Pope Urban II speech reflect much more clearly what later authors thought Urban II should have said to launch the First Crusade than what Urban II actually did say. As a better means of evaluating Urban's true motives in calling for a crusade to the Holy Lands, there are four extant letters written by Pope Urban himself: one to the Flemish (dated December 1095); one to the Bolognese (dated September 1096); one to Vallombrosa (dated October 1096); and one to the counts of Catalonia (dated either 1089 or 1096–1099). However, whereas the three former letters were concerned with rallying popular support for the
Geoffrey of Vendôme monastery to Popes Urban and Paschal. He took part in the councils held at Clermont in 1095, by Pope Urban; at Saintes, in 1096, by the Apostolic Legate Amatus of Bordeaux; and at Reims, in 1131, by Innocent II (1130–43). He also strenuously defended the ecclesiastical principles in the question of investitures, which he qualified in several small tracts as heresy and simony; he wrote in the same spirit to Pope Paschal II when the latter made concessions (1111) to Emperor Henry V (1106–25). Finally, he always defended firmly the prerogatives, the rights, and the property of his abbey at