Army of Hugh the Great on the First Crusade armies. Army of Hugh the Great on the First Crusade The Army of Hugh the Great on the First Crusade was formed after the Council of Clermont, led by Pope Urban II in November 1095. Hugh, son of Henry I, King of France, and his wife Anne of Kiev, was Count of Vermandois, "de jure uxoris", due to his marriage to Adelaide, Countess of Vermandois, daughter of Herbert IV, Count of Vermandois, and his wife Adele of Valois. In August 1096, Hugh and his small army left France "in prima profectione", the first army of the third wave to leave
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