115. The Crusades Begin...The Call of Pope Urban II

Blah blah Byzantines, blah blah Seljuks, when do we get to the FIGHTING???

How about NOW. 

Well, sorta. 

Finally our story finds us back in the West, where Pope Urban II will stir affections far and wide, compelling the feudal Franks to storm the Holy Land. 

But what were the motivations of these war-hungry comrades? Fame? Piety? Dollar bills?? You'll have to tune in to find out.

You'll also find out all about skull shavers, Myrtle Beach, and whether golfing is cool yet (it's not). 

Transcript

Jim Salmon (00:00.495)
everybody, welcome to Church History for Chumps. My name is John Simm and I'm here with Thomas the Tank Engine Duo and Taylor, I hardly know her, Treadway.

Tom Bombadil (00:11.896)
haha

GOBBA GOOL (00:12.012)
Gosh, good job.

Jim Salmon (00:12.719)
How you guys doing?

GOBBA GOOL (00:16.864)
I'm back from Myrtle Beach.

Jim Salmon (00:19.563)
Myrtle Beach. Where's that?

GOBBA GOOL (00:23.222)
South Carolina.

Jim Salmon (00:24.687)
Did you go to the beach?

GOBBA GOOL (00:26.648)
Yeah, was like the event was like on the beach.

Jim Salmon (00:29.569)
Okay, okay. Now-

Tom Bombadil (00:30.574)
Really? I thought your head was looking a little chapped, so that explains it.

GOBBA GOOL (00:31.595)
Yeah.

GOBBA GOOL (00:35.859)
no, just, I got a skull shaver. Maybe they can sponsor us. I got it, I got it.

Jim Salmon (00:41.391)
That's the name of the brand?

Tom Bombadil (00:42.188)
You're like, extra, you're extra smoother.

GOBBA GOOL (00:44.408)
Yeah, so a skull shaver is like, John Simon, aren't you bald too?

Jim Salmon (00:49.279)
I'm shaved, thank you. I don't like to be like slick bald, but I like the fuzz. Let me see.

GOBBA GOOL (00:51.726)
Yeah.

GOBBA GOOL (00:55.254)
So do you use a cropped, do you use like a, just like your regular shears?

Jim Salmon (01:01.101)
Yeah, I use a trimmer, dude. I hate the freaking round. It just, I hate it. It takes so long. It's not fast. It is not faster. It's not.

Tom Bombadil (01:01.505)
Cheers.

GOBBA GOOL (01:06.898)
But it's so much faster. Nope, it's faster. Well, you do what you buy like a $20 one from, you know.

Jim Salmon (01:15.179)
No, I bought a good one. bought, I mean, I bought off of Amazon. So Lord knows, you know, what tiny hands put mine together, but, I don't know. Well, but you have a skull shaver. So would you recommend it? Okay.

Tom Bombadil (01:22.765)
Hmm. Hmm.

GOBBA GOOL (01:22.88)
tiny, tiny Chinese hands.

Yeah, I would. would. Any bald guys listening. It's just the name of the brand. Any bald guys listening and you're like tired of taking the shears. Use this call shaver.

Tom Bombadil (01:30.764)
What's a skull shaver? okay.

Jim Salmon (01:33.966)
Yeah.

Tom Bombadil (01:39.01)
I was just picturing like a razor, you like you shave your face with, but it's like this wide and it's curved to fit like your head.

GOBBA GOOL (01:47.994)
that sounds dangerous. Dude, no, it's like local Ontario man scalp scalps himself.

Jim Salmon (01:51.183)
It sounds like a torture device.

Tom Bombadil (01:51.658)
You just get the whole thing in one swipe.

Jim Salmon (01:58.563)
local so I used to I when I first went bald when I first chose bald thank you because it's a choice no no no when I first chose bald I was really like committed to being one of those like straight razor guys and dude Annie had my wife had to ban me from it because she used to call it the potato peeler because

Tom Bombadil (02:00.78)
Huh

GOBBA GOOL (02:06.295)
No, shaved when you chose. OK.

Jim Salmon (02:22.283)
I'd just be doing real well and then all of a sudden, it's just like a pencil sharpener, dude. It's just awful.

GOBBA GOOL (02:30.563)
Dude and they bleed.

Tom Bombadil (02:30.946)
Walking around like Hitman with a super bald head and a bandaid.

Jim Salmon (02:34.223)
I'm gonna be a tater.

GOBBA GOOL (02:34.465)
Yeah, bro. When you nick yourself in the head too, it just bleeds forever.

Jim Salmon (02:40.621)
Yeah, and it hurts. It hurts a lot. Yeah, it sucks. That's actually, we'll have that be our prompt for our commenters today. Are you bald? And do you think you will be? Let us know in the comments below.

GOBBA GOOL (02:43.063)
Yeah, well, there you go.

GOBBA GOOL (02:54.051)
Comment on Spotify. You can find us on Facebook or Instagram and we are on YouTube now.

Jim Salmon (03:00.622)
Yeah.

Tom Bombadil (03:01.23)
Facebook or Instagram, can post a picture and we can decide if you're We'll let you know if you're going to be bald.

Jim Salmon (03:03.715)
That's right, we'll let you know!

GOBBA GOOL (03:05.817)
That's a good idea. That's good.

Jim Salmon (03:07.939)
Thomas you, I feel like you've got those good old Scandinavian jeans. my gosh. You're looking perfect, bro. You've got the...

Tom Bombadil (03:12.92)
Yeah, I mean...

look at it yeah it gets if i if i cut it if i cut it shorter i can tell i'm starting it's starting to lose a little bit right in the front but i think my dad was bald yeah i think my dad was balding pretty good by this age and i think that you get your hair genetics from your mom's side actually so i think i'm in the clear

GOBBA GOOL (03:16.043)
It's not fair.

Jim Salmon (03:25.455)
Dude, I had that hairline when I was 19.

Jim Salmon (03:36.816)
Yeah, dude, you are, you're a blessed man. You got that, they got that Latino hair, but only blonde instead. Gosh. No, that's beautiful, man. Great job. Yeah. Taylor. That's right. All those years of eating that, uh, that vinegar fish. Yeah, that's right. Gafilta fish and everything. Oh man.

Tom Bombadil (03:40.033)
Hahaha

Tom Bombadil (03:43.886)
Yeah, it's called Swedish.

GOBBA GOOL (03:44.639)
Wow. Yeah.

Your little Henga dinga dirgin jeans have paid off.

Tom Bombadil (03:52.938)
Yep. We pickled herring

GOBBA GOOL (03:58.369)
Yeah

Jim Salmon (04:02.651)
Well Thomas, are you doing man? We're always talking about Taylor's exploits and left and right and what how's the world of froth these days man? That's what I want to

GOBBA GOOL (04:03.267)
Well, yeah.

Tom Bombadil (04:12.448)
Yeah, thanks dude. I play that maybe a couple times a month still. Not as much as I used to, but still fun. I have been doing a little bit more regular golf, just for fun. The guy that I pastor with, he likes to golf, so that's been kind of one of our fun activities to do together every once in a while.

Jim Salmon (04:24.761)
real golf, okay.

GOBBA GOOL (04:32.843)
What's your favorite club? Like what's your favorite thing to hit with?

Jim Salmon (04:33.263)
Mm-hmm.

Tom Bombadil (04:36.878)
I'm gonna say I can hit my pitching wedge really far for the golfer. I can hit my pitching wedge 150 yards Yeah, yeah

GOBBA GOOL (04:45.849)
No way. Would you just, dude, I dare you to just play a whole game with just a pitching wedge.

Tom Bombadil (04:50.962)
I've sometimes like just I've had a round just going so terrible I just start only hitting the pitching wedge.

GOBBA GOOL (04:55.609)
Just think I'm going back to old reliable. There's guys that only play with like nines. So I've never heard of anybody only playing. I have begun dabbling.

Tom Bombadil (05:01.324)
Yeah, yeah, makes sense. Do you golf Taylor?

Jim Salmon (05:07.848)
gosh, it's both of you guys.

Tom Bombadil (05:08.278)
No, all right, next time you're in town, I'll hit the links. We'll get John out there. We can figure out a way to make John think it's cool.

GOBBA GOOL (05:11.607)
Yeah

Jim Salmon (05:15.791)
It's gonna be hard. It's gonna be hard.

Tom Bombadil (05:18.572)
I bet I could do it. I could figure it out.

GOBBA GOOL (05:19.461)
dude, what better sport is just going out with your homies and swearing at the grass every time you mess up, every time you hit and just, you know, getting frustrated and drinking Arnold Palmer's.

Jim Salmon (05:31.695)
The desert is so inhospitable for golf. I don't know. It's just...

GOBBA GOOL (05:35.801)
Dude, what was the temperature today? Like 75 degrees the entire day?

Jim Salmon (05:40.216)
Not today, you know, I mean, I did, I took a walk today. I'm probably like getting close to doxing myself, but I took a walk to an artificial lake in a park near my part of the city. I'm not going to say which, I don't want freaking people showing up at my door. But it was beautiful. And this lake has been just absolutely.

Tom Bombadil (05:59.896)
Nice walk by the lakeside.

Jim Salmon (06:03.727)
crapped on by the whole city. it's not a real lake. I'm from Minnesota. I used to swim in the lake with my sister like a weirdo. Okay, here's the thing. It's not a great lake, but it's amazing. And I went there today and like the sun was setting and there were people just fishing, looking for rainbow trout. I was like, I love this, man. I'm going to come here all the time. So shout out to artificial. And I had to have this thought. I was like, this is not something the Lord made, but the Lord inspired it.

and that's good enough for me. So, thank you Lord. And whoever filled this hole with water.

Tom Bombadil (06:33.966)
Hmm. Yep.

GOBBA GOOL (06:34.978)
Right.

GOBBA GOOL (06:39.607)
You know, the Imago day inside of the people that made it. Really? Yeah.

Jim Salmon (06:43.983)
That's right. That's right. Also, Thomas, I did catch your little trick there earlier. So noted, sir. If I get if I get shot by a by an obsessed fan, that's that's going to sit on. That's going to sit on your conscience for a long time.

Tom Bombadil (06:53.996)
vinyl listener.

GOBBA GOOL (06:55.223)
Dude, you have a higher likelihood. You have a higher likelihood of getting shot by somebody at that park, sir. And anyone in Tucson that's figured out which part we're talking about knows exactly they know.

Tom Bombadil (07:05.078)
It's true. It's true.

Jim Salmon (07:06.361)
They already know. They already know. They know that there's one type of thing you can catch in that lake. Or it's an actual body. Which has been found in good old lakeside lakes. whatever. Alright. I love the east side bro. What can I say? Alright. Yeah man, we missed you too. It was a good episode. What did we talk about?

GOBBA GOOL (07:13.517)
That's hands. Yeah. Yes. Gosh. Yeah.

Tom Bombadil (07:17.943)
You

Tom Bombadil (07:27.214)
Sorry I missed you guys on the last pod. Thanks for going without me.

GOBBA GOOL (07:30.402)
Yeah

Jim Salmon (07:34.795)
the great schism! Gosh, what a heavy hitter. Any notes for us man? Yeah.

GOBBA GOOL (07:35.097)
is Tommy, what'd you think when you listen back to the episode?

Tom Bombadil (07:35.438)
Great schism.

Tom Bombadil (07:40.43)
I did go look at the comments and from the comments I could tell it was a great episode.

Jim Salmon (07:46.8)
Hmm, okay. All right. Hey listeners, why don't you let us know how you feel about Thomas never listening to our episodes? I've listened to every episode, uh, just because I've been in every episode. I don't listen to all of them, but you know, yeah, I just.

GOBBA GOOL (07:53.858)
Yeah.

Tom Bombadil (08:01.016)
Well, by that rubric, I've listened to about 75%.

Jim Salmon (08:04.047)
okay 80 to 90 percent thank you give yourself a little more credit yeah but uh

GOBBA GOOL (08:10.797)
We had so many comments. I'll do shout outs real quick. Shout out Anthony, Elliot, Mike Duell again, Thomas's long lost cousin. Shout out Jackson, Enoch, Andrew, or Jacob Andrew, sorry. All right, Jake. LM and LM. Yes. Yes. That's the.

Jim Salmon (08:14.925)
We did, we had a lot of comments. Yeah, yeah, let's some shout outs.

Jim Salmon (08:32.201)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Thank you guys. We love it's it's literally become one of my highlights where I get we get these random little Comments popping up stirring up conversation and such. It's always a good time. So Yeah, keep it going. Tell a friend. dude. I need to check this I think we are very close to Having a thousand followers on Spotify last time I checked we were at like we were like two dozen away

GOBBA GOOL (09:00.665)
It's so dramatic, I can hear you like clicking away in the background. What are we at? The tension is rising.

Jim Salmon (09:07.247)
Let me check, Dude, 997. Man, we are inches away. Yeah, I think we do. Yeah.

Tom Bombadil (09:13.326)
damn.

GOBBA GOOL (09:13.513)
my gosh. Guys, we hit it this week. We hit it this week. So please, if you have not followed us, follow us. Tommy, have you followed us?

Tom Bombadil (09:24.686)
Yeah!

Jim Salmon (09:25.623)
And don't unfollow us, please. Like...

GOBBA GOOL (09:26.393)
Tommy did not sound so sure. Yeah. I believe you.

Tom Bombadil (09:30.378)
I'll prove it to you.

can prove it.

Jim Salmon (09:34.699)
It's fine. It's fine. We don't need it's like it's like we don't you don't vote for yourself when you're running for office. You just you just got to wait for the people to do it. No, you don't.

GOBBA GOOL (09:41.005)
Yeah, you do. Yes, you do.

Tom Bombadil (09:45.688)
Boom following.

GOBBA GOOL (09:45.729)
Well, tonight, are we starting? Are we good to start? We've already done our, we plugged our socials. We've done shout outs. We've talked about golf and John.

Jim Salmon (09:47.479)
Wow. Yeah, let's run it. Let's run it. Yeah.

dude, we haven't done a haiku in a very long time and it's because no one has offered us any money and I'm sorry but we... no money, no haikus. That's how it works. We don't That's right, we will not write art crappy poetry unless you throw your dollar bills in our direction. makes us seem like dancers.

Tom Bombadil (10:04.11)
Yeah, we don't want you free.

GOBBA GOOL (10:05.623)
That's the one piece of content we'll deprive you people from.

GOBBA GOOL (10:12.161)
That's right. All right. Well, I don't you guys do these amazing cold opens, right? But I have I just want to read a little bit of a thing for us to get us going a little start. This is I'm actually not going to tell you.

Jim Salmon (10:24.857)
Thank you.

GOBBA GOOL (10:40.675)
who wrote it or when it's from, but I think it's important.

The question of how Christians are treated in the Holy Land is a political question. And it is because much of what happens in this region is funded by us, our own taxpayers, military action, but also the cultural and religious life of the region is founded to a great extent by the church.

And so the question that we've asked for some time now is, what's the outcome? How are Christians in the Holy Land doing? Are they thriving or are they suffering? The truth has become pretty obvious over the past couple of years, which is in Israel, they are not thriving.

Jim Salmon (11:33.699)
Benjamin Netanyahu.

GOBBA GOOL (11:37.537)
I wonder when you what do you guys think? It was Tucker Carlson. was Tucker Carlson.

Jim Salmon (11:39.395)
Was that Tucker Carlson?

Tom Bombadil (11:41.59)
I was, that's so funny because I was going to say it sounded, was going to make up a Jewish name to say, but it was Tucker Carlson.

Jim Salmon (11:49.193)
That's a schlomo-wernstein, man.

GOBBA GOOL (11:54.235)
So that was Tucker Carlson Facebook post today roughly six hours ago.

Jim Salmon (11:59.84)
okay, wow.

GOBBA GOOL (12:01.706)
And that just popped up on my feet. I don't even follow Tucker Carlson. But it made me think there's something now in the water. And I think this is very interesting. We live in a very, very interesting time. see anti-Semitism on the rise again. We've seen if you are on any sort of religious TikTok, you've seen the deus vault going around and the kind of this we want to have a second crusade or not a second crusade, more like a.

Jim Salmon (12:27.028)
Like a seventh crusade.

GOBBA GOOL (12:28.408)
a seventh crusade, a modern crusade has been kind of going around and the meme culture has now sort of adopted this and it all sort of is centering around what's happening to Christians in the Holy Land. And I thought, my goodness, this is such a good time for us to really be doing this series, I think. So I don't have the ability nor the gumption.

Jim Salmon (12:51.225)
Hmm, okay.

Tom Bombadil (12:56.174)
I think that's why, by the way, I think that's why people voted for this, for the Crusades. Not just because it's interesting, but because it is a little bit of a broader conversation right now.

GOBBA GOOL (13:01.924)
Yeah.

GOBBA GOOL (13:06.648)
Yeah, I know we're, you know, we're church history for chumps and good historians never dare get too close to the sun of modern times because there's so many moving parts it's impossible to keep track of. But I think...

Jim Salmon (13:06.905)
Sure, yeah.

GOBBA GOOL (13:23.514)
There's some serious parallels here, but there's also some very significant historical distinctions between what was going through the mind of your average knight in France that's stitching the Templar cross onto his shirt and say Tom from Florida sharing a meme about wanting to invade, you know, the Middle East again. And I think that there's some

probably similar feelings. I think people are maybe frustrated, they're scared, they're seeing what's happening to Christians, and they say I have some brotherhood in that. I think there's probably some misplaced anger in these things. There's some false hopes, probably. But what I want to do today is walk us back into the mind of the first crusaders and then look very in detail.

at Pope Urban as he

sort of walks onto the scene in 1095. And you know, we talked about the speech of Clermont, I think last month, where the Council of Clermont, where he finishes their ecclesiastical meeting, and then he goes outside, he calls everybody up, and he has all sorts of nobles there, and hundreds of people in attendance, and this is when he calls for the first crusade. So what we're gonna do, we're gonna look at some history, and then we're going to dive deep into the primary source.

Jim Salmon (14:47.567)
Mm-hmm.

GOBBA GOOL (14:53.402)
Robert the Monk's account. So I think before I dive in, you guys have anything else before we sort of start telling our little story?

Jim Salmon (15:03.597)
I mean this is a big moment because we've spent basically the last like five weeks just kind of stretching out on the sidelines and this is really where the sounding gun is going off and we're headed for the races. So this is it, this is the beginning. is, know, Urban the Second is the, he's the harbinger. I mean he's not the one who set up the dominoes but he is one of the fingers to push the first one over.

GOBBA GOOL (15:20.442)
That's right.

Jim Salmon (15:32.717)
Yeah, this is big.

Tom Bombadil (15:33.026)
Dude just used like five analogies in 20 seconds. I love it.

Jim Salmon (15:35.983)
Come on, man, you gotta keep up, bro.

GOBBA GOOL (15:39.163)
Yeah, that's so funny. So Urban, actually, you said he was the one that pushed the domino. And I think that's a really good way to put it, because Gregory VII in 1074 actually sets up the dominoes. He does a test run. And this is where I think the modern parallels really make you go, oh, dang. Like, what's happening in our time?

Jim Salmon (15:56.527)
Hmm

GOBBA GOOL (16:07.322)
Because Gregory VII in 1074 actually calls for, one might say the first crusade. But nothing happens, obviously. And so it's not for 21 years later. So I actually have, this is Pope Gregory VII, who, if you want to go down a little ecclesiastical rabbit hole in your own research, look up.

Jim Salmon (16:20.687)
Hmm.

GOBBA GOOL (16:37.59)
what was going on with the papacy right before Urban. Because you had this clash with Henry IV and the Pope, and it was all over who gets to place people in their ecclesiastical positions.

Jim Salmon (16:56.685)
Henry was the Frankish king, is that right?

GOBBA GOOL (16:59.77)
Holy Roman Empire.

Jim Salmon (17:01.992)
okay, okay, yeah.

GOBBA GOOL (17:03.578)
Yeah, so it's called the investiture controversy. So if you want to follow a rabbit hole and just have some fun little reading on your own, that's really interesting. And I didn't have time to sort of like dive into the whole thing because that would have taken up a whole other episode. But essentially, the investiture controversy is trying to it's a battle between the government and the church.

Jim Salmon (17:07.779)
Mm-hmm. Okay.

Jim Salmon (17:33.134)
Mm-hmm.

GOBBA GOOL (17:33.723)
And ultimately, I think the church ends up winning, which sets the stage. Once again, the dominoes being put up sets the stage for Urban to be able to come and do this. But there's other factors. So I do want to read here. This is from Gregory the seventh and 1074. I'm not going read the whole letter, but just a couple.

We hereby inform you that the bearer of this letter on his recent return from across the sea from Palestine came to Rome to visit us. He repeated what we had heard from many others that a pagan race had overcome the Christians and with horrible cruelty had devastated everything almost to the walls of Constantinople and we're now covering the conquered lands with tyrannical violence and that they had slain many thousands of Christians as if they were but sheep.

If we love God and wish to be recognized as Christians, we should be filled with grief at the misfortune of this great empire, the Greek, and the murder of so many Christians. But simply to grieve is not our whole duty. The example of our Redeemer and the bond of eternal love demand that we should lay down our lives to libera-

That sounds eerily similar to another speech at Claremont that we talked about a month ago, doesn't it? So you have Gregory sort of testing the waters, and there's a whole discussion on why that doesn't work.

Jim Salmon (18:56.429)
Mm-hmm.

GOBBA GOOL (19:05.922)
and why that sort of falls on deaf ears. A lot of it is that controversy between the two. The papacy was not as strengthened then. But I think the modern parallel here is are the memes dominoes being set up?

Jim Salmon (19:05.923)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Salmon (19:27.384)
Hmm.

GOBBA GOOL (19:29.016)
You know what I'm saying? That's why we study history. I mean, one, it's fun. But aside from us having kind of our nerdy fun with like,

going through primary sources that were written a thousand years ago. The question really is like how do these lessons and wisdom, how does this apply to our time and maybe we can we can grow and that's what I've been wondering. I'm wondering like are the the meme lords and the Tucker Carlson questions how are Christians doing in Israel? What's going on over there?

Jim Salmon (20:02.159)
Mm-hmm.

GOBBA GOOL (20:04.77)
I wonder, are those dominoes being set up? What do you guys think? What do you think?

Jim Salmon (20:08.207)
Mm-hmm.

Tom Bombadil (20:14.574)
It's hard to discern, partially because the of the meme is like this double-edged sword where...

GOBBA GOOL (20:22.808)
Live by the meme, die by the meme.

Jim Salmon (20:24.793)
Mm-hmm

Tom Bombadil (20:25.368)
Kind of, because it's like the, in some ways we're like the most unserious generation ever, like in the world, right? Like there's this, there's like this dark irony that kind of under, is the undercurrent to how memes work. But at the same time, it's a legitimate form of communication still. Like it's not.

GOBBA GOOL (20:35.095)
Yeah.

Tom Bombadil (20:54.616)
Just because there's an unserious kind of vibe to it, memes are how elections are won now. It's how popular opinion is shifted. So I do think it's something to take seriously. I do think that there's more than memes going on as well. But yeah, I don't know if I would draw a full parallel to

GOBBA GOOL (21:05.082)
That's right.

Tom Bombadil (21:23.98)
Tucker Carlson talking about Israel to these popes talking about Israel. There's some big differences, I think.

Jim Salmon (21:31.343)
Mm-hmm.

GOBBA GOOL (21:34.695)
well, I mean, these popes are referencing like actual massacres, right? So yes, there's never one for one. But I think what we we want to try to understand is what the the people of France as they were called to participate in this first crusade, what would have been going through their minds. So

Jim Salmon (22:00.442)
Mm-hmm.

GOBBA GOOL (22:01.858)
We have to remember. they're like, they didn't call themselves feudal at the time, but they're in the height of the feudal system right now. So in their mind, like they're just this spread out little thing that you don't travel more. think I read more than 50 miles. Most people didn't travel more than 50 miles from their home or their place of birth.

you're pretty much waking up and you're working the land and Monty Python and the griminess that they portrayed is a lot more accurate than I think we want to give people credit for. Like it was not a pleasant experience. you maybe had a priest that was maybe put there by,

Jim Salmon (22:43.342)
Hmm.

Jim Salmon (22:49.241)
Mm-hmm.

GOBBA GOOL (22:56.768)
a cardinal that was maybe there by Rome, attached by Rome. So there was just so many little pieces and they didn't really necessarily even care who was king. And all of a sudden, very rapidly, these authority structures are forming. And you now have the pope.

coming into France in 1095, 21 years after Gregory, and he's entering a country where the people value this idea of pilgrimage, they value holy relics, and they're all super superstitious and terrified of going to hell.

Jim Salmon (23:33.699)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Salmon (23:42.895)
Yeah, I was gonna say, they all have this huge guilt complex too, right? Like, wasn't this like the height of sociological, like, I'll do anything for penance, please, I don't want to burn an eternity forever, yeah.

GOBBA GOOL (23:54.051)
Yeah. Right. Right. And so you have these people feeling this, experiencing this, right? The this is everything that we just talked about. That's the people that the pope is walking into the room to talk to, walking into the country to talk to. And then you have on top of that what was actually happening in the Middle East.

Jim Salmon (24:18.54)
Mm-hmm.

GOBBA GOOL (24:19.256)
You have these massacres and these reports and you have Alexios writing to the Pope saying, help us. And then there was other reports. I don't remember who Gregory, it doesn't say Gregory the seventh though, was referencing the same wars. I don't, I don't remember how that plea for help came to him. And keep in mind, this is

Gregory's in 1074 is only 20 years removed from the schism that communication so there wasn't You know, we talked about the schism is like always this break I mean sort of and Then and then within 50 years Alexios is writing Urban saying hey, please help

Jim Salmon (25:03.715)
Yeah.

GOBBA GOOL (25:11.834)
So, and they had had discussions about mending the bridges, but that's what's happening outside. And they don't know that there's no cameras. There's no nothing. And so all it takes is the Pope having these reports. And yes, I have actually, I don't want to sound like I'm rambling here, but I do want to get this out there. I, um, on full disclosure.

Tommy, I didn't say I didn't believe you when you did your episode on the brutality. I just thought maybe there was more to the story. And I wondered and I did my own research and I've read a ton of.

about as unbiased sources as I can. Like I didn't go to my church history book assigned by Gateway Seminary, right? I went to like as many like secular sources. And and Thomas Asbridge, I think, is about as fair as you possibly can get. And this is his quote on sort of the the motives for the crusade. As we talk about these people that.

Urban is inspiring. He says this, even so more altruistic impulses probably also were at work. Many medieval Pope seemed to earnestly to have believed that they had a wider duty to protect Christendom. They also expected upon death to answer to God for the fate of every soul once in their care. So I think I've kind of come if I if I had to like choose

a spot. This is very convenient. What I'm going to say. I'm landed. I've landed firmly in the middle of like, I think that there are good questions on the side of how widespread was the brutality? I think there's and I think there's good questions on the side of like, well, would you want your Christian brothers going through that? Shouldn't we go do something about that?

Jim Salmon (27:12.493)
Mm-hmm.

GOBBA GOOL (27:25.964)
And I think if you... All I'm trying to say is I understand how now, even if Pope Urban's motives were maybe not the purest, I think it's probably safe to say a lot of people went over there really thinking they were gonna do some...

Jim Salmon (27:45.177)
Taylor, can I share that I actually also had a quote from Thomas Asbridge about this very same topic?

Tom Bombadil (27:53.134)
Thanks

GOBBA GOOL (27:53.602)
What? my gosh. Okay. What is it? What is it?

Jim Salmon (27:55.32)
No dude, I swear when you said Thomas I was like, gosh dang it dude. no, he so this is from yeah, this is from his The Crusades the authoritative history of the war for the Holy Land. It's a great book. It's very, very readable listener. I would would agree. would recommend it.

GOBBA GOOL (27:59.865)
Hit me, hit me.

GOBBA GOOL (28:08.92)
How funny, we both picked up that book.

Wait, this is how synced up we are on our research, by the way. We don't even know what each other's reading.

Jim Salmon (28:18.647)
I so. Yeah, and I do think in general, the more academic types versus like the seminarians tends to be a little bit more critical of the motives of the Christian leaders. So I do think there's maybe some room for bias. I've also seen some Christian historians who also seem critical, but I'll just read this quote. He said,

Christians living under Muslim rule in the Levant were said to have been reduced to a state of slavery, preyed to constant persecution, these unfortunates might suffer forced circumcision, protracted dis- Yeah, yeah, a lot of things that- we don't need to repeat ourselves. Urban, Pope Urban appears to have made extensive use of this form of graphic and incendiary imagery.

GOBBA GOOL (28:59.354)
Jim Salmon (29:10.209)
akin to that which in a modern day setting might be associated with war crimes or genocide. His accusations bore little or no relation to the reality of Muslim rule in the Near East, but is impossible to gauge whether the Pope believed his own propaganda or entered into a conscious campaign of manipulation and distortion. So his thing is like, I mean, he even went as far as to say that before

GOBBA GOOL (29:31.45)
So, nice.

Jim Salmon (29:38.928)
1095 the Christians like in the east and west did not have a unified view of Muslims as a solitary enemy because there were times that they either coexisted, allied with one another so he was like no this was definitely like a strong use of propaganda to make the Muslims out to be an enemy basically so that he could flex his power

and reform more influence back to the Papal State. Now again, there's probably a lot of bias in that presentation, but I think it's worth noting at least that that is a historical opinion.

GOBBA GOOL (30:19.13)
That's so funny, that's the duality of man right there.

Jim Salmon (30:22.511)
Yeah, yeah.

GOBBA GOOL (30:24.866)
Yeah. Thomas, what do you got?

Tom Bombadil (30:29.23)
I'm a little confused by the two that was the same scholar those statements seemed kind of antithetical to each other on the one hand he's saying that they were altruistic and then on the other hand he's saying that it was propaganda

GOBBA GOOL (30:39.394)
I don't think so.

Yeah.

Jim Salmon (30:46.735)
Well think he's saying they had good intentions, but their good intentions did not mean that they were necessarily doing good things to... Like I think they did have a good desire, but I also think he was exaggerating. Like there probably were bad things happening, but I think he exaggerated the scale of it because he had ulterior motives.

GOBBA GOOL (30:46.926)
Well, he even said he's

GOBBA GOOL (31:07.588)
Well, he even says, yeah, he even says he doesn't know if Pope Urban believed his own propaganda. Yeah.

Jim Salmon (31:12.801)
Right. Which means that he may have been well intended.

Tom Bombadil (31:14.062)
I wonder what makes him say that.

Like what indication would we have that Pope Urban didn't believe what he was talking about?

Jim Salmon (31:26.285)
Well, he's saying he doesn't know. think what he's saying, and I had another, I won't read the quote, but Christopher Tyerman, who's another very extensive historian, he also presented some skepticism about the validity of Urban and Alexios' comments. Basically just saying like, aside from what they said, and even like Taylor and I mentioned earlier, there is no record specifically of what Alexios or the sermon at Claremont.

There's a lot of people saying what happened after the fact because it became this like ground-shaking moment. yeah, there's just not a lot of evidence to go alongside what they said.

Tom Bombadil (32:10.062)
Yeah, I don't know. I guess I'd have to go back and I've seen too many primary sources already from both Christian and Muslim writers talking about what we would qualify as war crimes from this time period at least. don't know. I'd have to go look again to see like specifically what they're talking about. I think a lot of what

GOBBA GOOL (32:30.446)
Right.

Tom Bombadil (32:37.998)
Urban was calling them to, if I remember correctly, it's like a combination of talking about war crimes in Anatolia, modern day Turkey, but then also appealing to them based off of like the Holy Sepulcher being under the Muslim thumb and wanting to call them to liberate the Holy Land. But I, yeah, I don't know.

I'm still pretty firmly convinced from what I've read that there were pretty atrocious things happening both in Anatolia and the Holy Land at this time. I'm kind of agnostic so far on what exactly urban's motives may have been. I definitely am not beyond the ability to say like, yeah, like

Popes historically are in a position of a lot of power and when you have a lot of power mixed in with human nature, there's definitely things that can go wrong there. I'm a little bit more interested in A, what was actually happening in Anatolia and in Palestine, but then what were the motives of the people who actually went over there and carried out this crusade?

Jim Salmon (34:03.407)
Right.

GOBBA GOOL (34:06.062)
Well, I- I'll- Yeah, go ahead, go ahead.

Tom Bombadil (34:06.944)
And I'll get into that some more when I think in a few, in a couple episodes, I'll be doing one on Godfrey, Duke Godfrey of Boyan. And I've got some good stuff on things that he did that I think will bring some clarity to kind of like where their headspace is at. Some of the guys who are actually going to march over there.

Jim Salmon (34:27.509)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, and it's not like, you know, it's, it is the complexity of history and the variety of different resources and testimonies means that like the three of us don't necessarily need to come to like the same opinion of what happened. I think it's just worth noting that there are, there, there, there seem to be conflicting reports in certain areas. I think that's just worth noting.

GOBBA GOOL (34:52.762)
Yeah.

Tom Bombadil (34:53.388)
And I'll say this, I think that it's, anytime you have a war in history, there's kind of two things at play. One is, was it a just war? And Christians have framework for this. Augustine is important in history for articulating just war theory. But then, even if you have a just war, if you have a whole army of people heading out to war, there's gonna be a variety.

of people in that army. You're going to have people marching for selfish gain or because they want to do bad things under the umbrella of just war. And then you're to have people who also marching under the umbrella of just war are there because they really believe in the cause and they're and they want to do good. And I think in the Crusades, what we're going to find is that you have both. You've got

good men that want to do good things and help their Christian brothers and sisters and then you're going to have people who want to take advantage of the situation.

GOBBA GOOL (36:00.994)
Yeah, I think that that I mean, it's a mess, right? There's no way that it's not a mess. And I think it's hard for us to there's we want to have a clean verdict. And I think you're right, Tommy, that there's people with good motives that whether they're theologically correct in their valuing of a pilgrimage or whatever, that that's not a

bad thing to say, I just want Christians to be able to make their pilgrimage to Jerusalem safely, which was a motive of some of the Crusaders, right? And so if we'll get, I think this is a really good discussion, but I, we also got to respect the clock. So if we'll get back in to the mindset of the people hearing urban's speech, as I said, they were people that valued

Jim Salmon (36:32.684)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Jim Salmon (36:41.827)
You know, let's push ahead.

GOBBA GOOL (36:54.81)
the idea of a pilgrimage. They thought that this was something that was very important for their penance, for their sins, their remission of sins. They've greatly valued not just the pilgrimage, but the relics of past saints. We kind of saw this mindset when we did our series on the fate of the apostles and just how all over medieval Europe you would have people popping up saying, I have this

I have this relic, I have this relic. And they valued the relics. They thought that there was healing power to them. I think we can see the same mentality in South America right now. They love their relics. And then on top of that, they believed that the pope was so powerful, so close to God, that he had the ability to forgive their sins effectively.

that there was this, this it was an indulgence. They, their understanding of the gospel at this point is so far removed and dare I say perverted from what our patristic fathers were talking about in the fourth century. This is, this is almost a different Christianity. This is much closer to

Jim Salmon (38:16.962)
Hmm.

GOBBA GOOL (38:20.41)
kind of a ritualistic paganism, dare I say, than true Christianity.

Jim Salmon (38:25.647)
Hmm.

GOBBA GOOL (38:29.114)
There's nothing about relics in the Bible. There's and and and and I'm not even throwing shade on the sacramental system. I'm not gonna go there. I have enough grace and understanding of there's people, know, Baptist say that the, you know, ordinances just the commands of Christ and they'll say they're symbolic and then, you know, people in Catholic and reformed traditions and Orthodox, honestly, Protestants were the only ones on that, you know, fire.

Jim Salmon (38:53.423)
We just we wash our hands of that relic business.

GOBBA GOOL (38:56.154)
or by ourselves of that. The Catholics also had sacraments going on and we could talk about if, yeah, you're still participating in something that's efficacious in a way for your sins. But the point is, real good godly Christianity was hard to come by at this point in time. I would say so. Thomas, you look like you want to say something.

Jim Salmon (39:18.489)
Hmm.

Tom Bombadil (39:28.481)
I guess it'd be complex. I agree with the critiques you're making of the Roman Catholic system of doctrine, I'm not sure I would go so far as to say good and godly Christianity was hard to come by. I don't know if I go there.

GOBBA GOOL (39:44.516)
Hmm. That's a fair contention. Well, we'll find out, I suppose, as we read more sources and read more journals of and things of people that they actually understood.

Tom Bombadil (39:51.254)
I guess.

Jim Salmon (39:56.442)
Taylor, you say that more or less off the basis of just like the values that you're, cause like, you know, to Protestants like us having this, mean, like, I mean, I've been to places where like they have relics behind like bulletproof glass. And for me that just doesn't compute cause I don't see that. So is it, or do you say that because, you know, you don't see the type of like humble charity.

kindness that we attribute to Christianity or is it because like you see these practices that just feel very... and I think a lot of even like modern Catholics would not look back on this time and be like what a healthy time in church history. They would probably say no this was you know a little rough around the edges but I don't know.

GOBBA GOOL (40:41.23)
Are you asking why I would level these critiques at the church right now? Yeah, I just, think there's a very simple, straightforward answer is like, outside of a few voices that we have remaining, like Anselm is from this time, solid guy, right? That's it. I mean, none of these guys in charge of the church.

Jim Salmon (40:47.086)
Yeah, sure.

Jim Salmon (40:57.764)
Mm-hmm.

GOBBA GOOL (41:07.082)
knew what was going on and you could that you know and there's these arguments that like well the underground church always existed i think that's true probably there's not very much no not mormonism i'm talking about the bap the baptists the heritage of the baptists no look there's good christians that obviously christ always preserves like a remnant of the church but

Jim Salmon (41:14.991)
Mm-hmm.

Tom Bombadil (41:17.39)
Mormonism

Jim Salmon (41:20.815)
in South America.

Tom Bombadil (41:24.086)
Yeah.

GOBBA GOOL (41:35.256)
whatever we're seeing happening in.

Tom Bombadil (41:38.296)
Taylor's like, there was no Baptist in the Crusades. We were on the right side of history. You won't find a single Baptist in the Crusades.

GOBBA GOOL (41:42.242)
We were, amen. We were. We were hiding in the mountains.

Jim Salmon (41:47.577)
See what you need to understand is before the Reformation, six inches beneath the earth, there's this primordial ooze that the Baptists will one day emerge out of.

Tom Bombadil (41:57.759)
Yeah, uh-huh.

GOBBA GOOL (41:58.243)
Yeah, that's right. And that's where Joe Baptist came from. Anyway, dude, I just don't see anything in like, like the church as a whole, the capital C church, Rome is such a mess right now.

Jim Salmon (42:02.479)
Right.

GOBBA GOOL (42:15.852)
And it has been for a while. And then I texted John Simon this week. said, today I learned, know, TIL what an anti-Pope was. So here's a motive. We've already talked about the Crusaders motives. What they're going to hear. What they want to hear. Now, let's talk about Pope Urban. He's got, because of his...

Jim Salmon (42:31.378)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Salmon (42:36.975)
Can I recap that real quick just because I want to make sure we're on the same page? So you would say Crusaders motives, you got the good and godly ones who are like, got to save our boys. We've got the ones. As I did my reading on this passage, it sounded a little bit like the Suicide Squad where they're like, we've got these dudes and they just love fighting and they love scrapping and we're just going to try to redirect that energy into a noble cause.

GOBBA GOOL (42:40.185)
Yes.

GOBBA GOOL (42:45.658)
However, yes, yes.

GOBBA GOOL (43:00.6)
Yeah, they're just Simon. They're no, no, no, no, don't even give them that they're Western jihadists. They were promised heaven by the pope. They are. They are Western. Yes.

Jim Salmon (43:06.711)
Okay, yeah.

Well yeah, I mean, cause that was the thing. were told that by doing this, was, it was, what was the exact phrasing of it? It was basically participating in something that would absolve them of their sins. That like to be killed on the battlefield, seeking out a righteous means would mean that you would, it kind of, kind of is jihad. that's gross. I hate that. I don't like that.

GOBBA GOOL (43:22.98)
Correct. So they pay.

GOBBA GOOL (43:29.082)
and Shala and here at 72 virgins

Yeah, and had you not considered that that's what it was?

Jim Salmon (43:38.155)
So you've got the jihadis, you've got the dudes trying to make a dollar probably, and then you've got, you know, humble, humble, humble Harold just,

GOBBA GOOL (43:46.98)
Humble herald that just wants to see Jerusalem and walk where Christ walked. Yeah.

Jim Salmon (43:50.627)
Yeah, and save some people who he thinks are are getting, given a bad deal. Okay.

GOBBA GOOL (43:55.095)
Yes, yes. And unfortunately, it's the humble herald or the Baptist Joe's of the world that just get just get ran over all the time. So, OK, Pope, I already talked about kind of the you can look up Gregory the seventh. If you want some extra homework this week, he was urban was his boy. Urban was like the chief champion of all of.

Jim Salmon (44:00.016)
Of course, they're the Baptists.

Tom Bombadil (44:00.974)
Ha ha ha ha ha.

GOBBA GOOL (44:21.626)
Gregory the Seventh's reforms. And eventually he gets elected, he gets he gets made Pope in 89, is that right?

Jim Salmon (44:30.989)
Mm-hmm.

GOBBA GOOL (44:35.012)
Did I? OK, good. I did not close that. Yeah, Urban is made Pope and.

88. 89 is close enough off the top. six years before his thing, right? Anyway, he has there's there's a guy named Clement the third who has the title anti pope as I said today I learned what an anti pope was. Once again, another

Jim Salmon (44:45.101)
Yep, March, March 88.

Tom Bombadil (45:07.34)
Roman Catholic listeners, might want to just turn it off right now. You're not going to like this.

Jim Salmon (45:09.774)
haha

GOBBA GOOL (45:09.818)
I don't know like it's word. So after Gregory the seventh in his little adventures, he ex communicates Henry the fourth and Henry the fourth and rallies all his people and they say, we're going to elect our own pope. We're elect our own pope. It is his name Clements.

Jim Salmon (45:34.445)
Wait, so he ex- so part of his move to get more powerful is he ex-communicates the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire? That's amazing! See, that kind of makes it hard to say like the Crusades weren't about power, it was about being a good guy, but also you're not part of the church anymore! man.

GOBBA GOOL (45:44.004)
Correct.

GOBBA GOOL (45:53.659)
Yeah, dude and remember what I said a month ago at Clermont they Freakin excommunicated Philip the king of France in that and then they were like, let's go to war, baby Okay, so anyway, this is such a funny little line and I think we've earned ourselves a little Wikipedia read We've read enough books. This was just I love Wikipedia the peak is they

Jim Salmon (46:16.579)
Do it, do it, I'm here for it.

GOBBA GOOL (46:21.004)
edit this crap meticulously anyway Gregory was felt by many to have gone too far when he excommunicated the Holy Roman Emperor Henry the fourth

It's it's sort of like...

Jim Salmon (46:34.595)
The contemporaries

GOBBA GOOL (46:40.762)
That's just such a timid way of saying that. just love it. Was felt by many to have gone too far.

Tom Bombadil (46:43.95)
Hmm

Tom Bombadil (46:47.518)
Yeah, that's somebody going, how can I write this in such a way that it doesn't get edited out of Wikipedia?

Jim Salmon (46:47.695)
That's right.

GOBBA GOOL (46:52.468)
That's right. That's how you do it in the academic world. okay. Okay. So you have that. Now this Clement III guy, the anti-Pope. Well, who gets to decide if he's an anti-Pope and not the real Pope? That's a question and a half, isn't it? And if you go through Google anti-Pope list, and it's like all of church history.

Tom Bombadil (46:55.885)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Salmon (47:15.897)
be like four of them.

GOBBA GOOL (47:17.324)
No, it's a lot. Gosh, Tommy's right. just guess so. I think I need to go to like a Saturday night mass for like six months straight just to like soften my heart towards Rome. Be like, you know what, Father Fred or whoever, you know, is my local parish leader. He's a good guy. He's...

Jim Salmon (47:20.796)
See, if they hadn't schism from the east, they could have let the east pick the pope.

Jim Salmon (47:43.664)
Dude, saw this meme the other day, I almost sent it to you guys. was like, lifelong Catholics are always like, I think we should give food to the poor. And then it's like adult converts to Catholicism be like, the edict of Constantinople throughout the Papal Bull of 1864 clearly states that women should not serve in the military.

It's just like so I'm like I'm here for the first crowd the second crowd, you know, it's whatever

GOBBA GOOL (48:15.51)
Dude!

GOBBA GOOL (48:19.69)
I know dude, you're so right. You're so right. And I know people can come at the Baptist too. Not as much though. Honestly, the Baptists have really not killed that many people. Did we own slaves? Yep. We did. And that was wrong. And we said it. But nope. We weren't drowning.

Jim Salmon (48:30.969)
Yeah, you did.

That's right. We've been against slavery for 15 years.

Tom Bombadil (48:40.11)
You

GOBBA GOOL (48:43.166)
Okay. Anyway, you've got the anti Pope Clement III here who is, you know, on team Holy Roman Empire. He's hanging on as their Pope. And I didn't even have time in all my rabbit holes. went down this week. It was pathetic. I was like laying in my hotel room in like South Carolina, like scrolling, reading my book and then like, you know, dozing off and I go, I gotta keep reading. Anyway, I didn't.

I didn't I did not get into the mechanisms of like, okay, so what what who's actually in charge? Like who do the people listen to? It sounds like it was a headache. So Urban is contending with this guy. Okay. Urban wants to unite this feudal France into something. He's also Pope Urban is from France. FYI. Here we go.

Jim Salmon (49:24.088)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Salmon (49:38.671)
Mm-hmm.

GOBBA GOOL (49:39.469)
We have Marshall Baldwin, A History of the Crusades Volume 1. I think you can get this one for free on Internet Archives. I don't know. I have an eye disease and I get extra special stuff on Internet Archives because of my eye disease. So it might be under extra special stuff. But here it is. Yeah.

Jim Salmon (49:58.02)
Wait, do you really? You have like an eye disease? just register on some eye disease website? You just get free stuff.

GOBBA GOOL (50:05.144)
Yeah, and they're like, okay, you poor thing. You can't read real books. So now you can zoom in. Now you can zoom into a hot. You can zoom into 120 font. dude, I got I got access to a whole bunch of stuff because of my eyes.

Tom Bombadil (50:10.833)
What are we talking about?

Jim Salmon (50:12.235)
sick that's kind of sick that's like blind reparations dude that's awesome

Jim Salmon (50:21.283)
You'd think they'd give you audiobooks though, right?

Tom Bombadil (50:22.424)
What are you talking about right now?

GOBBA GOOL (50:24.686)
Tommy, Tommy, we're talking about sources. Like, do you know what Internet Archives is, Tommy? I feel like we... I have Karatekonis.

Jim Salmon (50:29.153)
I'm just like, what is this episode?

Tom Bombadil (50:32.046)
No, what is the eye disease about?

Tom Bombadil (50:39.35)
Is this real? Like, can you actually get more access to stuff?

GOBBA GOOL (50:43.298)
Yeah, I just filled out a little thing. I was like, hey, I got karate conus. Can I have access, please? And then some guy who works for the government was like, OK, sure. Here you go.

Tom Bombadil (50:52.034)
Gosh, that's amazing.

GOBBA GOOL (50:54.03)
And then my librarian got me access to something else because I and I just had to send him a little like.

Jim Salmon (50:54.457)
no.

GOBBA GOOL (50:59.526)
I don't even remember. It was the shadiest thing. I called my old eye doctor, Catalina Eyecare, Tucson. I said, hey, I need proof of this surgery. And they were like, OK, what's your email? I'll send it to you later. And then like I got an email from us. I don't even I don't even think it was from at Catalina Eyecare. It was like it was like Betsy 14 at Gmail dot com sends me an unnamed PDF and it like I shouldn't have opened it on my work computer.

Tom Bombadil (51:16.856)
Dude, I need to be-

GOBBA GOOL (51:28.334)
being completely honest, but I took that gamble.

Tom Bombadil (51:31.616)
I need to be intersectionality maxing like Taylor here. Be like, I have like a herniated L5 I'd like free access to.

GOBBA GOOL (51:39.194)
Okay, I'm actually

Jim Salmon (51:39.705)
Tommy's like, I'm too tall and sometimes sedans are uncomfortable.

Tom Bombadil (51:43.586)
Yeah, yeah.

GOBBA GOOL (51:44.194)
Okay, well, I'm actually actually I'm actually blind. So this is Marshall Baldwin, A History of the Crusades, Volume One, the two great complexes of institutions, the church.

Tom Bombadil (51:56.792)
Here blind guy, here's a bunch of stuff you can read. Why not audiobooks? Sorry.

GOBBA GOOL (52:00.731)
The church and the

The church and the feudal system had achieved this. SHUT UP! SHUT UP, ALL OF YOU! LET ME REEEE

Jim Salmon (52:07.097)
That is kind of like giving a dude in a wheelchair like dancing shoes.

Tom Bombadil (52:17.952)
Actually, Taylor, if you could screen share, we're gonna need to read it for you.

GOBBA GOOL (52:21.969)
No, don't worry. It's at like 14 font zoomed in.

had achieved the strength of maturity without losing their capacity for further development and expansion. And it was the church and the feudal system that made the Crusades possible.

So we've chased so many rabbit trails. We don't even have time to read all of. OK, I'm going to read something. is John Simon. Did you say this on air beforehand that we actually don't have any record of like an immediate?

Jim Salmon (53:01.059)
Correct. From Claremont.

GOBBA GOOL (53:01.21)
record from Urban. I don't know if you said that on air already, but he's right. We don't have a record of Urban at Claremont when he called everybody outside and it was the end of the council. They just kicked out King Philip of France. We don't have the immediate recording. Now we have people that claim to have been there. What we do have is some letters from Urban in 1095. Here's one of them. This is to Zetroupe, I believe. So this is December.

Right after the first crusade is kicking off. bishop servant of the servants of God to all the faithful both princes and subjects waiting in Flanders greeting apostolic grace and blessing. What an intro. I'm gonna need you guys to start saying hi to me that way. yeah, your brotherhood we believe has long since

Jim Salmon (53:50.031)
Okay, Apostle Paul.

GOBBA GOOL (53:54.489)
learned from many accounts that a barbaric fury has deplorably afflicted and laid waste the churches of God in the regions of the Orient. More than this, blasphemous to say, it has even grasped an intolerable servitude, its churches in the holy city of Christ, glorified by his passion and resurrection. Grieving with pious concern at this calamity, we visited the regions of Gaul and devoted ourselves largely to urging the princes of the land and their subjects to free the churches of the East. We solemnly enjoined them at the Council of

Avergne. Avergne! I can't read French. It's the most confusing romance language. Such an undertaking as a preparation for the remission of all their sins. So there you have it already. Remission of sins. And that's the big difference between what Gregory said when he called for his first crusade. He had not gotten there yet. Theolog-

Jim Salmon (54:47.533)
Hmm So it sounded like I think and I think you frame this well There was kind of a perfect storm of all of this like he touched on because the This was a population that was very Christian in terms of like identity, but they were very afraid of going to hell which same they were very big on relics they were very big on pilgrimage and

And they were in this feudal state and like I said these dudes were like, you know They were gearing up ready to go they had all this like I think I think it was Richard Ryan Reeves who basically said that the issue with the feudal states was that they were kind of primed they had class systems primed for warfare But when they didn't have anything to fight they had all this idle anxious energy like you have all these basically

GOBBA GOOL (55:41.402)
Oh, dude, I didn't even get into that. Yes.

Jim Salmon (55:43.695)
Yeah, you got all these like hormonal frat boys who are just like, you know, like bench in 3, 3 25 who just needs something to do because they've, you know, they're not married yet. They're not settled down.

GOBBA GOOL (55:57.635)
You are so right. I did not put that in my notes. But yes, in the feudal system in France in particular, where it is finally settled, they were fighting constantly. And now you have this sort of stability starting to.

to enter and in that stability. Now you have all these angsty. You have a class of people, the Knights, that are really set up to constantly be fighting. So you're right. Now Pope Urban's coming along saying, hey, I got something for you to do and it's a good cause. It's a good cause. You're gonna go get to see the city of Christ himself. And boys, I'm gonna forgive your sins.

Jim Salmon (56:28.494)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Salmon (56:42.408)
Honestly, honestly.

GOBBA GOOL (56:44.418)
How does that sound? don't know why he suddenly got he got more southern as his speech went on And papa i'm gonna take care you now you hear

Jim Salmon (56:50.031)
consider those sins dismissed.

GOBBA GOOL (56:55.214)
TSMis, can I get a holly-

Or, can I get a deus vault?

Jim Salmon (57:00.405)
sounds awesome! mean like taking that interpretation, which again is one historical way to view it, like I'm a young dude full of testosterone just ready to go see the world kill some people which I love doing because I'm bred for violence and I get to go to heaven if I get killed like this kind of sounds like a sick deal yeah I don't know

GOBBA GOOL (57:21.593)
Yes.

GOBBA GOOL (57:25.038)
Yes, these are the Western jihadists. And then as we said, then you have, you know, Baptist Bob, who's ready to like, I think we can, Harold, humble Harold, guys, we gotta go do something. We gotta save our brothers. And then you got Meathead, you know, Meathead Steve. Yeah, let's go save our brothers. As long as I get to kill somebody.

Jim Salmon (57:32.079)
Humble Harold.

Jim Salmon (57:47.278)
And I'm sure that for the sake of nuance, there was overlap. Like I'm sure there were plenty of dudes who were meatheads, but still inspired by piety. And there were, I don't know. mean, like there were, I think I read a couple clips of, again, we don't have the sermon from Claremont, but people who wrote it down 15 years later who were there. And he's saying things like, you're gonna get rich from this. Like you're gonna be able to pillage healthily.

from this if you succeed. we can't, I do think we can understate the piety, which I think to Thomas is very important. I do think we can understate the piety, which would be problematic, but I also don't think we can remove the fact that things like financial gain and the forgiveness of sins were 100 % motivators for these guys, because that's what the Pope and leaders were doing.

GOBBA GOOL (58:42.796)
Yes. You said, is this the perfect storm? It's this is like the most perfectest of stormists in history, dude. Like you have actual war crimes being, you know, committed against the Church of the East. You have Pope Urban, who's got a mess on his hands trying to retain power and trying to continue the work of Papa Gregory the seventh of kind of.

Jim Salmon (58:51.791)
Yeah.

GOBBA GOOL (59:11.768)
creating more papal authority and then you have the people in the countryside ready to go do something so it is it is as you said it is a perfect storm it's the perfectest of all the storms and we we don't have time to read this is fine hey if

Jim Salmon (59:31.204)
Yeah.

GOBBA GOOL (59:35.767)
I already gave the listeners their own little homework. Yeah, look up Gregory the 7th and kind of what he was up to. If you want, read Robert the Monk's take on what had happened at Claremont. I'm just going to jump to the end of the letter if that's OK with you boys. No, absolutely not. OK, that changed my mind. Go ahead.

Jim Salmon (59:56.282)
Can I say one thing that I think will probably lay up? It'll be a layup for you. It's gonna be helpful. Okay. Pope Urban did not expect the response to be nearly as big as it was. I think he expected there to be like a few hundred, maybe like a couple thousand, like, kinda like really raring to go dudes to like...

Tom Bombadil (01:00:15.438)
think that's true.

Jim Salmon (01:00:25.123)
come around. But again, because it was such a perfect storm, because it scratched at so many societal itches, and because word of mouth spread like crazy and people were primed for it, like there were 20 to 30,000 foot soldiers who headed in that direction within 10 years of, or no, within I think 24 months of the first speech at Claremont.

GOBBA GOOL (01:00:49.954)
Yeah, it was quick.

Tom Bombadil (01:00:50.988)
And that's not even including the People's Crusade, right? I you've got like the main army and then it catches on culturally and just tons of just mechanics and bakers and you know, I'm like, head out.

Jim Salmon (01:00:53.974)
Right, right.

Jim Salmon (01:01:03.427)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm.

GOBBA GOOL (01:01:06.266)
Yeah, we don't. Let's what are the people crusades end up doing, Tommy? What was their little claim to fame?

Tom Bombadil (01:01:14.734)
Totally slaughtered? Is that their claim to fame? Oh.

GOBBA GOOL (01:01:17.188)
they went and killed a bunch of Jews. They got like, they got like stuck on the way and we're like, what are we doing? yeah, we hate the Jews. We don't look. It doesn't matter. Kill the Jews. I shouldn't yell that. Seminary housing. President, President Groves is going to be like, hey, Taylor, can you come up to my office, bud?

Tom Bombadil (01:01:26.478)
Ha

Jim Salmon (01:01:32.781)
Where are we? Is that the Star of David?

Tom Bombadil (01:01:45.982)
Yeah, what were you screaming about killing the Jews yesterday?

Jim Salmon (01:01:49.059)
to get a memo in the inbox.

GOBBA GOOL (01:01:49.593)
Yeah. this is Robert the monk. When Pope Urban had said these, dude, this episode's been so unhinged, and very many similar things in his Urbane discourse. That's such a funny translation. He is so influenced to one purpose, the desires of all who were present, that they cried out, it is the will of God. It is the will of God.

Jim Salmon (01:02:05.795)
Hmm.

GOBBA GOOL (01:02:14.862)
Venerable Roman Pontiff heard that with eyes uplifted to heaven he gave thanks to God and with his hand commanding silence said most beloved brethren today is Manifest in you what the Lord says in the gospel where two or three are gathered together in my name There I am in the midst of them great hermeneutics by the way great hermeneutics unless the Lord God has been present in your spirits

All of you would not have uttered the same cry. That's what the Mormons say. For although the cry issued from numerous mouths, yet the origin of the cry was one. Therefore, I say to you that God, who implanted this in your breasts, has drawn it forth from you. Let this then be your war cry in combats, because this word is given to you by God. When an armed attack is made upon the enemy, let this one cry be raised by all the soldiers of God.

It is the will of God. It is the will of God. Or as they say in Latin, Deus Vult, Deus Vult.

Jim Salmon (01:03:15.789)
or deus low volt if you want to be really you know accurate hey what's up man

GOBBA GOOL (01:03:19.438)
Hey, John Simon, shut up. Shut up.

Tom Bombadil (01:03:22.862)
Ha

Jim Salmon (01:03:24.823)
language guy.

Tom Bombadil (01:03:25.55)
Yeah, that was Taylor's cold clothes, if you couldn't help.

Jim Salmon (01:03:27.543)
Yeah

That whole thing was hot, starts and finished. We didn't have any, cold in that whole thing.

GOBBA GOOL (01:03:33.154)
His whole thing, yes dude! I know, and like dude this is what I'm saying is guys, if we have any of our little modern crusaders listening, just listen to this like manipulation. You felt it in your bosom. you felt it in your bosom. That's the Holy Spirit moving you.

Tom Bombadil (01:03:34.476)
Good.

Jim Salmon (01:03:53.711)
You get that shiver in your spine.

Tom Bombadil (01:03:55.971)
Taylor's like, if only these guys had heard of the second London Baptist confession of fake!

GOBBA GOOL (01:04:00.603)
Come on people. Yeah.

Jim Salmon (01:04:01.252)
You

Well, I remember, I think it was, they literally used this, I mean, like, yeah, whatever, a lot to say, but they used the language where they would asking people to like, cause you had to, this wasn't just like you could jump on a bus, like to do this, you had to sell your stuff, you had to like, it was a full life commitment.

Tom Bombadil (01:04:04.6)
Didn't they read the articles on salvation?

GOBBA GOOL (01:04:06.927)
Liberty of conscience!

GOBBA GOOL (01:04:30.2)
Well, they put laws in place that if you touch, like, would be excommunicated if you touched a crusader's belongings. So, yeah, so if closed up shop and like locked everything up and then he came back home and found that, yeah, yeah, there was consequences to be paid for sure.

Jim Salmon (01:04:40.405)
interesting. Okay. It probably was different based on where they were. I'm sure regionally it was different.

It was ransacked. Yeah

Jim Salmon (01:04:54.115)
But they used language of like, they would say when they were asking a young man, are you going to join the crusades? They would ask, will you be taking up the cross? They use this language of like, will you be taking the cross to Jerusalem? Kind of like this language of like, it is part of your duty as a Christian to do this. So will you be answering the call to fight alongside Uncle Urban?

because he wants you.

GOBBA GOOL (01:05:24.004)
Did they they literally told people to sew across into your clothing when you were going on crusade and don't take it off until you come back and they this is the last line in Robert the Monk such indeed by the twofold action will fulfill the precept of the Lord as he commands in the gospel. He that taketh not his cross and followeth after me is not worthy of me.

Jim Salmon (01:05:36.367)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Salmon (01:05:49.997)
Yeah, yeah.

GOBBA GOOL (01:05:51.022)
They are manipulating scripture left and right here, people. Not good.

Jim Salmon (01:05:56.728)
I mean, that's, yeah, that's, mean, even, even beyond the political side, I'm like, I don't, even if we're arguing the whole just war, holy war, et cetera, I don't know if a holy war can still be tied into that commandment. Like I, I, I don't know, man.

GOBBA GOOL (01:06:18.234)
No, dude, look, they in modern day, it would not actually be that hard for a charismatic enough guy who's likable enough to get up and say, hey, uh,

Jim Salmon (01:06:28.559)
Mm-hmm.

GOBBA GOOL (01:06:34.106)
Especially when you know, pretend ISIS didn't get obliterated by Obama's drones, right? Like if ISIS actually had taken over something, it would not be hard at all to say, guys, we need people to enlist. They're doing awful things to Christians and other humans. Go do something about it. Like that's enough to get people to go like, yeah, but instead. That's right.

Jim Salmon (01:06:39.919)
Sure.

Jim Salmon (01:06:59.727)
Mm-hmm.

Tom Bombadil (01:06:59.982)
So it happened after 9-11. A lot of people joined the military after 9-11.

GOBBA GOOL (01:07:03.298)
right. I'm grateful we live in a country that has the firepower to just decide to kill bad guys. And like, did you guys see that headline as we as we land this crazy plane? Like, there was a bunch of ISIS or something in the Congo. Was it in Congo? Yeah, and the military just just just destroyed them. They were like killing Christians and it was Nigeria.

Jim Salmon (01:07:03.982)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Salmon (01:07:24.451)
Was it really?

GOBBA GOOL (01:07:33.241)
It was Nigeria. Yeah, they got a warning to stop. They didn't stop. And then, yeah, I just, you know, a bunch of predators with thermal vision flew over and said night night. And there's something there's something good about that, I think, right? Like the bad guys can be taken care of quickly. We don't have to lie to a bunch of people to get them on a ship.

Jim Salmon (01:07:33.589)
Okay, okay. Nigeria's on one right now. Nigeria's in a bad spot.

Jim Salmon (01:07:46.532)
Mm-hmm.

GOBBA GOOL (01:08:01.509)
Put all your stuff in storage, Tommy, let's go.

Tom Bombadil (01:08:02.424)
Yeah, I mean...

GOBBA GOOL (01:08:07.468)
If anybody touches that storage unit, they're excommunicated. You don't have to worry about that. Yes, that's right.

Tom Bombadil (01:08:11.778)
Yes, by the First Baptist Church of the IE.

Jim Salmon (01:08:17.487)
When I was in a clinical pastoral education, which is what chaplains do to whatever, what chaplains do, I was in a course with a Nigerian guy and he was a Nigerian Catholic priest. So Taylor would have double hated this guy. so, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I just, he's got us stray, I'm sorry. But.

GOBBA GOOL (01:08:35.65)
What the heck?

Jim Salmon (01:08:43.489)
It was so funny because so a big part of clinical pastoral education, which if you're curious about listeners, just send me a message. Don't just jump into it. I've got a whole lot of thoughts about it. but it's, it's very much about like kind of reading your realizing how your own personal story and experiences may affect how we treat and help others with their own stuff. And so it was very like, I'll be very open about what you're experiencing and stuff like that.

GOBBA GOOL (01:08:53.818)
Don't do what I do.

Jim Salmon (01:09:10.959)
And so, you know, somebody would go on and they'd be like, yeah, you know, I was talking to this person and it really made me think about like, let's say for example, like, you know, my cat's sick and, you know, like I really wanted to be present with this person in the hospital, but my cat's sick. I just been thinking about that all day. It's really hard. And then my dude would come on and he'd be like, yeah, you know, it was just hard. like another church got burned down in my neighborhood back at home. And.

And he's just like, you know, Muslims are, you know, destroying stuff in my country. And it's like, okay. All right. Well, sorry about your cat, Kathy, but, it just, brings things to perspective. Yeah.

Tom Bombadil (01:09:40.033)
Yeah.

Tom Bombadil (01:09:48.974)
Yeah. Nigeria's a tough place right now.

GOBBA GOOL (01:09:53.433)
Yes. And isn't it nice that we don't have to crusade anymore and the United States government is in a good place that kills bad guys? See, okay, look, you guys are uncomfortable with that statement. I know you are. You're like, who gets to decide?

Tom Bombadil (01:10:09.965)
Well, no, I... I...

Jim Salmon (01:10:10.787)
But you're calling it a holy war. You're saying like, isn't it good that they're able to just like kill evil people? And I'm like, I think it's more complicated than that.

GOBBA GOOL (01:10:13.978)
Yeah.

GOBBA GOOL (01:10:17.72)
It's not only work. It's so much. It's more simple than that. Our government, thank the Lord, has people that say don't kill Christians in this barbaric manner. They said, no, we're going to keep doing it. And then we said, OK, good night. Like, it's not a holy war. It's just it was the airstrike, baby. It wasn't holy. Well, maybe it was. I don't know. Look, I'm just saying, I'm just saying it's it's a simple little.

Jim Salmon (01:10:37.997)
Holy airstrike then.

GOBBA GOOL (01:10:45.856)
acknowledging of the Imago Deian people. And when you violate that and we do something about it, that's nice. That's a good thing. Tommy, come on, Tommy, if anyone is ever gonna back me up on something, it has to be you right now.

Jim Salmon (01:10:55.471)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Salmon (01:11:00.162)
You

Tom Bombadil (01:11:03.958)
First of all, my recording track changed, so sorry if my voice sounds different. yeah, no, I'm in agreement. I think that just war theory applies here. I just think that it kind of, in some ways, is antithetical to everything that you just said in the rest of the episode.

GOBBA GOOL (01:11:20.642)
Not a chance, not a chance.

Tom Bombadil (01:11:23.798)
I wish that you hadn't brought this up at an hour and 11 minutes into the talk about it.

GOBBA GOOL (01:11:26.682)
Bye!

Jim Salmon (01:11:28.591)
You know guys, the early church fathers believed that the just war was the one that we fight right in here. And I want you guys to think about that.

Tom Bombadil (01:11:35.222)
You

GOBBA GOOL (01:11:37.294)
He pointed to his heart listeners that are on audio.

Jim Salmon (01:11:39.373)
Yeah, yeah. For we were not against flesh and blood, Thomas Dewell. was against principalities.

Tom Bombadil (01:11:41.544)
I'm more concerned about...

Tom Bombadil (01:11:48.532)
I'm more concerned about the way weapons like that can get used so quickly. The target can change pretty easily. I'm all for governments stopping Muslims that are killing Christians anywhere. like John said, I think it's a complex thing. We can talk more about it another time. Faux show.

GOBBA GOOL (01:11:58.458)
I agree with you.

GOBBA GOOL (01:12:15.85)
We'll just go back to history. We don't talk about modern events. I was a fool for bringing it up

Jim Salmon (01:12:19.001)
Guys, I think the most important thing to remember is that Thomas ended by agreeing with me. And with that, we love you guys. And we appreciate you guys even. And you know what? We welcome the diversity of opinions. That's just good old history right there. All right, we love you guys and we'll talk to you next week.

GOBBA GOOL (01:12:27.354)
Stupid.

GOBBA GOOL (01:12:37.263)
Bye bye!