those late converts to Mohammedanism had established their
kingdom of Roum over the greater part of Asia Minor with its capital
at the venerable city of Nicaa, and had captured Jerusalem, which thus
passed out of the hands of the tolerant Caliphs of Cairo into those of
the most fanatical section of Mohammedans. Pilgrims returning from
Jerusalem spread through Europe tales of the harsh treatment to which
they were subjected. Then in 1087 a new tribe of Saracens, the
Almoravides, crossed from Africa to Spain and inflicted a severe
defeat upon a Christian army. It seemed almost as if a combined
movement of the Mohammedan world had begun for the final extinction of
Christendom. If Gregory had been free he would have wished to promote
the reunion of the Churches by sending help to the Eastern Empire; so
that it was no novel idea that was suggested to the assembled magnates
at Piacenza. Urban II no doubt saw the opportunity offered for
asserting the leadership of the western world. Alexius' envoys were
heard with sympathy; but Urban felt the need of appeal to a larger
public, and summoned a great Council to Clermont-Ferrand in Auvergne,