Call for the Third Crusade

Background

News of the defeat at Hattin reached Europe in October 1187. Pope Urban III died shortly after hearing it, on 20 October; the sources attribute his death to grief. His successor Gregory VIII was pope for only two months, but in that short time he issued a call for a new expedition.

The bull

Audita tremendi opens by describing the defeat at Hattin, the loss of the True Cross and the killing of bishops and knights. It states that this disaster was the result of the sins not only of the Latins in the East but of all Christians, and calls everyone to repentance.

Participants are granted privileges such as full remission of sins, church protection for their families and property, and exemption from interest on their debts. The bull also asks for fasting on Fridays for five years and for peace among Christian rulers.

Outcome and significance

The bull became the founding document of the Third Crusade, which mobilised Western Europe's great rulers. King Henry II of England and King Philip II of France took the cross at Gisors in January 1188; Frederick Barbarossa took it at Mainz in March 1188. In England and France the “Saladin tithe” was levied to finance the expedition.

By explaining the defeat in a theological framework, the bull's penitential language presented the expedition as a spiritual purification requiring the participation of all Western society.

Sources and debates

The text of the bull is preserved in the works of English chroniclers such as Roger of Howden and is widely used in Riley-Smith's translations. How quickly the bull was drafted at the papal court after Hattin, and whether a draft was ready under Urban III, are debated.