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,
First Crusade between Rome and Constantinople in the years immediately before the crusade. In July 1095, Urban turned to his homeland of France to recruit men for the expedition. His travels there culminated in the ten day Council of Clermont, where on Tuesday 27 November he gave an impassioned sermon to a large audience of French nobles and clergy. There are five versions of the speech recorded by people who may have been at the council (Baldric of Dol, Guibert of Nogent, Robert the Monk, and Fulcher of Chartres) or who went on crusade (Fulcher and the anonymous author of the Gesta