Renaud II, Count of Clermont-en-Beauvaisis Renaud II, Count of Clermont-en-Beauvaisis Renaud II of Clermont ("Renaud/Rainald II de Clermont"; 1075–1152), son of Hugh I, Count of Clermont-en-Beauvaisis, and Marguerite de Roucy (daughter of Hilduin IV, Count of Montdidier). Renaud became Count of Clermont-en-Beauvaisis upon his father’s death in 1101. Renaud, also known as Rainald of Beauvais before he inherited the countship of Clermont-en-Beauvaisis from his father, took the Cross and joined the First Crusade in the army of Hugh the Great, Count of Vermandois, brother of Philip I of France. Hugh led a small army that travelled by ship, in an armada commanded by Arnout II,
History of the papacy (1048–1257) held the possibility of a reunion between the eastern and western Churches after almost four decades of schism, thereby strengthening the western Church in general and the papacy in particular. On November 27, 1095, Urban II made one of the most influential speeches in the Middle Ages at the Council of Clermont combining the ideas of making a pilgrimage to the Holy Land with that of waging a holy war against infidels. The pope called for a “War of the Cross,” or Crusade, to retake the holy lands from the unbelievers. France, the pope said, was already overcrowded and the