Vézelay Abbey unique importance in the development of the Crusades. Thirty years before the Vézelay tympanum was carved, Pope Urban II planned on announcing his call for a crusade at La Madeleine. In 1095, Urban altered his plans and preached for the First Crusade at the Council of Clermont, but Vézelay remained a central figure in the history of the crusades. The tympanum was completed in 1130. Fifteen years after its completion, Bernard of Clairvaux chose Vézelay as the place from which he would call for a Second Crusade. Vézelay was even the staging point for the Third Crusade. It is there
Pope Urban II bitter confrontations with Roger's Hohenstaufen heirs. Pope Urban was beatified in 1881 by Pope Leo XIII with his feast day on 29 July. Pope Urban II Pope Urban II (; – 29 July 1099), born Odo of Châtillon or Otho de Lagery, was Pope from 12 March 1088 to his death in 1099. Urban II was a native of France. He was a descendant of a noble family in Châtillon-sur-Marne. Reims was the nearby cathedral school that Urban, at that time Eudes, began his studies at 1050. Before his papacy he was the abbot of Cluny and Bishop of Ostia