Jerome of Périgord one of the "honest and learned" ("honestos et litteratos") French monks recruited by Bernard of Sedirac, archbishop of Toledo, at the suggestion of Pope Urban II. According to Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada, Bernard went to Rome in 1096, where he tried to join the First Crusade only to be turned back by Urban. The pope, however, was travelling in southern France between the synod of Clermont (November 1095) and the synod of Nîmes (July 1096). Bernard was present at Nîmes, and he and Urban both attended the consecration of the Basilica of Saint-Sernin in Toulouse on 24 May 1096. Moreover,
Pope Urban II than to his own desire that Jerusalem be freed from Muslim rule. It was believed that originally that Urban wanted to send a relatively small force to aid the Byzantines, however after meeting with two prominent members of the crusades Adhemar of Puy and Raymond of Saint-Guilles, Urban decided to rally a much larger force to retake Jerusalem. Urban II refers to liberating the church as a whole or the eastern churches generally rather than to reconquering Jerusalem itself. The phrases used are "churches of God in the eastern region" and "the eastern churches" (to the Flemish), "liberation of the