Image: Engraving of Pope Gregory VII saying mass from Little Pictorial Lives of the Saints (1878).

Provided below are English and Latin accounts of Pope Gregory VII’s calling of a sort of proto-crusade as early as 1074. Although this venture never materialized, it is interesting to note that only three years after the events of Manzikert there was serious advocacy of providing major Western military aid to Eastern Christians by the papacy. Yet it never got off the ground due to the distractions and problems Gregory VII had to deal with as a result the Investiture Controversy. Continue reading →