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This chapter shows how promises of spiritual rewards were used by the papacy to recruit warriors up to the First Crusade, and what concepts were in play. As it turned out, the indulgences became the preferred concept for the proclamation of crusades. The chapter also shows that the main premise of H.E. Mayer's version of the thesis of non-transcendence does not stand. It is by no means certain that the council of Clermont did not grant remissio peccatorum to the crusaders, or that Urban II only used this phrase reluctantly and after pressure from popular opinion. On the contrary, his letters on the wars in Spain and the Holy Land show that he thought of the fight for the Church as a penitential act, which would ensure the remission of sins for the warrior. The chapter turns to the general theology of penances at around 1100.
Keywords: Clermont; First Crusade; H.E. Mayer's version; non-transcendence; penitential act; remissio peccatorum; Urban II