Pope Urban II
c1042-1098

The man who was to become Pope Urban II was born Eudes de Lagery in around 1042. The son of a nobleman, he grew up in the family estates near Châtillon-sur-Marne. Urban ascended to the Papacy in 1088.

Previous to this, he was a canon of St. John Lateran in Rome, and then a monk a Cluny, the great monastic centre of the time. He became a prior, and was sent on missions to Rome, where Pope Gregory VII made him bishop of Ostia, and then a cardinal. He was then sent as papal legate to Germany.

He After delivering his speech at Clermont, he continued to travel across France, holding council at Nimes in the South, Tours and Rouen in the north.