7 The 100 Most Influential World Leaders of All Time 7in Europe in the 11th century. In 1079 he went to Rome on
a mission for his abbot, Hugh of Cluny. While in Rome he
was made cardinal and bishop of Ostia (the seaport for
Rome) by Gregory VII. In 1084 Gregory VII sent him as
papal legate to Germany. During the crisis of Gregory
VII’s struggle with Henry IV, the Holy Roman Emperor,
over some cancelled agreements, Odo remained loyal to
the legitimate papacy. After Gregory VII’s death in 1085,
he also served his successor, Victor III, who died in
September 1087. After a long delay, Odo was elected pope
on March 12, 1088, and was thereafter called Urban II.
As pope, Urban II found active support for his policies
and reforms among several groups: the nobility, whose
mentality and interests he knew; the monks; the canons
regular, for whom he became patron and legislator; and
also, increasingly, the bishops. He attempted, with mod-
eration and tolerance, to reconcile the church-state
traditions of his age with ecclesiastical notions of reform.
From 1095 Urban was at the height of his success.
Several important church councils took place during this
time, the first in 1095 at Piacenza, Italy, at which reform
legislation was enacted. The second occurred in 1095 at
Clermont, where Urban preached the First Crusade. In
1098 at Bari, Italy, he worked for a reunion between Greek
Christians and Romans. In 1099 at Rome, reform legisla-
tion was again passed. Urban’s idea for a crusade and his
attempt to reconcile the Latin and Greek churches sprang
from his idea of the unity of all Christendom and from his
experiences with the struggles against the Muslims in
Spain and Sicily. While the First Crusade led to military
success with the conquest of Jerusalem in 1099, the project
for union failed. Urban’s pontificate not only led to a fur-
ther centralization of the Roman Catholic Church but also
to the expansion of papal administration. It contributed