First Crusade in Asia Minor — Nicaea and Antioch — required large numbers of soldiers with experience in siege warfare, precisely the type of force recruited by Urban in France in his call to arms of 1095/6. First Crusade The First Crusade (1095–1099) was the first of a number of crusades that attempted to recapture the Holy Land, called for by Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont in 1095. Urban called for a military expedition to aid the Byzantine Empire, which had recently lost most of Anatolia to the Seljuq Turks. The resulting military expedition of primarily Frankish nobles, known
Pope Urban VI Pope Urban VI Pope Urban VI (; c. 1318 – 15 October 1389), born Bartolomeo Prignano (), was Pope from 8 April 1378 to his death in 1389. He is so far the last pope to be elected from outside the College of Cardinals. His reign, which began shortly after the end of the Avignon Papacy, was marked by immense conflict between rival factions as part of the Western Schism. Born in Itri, Prignano was a devout monk and learned casuist, trained at Avignon. On 21 March 1364 he was consecrated Archbishop of Acerenza in the Kingdom of Naples. He