- Adhemar of Le Puy
[
Holy Lance in one of the battles of theFirst Crusade ]Adhemar (also known as Adémar, Aimar, or Aelarz) de Monteil (died
August 1 ,1098 ), one of the principal personages of theFirst Crusade , wasbishop of Puy-en-Velay from before 1087.At the
Council of Clermont in 1095, Adhemar showed great zeal for the crusade (there is evidence Urban II had conferred with Adhemar before the council) and having been namedapostolic legate and appointed to lead the crusade byPope Urban II , he accompanied Raymond IV,Count of Toulouse , to the east. Whilst Raymond and the other leaders often quarrelled with each other over the leadership of the crusade, Adhemar was always recognised as the spiritual leader of the crusade.Adhemar negotiated with
Alexius I Comnenus atConstantinople , reestablished at Nicaea some discipline among the crusaders, fought a crucial role at theBattle of Dorylaeum and was largely responsible for sustaining morale during thesiege of Antioch through various religious rites including fasting and special observances of holy days. After the capture of the city in June, 1098, and the subsequent siege led byKerbogha , Adhemar organized a procession through the streets, and had the gates locked so that the Crusaders, many of whom had begun to panic, would be unable to desert the city. He was extremely skeptical ofPeter Bartholomew 's discovery in Antioch of theHoly Lance , especially because he knew such a relic already existed in Constantinople; however, he was willing to let the Crusader army believe it was real if it raised their morale.When Kerbogha was defeated, Adhemar organized a council in an attempt to settle the leadership disputes, but he died on
August 1 ,1098 , probably oftyphus . The disputes among the higher nobles went unsolved, and the march toJerusalem was delayed for months. However, the lower-class foot soldiers continued to think of Adhemar as a leader; some of them claimed to have been visited by his ghost during the siege of Jerusalem, and reported that Adhemar instructed them to hold another procession around the walls. This was done, and Jerusalem was taken by the Crusaders in 1099.External links
* Medieval Sourcebook: [http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/urban2-5vers.html Speech by Urban II at Council of Clermont, 1095 (Five versions of the Speech)]
References
*1911
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.