the First Crusade

10. The Letter of Pope Paschal II

Paschal, bishop, servant of the servants of God, to all archbishops, bishops, and abbots throughout Gaul; greeting and apostolic blessing.

We owe boundless gratitude to the compassion of Almighty God, since in our time He has deigned to wrest the Church in Asia from the bands of the Turks and to open to Christian soldiers the very city of the Lord's suffering and burial. However, we ought to follow Divine grace with what means He has given us, and effectively aid our brethren who have remained in those districts which were once the lands of the people of Palestine or Canaan. Urge, therefore, all the soldiers of your region to strive for remission and forgiveness of their sins by hastening to our Mother Church of the East; especially compel those who have assumed the sign of the cross in pledge of this journey to hasten thither, unless they are prevented by the hindrance of poverty. Moreover, we decree that those be held in disgrace who left the siege of Antioch through weak or questionable faith; let them remain in excommunication, unless they affirm with certain pledges that they will return. We furthermore command that all their possessions be restored to those brethren who are returning after the victory of the Lord, just as you recall was ordained in a synodal decree by Urban, our predecessor of blessed memory. Do thus in all matters, being so zealous in your duty that by common zeal our Mother Church of the East may be restored to her due state, the Lord granting it.

Source:

August. C. Krey, The First Crusade: The Accounts of Eyewitnesses and Participants, (Princeton: 1921), 279


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© Paul Halsall December 1997
halsall@murray.fordham.edu
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/cde-jlem.html