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Provide a text analysis of the three most important preserved versions of Urban

    Provide a text analysis of the three most important preserved versions of Urban II’s sermon delivered at the Council of Clermont in 1095. You are free to use all the information in the file Lecture 2 Introduction to Text Analysis. This is a very important exercise as what you learn from Lecture 2 and this discussion will set the stage for all subsequent discussions and for the research paper (not as material, but as approach).
    The following requirements are also contained in that lecture file:
    1/ First, provide introduction to the text. The goal of an introduction is to provide the reader with the background information s/he needs to comprehend the text. In this case, provide an extended introduction by summarizing the main points of Lecture 1: Background to the First Crusade. Summarize the situation in Europe and the Mediterranean in the 1090s with an emphasis on the Seljuk conquests on the one hand, and on feudal anarchy and church reform, on the other hand. Do not assume that the text can speak for itself.
    2/ Explicate the text. Tell us who is who and what is what, using the information in Lectures 1 and 2. Explain concepts, again, using Lectures 1 and 2. This is still background information but in this case background information clarifying points in the text itself. There is a bit of overlap with point 1 of course, as with Seljuk Turks.
    3/ Tell us what useful information about the past does the text provide, specifically:
    –what can we conclude about what the pope actually said?
    –what points seem to have been the most important to posterity, whether really made by the pope or added later?
    4/ What made the speech, whether the actual one or the later record, effective? Focus on Baldric’s version. His text is very powerful. Explain why. What does the pope talk about first? Why is that powerful? What does he talk about next? Why should that move the audience into action? And so on. Remember that Baldric’s version does read like a sermon and that means that it does two things, broadly speaking: 1/ it vividly portrays the audience as sinners destined for hell unless they take corrective action 2/ offers a way out of this predicament.
    5/ Discuss anything else you feel is worth noting.
    The introduction should be 200-400 words and the main body of the text analysis should be 300-700 words for a total of anywhere between 500 and 1,000 words. The more compact your writing style, the fewer the words needed.
    You can use either the text box or upload a file. Always work in your own file and then copy and paste into the textbox. Don’t run the risk of losing your work.
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    Text analysis basics reminder:
    How does the text relate to lecture/other texts?
    What do we learn from the text?:
    What kind of text is it? What are the challenges of working with such a text? How much of what an author says can we take for certain? In other words, what in the text can be taken as useful historical information about the realities described in the source? (as a fact)
    What, given the way the authors phrase themselves, do they reveal about their own cultural assumptions, points of view, preferences? In other words, what in the text can be taken as useful historical information about the author(s) and the culture they represent? (as a perception of self and others, and of realities)
    Thus, in sum, what is the text’s significance to us as historians?

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