Write two pages Responding to the following question. In your essays, please be sure to incorporate a thorough discussion of the passages provided below the question.

Question: How did the dynamics of the relationship between the Byzantine Empire and the West change over the course of the crusading movement?

Excerpt A from Baldric of Dol’s account of Pope Urban II’s sermon at the council of Clermont “We have heard, most beloved brethren … how, with great hurt and dire sufferings, our Christian brothers, members in Christ, are scourged, oppressed, and injured in Jerusalem, in Antioch, and the other cities of the East. Your own blood-brothers, your companions, your associates (for you are sons of the same Christ and the same church) …. Under Jesus Christ, our leader, may you struggle for your Jerusalem, in Christian battle-line … it is the only warfare that is righteous, for it is charity to risk your life for your brothers.”

Excerpt B from Robert of Clari’s The Conquest of Constantinople “Then it was announced to all the host that all the Venetians and everyone else should go and hear the sermons on Sunday morning; and they did so. Then the bishops preached to the army … and they showed to the pilgrims that the war was a righteous one; for the Greeks were traitors and murderers, and also disloyal, since they had murdered their rightful lord, and were worse than Jews. Moreover, the bishops said that, by the authority of God and in the name of the pope, they would absolve all who attacked the Greeks. Then the bishops commanded the pilgrims to confess their sins and receive the communion devoutly; and said that they ought not to hesitate to attack the Greeks, for the latter were enemies of God.”