Middle Ages Egypt and suffering from a series of internal civil wars. The Byzantines also faced a revived Bulgaria, which in the late 12th and 13th centuries spread throughout the Balkans. The crusades were intended to seize Jerusalem from Muslim control. The First Crusade was proclaimed by Pope Urban II (pope 1088–99) at the Council of Clermont in 1095 in response to a request from the Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos (r. 1081–1118) for aid against further Muslim advances. Urban promised indulgence to anyone who took part. Tens of thousands of people from all levels of society mobilised across Europe and captured
Giselbert, Count of Clermont daughter of Giselbert and obtained the title by marriage. The second is that the activities of the occupants of Clermont in 1095, Giselbert and Fredelon, who some regarded as brigandage, were perceived by these two as the legitimate levying of tolls on river traffic. A 1095 entry in the chronicle of Giles of Orval reveals that what Otbert's objective was accomplished by purchase. The acquisition of Clermont and its subsequent enfeoffment to his vassal Lambert was part of a consistent policy of purchase which also brought to the prince-bishop the important fortresses of Mirwart, Couvin and, Bouillon. This second theory