Urban II

In 1095 he called on Catholics to seize Jerusalem and the Holy Land from Muslim control, launching the First Crusade.

Pope Urban II in 1095 summoned all Catholics to a campaign for seizing Jerusalem and Palestine from Muslim hands. The following year the earliest crusading bands left northern France, and in 1099 their armies captured Jerusalem and founded the Kingdom of Jerusalem, which lasted until Saladin recovered it in 1187.1