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 bitter confrontations with Roger's Hohenstaufen heirs. Pope Urban was beatified in 1881 by Pope Leo XIII with his feast day on 29 July. Pope Urban II Pope Urban II (; – 29 July 1099), born Odo of Châtillon or Otho de Lagery, was Pope from 12 March 1088 to his death in 1099. Urban II was a native of France. He was a descendant of a noble family in Châtillon-sur-Marne. Reims was the nearby cathedral school that Urban, at that time Eudes, began his studies at 1050. Before his papacy he was the abbot of Cluny and Bishop of Ostia