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,
Pope Urban II Crusades, and establishing the objectives, his letters to the Catalonian lords instead beseech them to continue the fight against the Moors, assuring them that doing so would offer the same divine rewards as a conflict against the Seljuks. It is Urban II's own letters, rather than the paraphrased versions of his speech at Clermont, that reveal his actual thinking about crusading. Nevertheless, the versions of the speech have had a great influence on popular conceptions and misconceptions about the Crusades, so it is worth comparing the five composed speeches to Urban's actual words. Fulcher of Chartres has Urban saying this: