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
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