The Opening of the Crusades: Pope Urban II The series of crusades initiated in the eleventh century brought the West into greater contact with Byzantium and Islam. These crusades demonstrated the expansiveness of the West during the High Middle Ages as well as the increasing power and activism of the papacy. The first of these crusades was called for in 1095 by Pope Urban 11 {n response to a request for help from the Byzantine Emperor Alexius Comnenus. At the Council of Clermont, Urban made the following plea, recorded by Robert the Monk. Consider: How Urban justified his call for a crusade; what Urban might have hoped to gain{n from this crusade; to whom this plea