Content note: Medieval religious imagery and a French text describing alleged killings and captivity of eastern Christians, as used to argue for the First Crusade; the text is shown as written. This object is shown as it was published. Why
Miniature of Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont, Les Passages d'outremer (BnF Fr. 5594, fol. 19r)
A 15th-century miniature of the Council of Clermont: the pope in a tiara sits on a blue throne in a Gothic church before clerics and laymen, with armoured knights and cardinals in the panel below. The French text beneath speaks of eastern Christians held in captivity and of the holy places, so the page pairs the picture of papal authority with the grievance used to argue for the expedition.
- Date
- 1474
- Period
- Pre-1914
- Made by
- Jean Colombe, illuminator, for Sébastien Mamerot's Les Passages d'outremer (15th century)
- Country
- France
- Medium
- Books and pamphlets
- Issuer type
- Individual
- Regime
- Papal States Crusades
- Leader
- Urban II
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Purpose
- Commemorate
- Themes
- Religion, War and the military
- Techniques
- TestimonialFear appeal
- Leader
- Urban II
- Source
- Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- Source
- Bibliothèque nationale de France (Gallica), via Wikimedia Commons, retrieved October 2, 2026
- Rights
- Public domain (15th-century manuscript; Commons PD-Art, from the Gallica scan btv1b72000271/f47)
Jean Colombe, Les Passages d'outremer, BnF Français 5594, fol. 19r, via Gallica and Wikimedia Commons
Text on the object
et autres sains lieux la environ. Et les xpiens habitans et demourans. et que les autres par eulx tyrannicquement et inhumainement tuez. Ilz avoient reservez en infelicieuse vie afin que sur eulx en lopprobre du saint nom xpien peussent continuer plus longuement leurs insatiables cruaultez. Et comment ilz les tenoient en trop opprobrieuse captivite et servitute. ou tresgrant deshonneur et opprobre de tous les xpiens. Concluant et monstrant par diverses raisons tres evidentes que le saint peuple xpien ne devoit plus souffrir ne endurer que les saints lieux et
and other holy places round about. And the Christians living and dwelling there, and that the others had been killed by them tyrannically and inhumanely. They had kept them in a wretched life so that, to the shame of the holy Christian name, they could continue their insatiable cruelties on them for longer. And how they held them in a most shameful captivity and servitude, to the very great dishonour and shame of all Christians. Concluding and showing by various very evident reasons that the holy Christian people ought no longer to suffer or endure that the holy places and
Text block under the miniature. 'xpiens' is the scribal abbreviation for chrestiens; spelling and punctuation are as read, and the reading of 'cruaultez' and of the last line is slightly uncertain. The text continues on the next page.
