Kingdom of Jerusalem Ascalon. Since sets a lower bound for the Samaritan population at 1,500, since the contemporary "Tolidah", a Samaritan chronicle, also mentions communities in Gaza and Acre. Benjamin of Tudela estimated the total Jewish population of 14 cities in the kingdom to be 1,200, making the Samaritan population of the time larger than the Jewish, perhaps for the only time in history. The First Crusade was preached at the Council of Clermont in 1095 by Pope Urban II, with the goal of assisting the Byzantine Empire against the invasions of the Seljuk Turks. However, the main objective quickly became the control
Pope Urban II than to his own desire that Jerusalem be freed from Muslim rule. It was believed that originally that Urban wanted to send a relatively small force to aid the Byzantines, however after meeting with two prominent members of the crusades Adhemar of Puy and Raymond of Saint-Guilles, Urban decided to rally a much larger force to retake Jerusalem. Urban II refers to liberating the church as a whole or the eastern churches generally rather than to reconquering Jerusalem itself. The phrases used are "churches of God in the eastern region" and "the eastern churches" (to the Flemish), "liberation of the