The Crusades originated from the speech delivered by Pope Urban II (r. 1088-99) on 27 November 1095 at the council of Clermont. He appealed for all Christendom to come to the assistance of their threatened brothers in the East, to free them and the city of Jerusalem, with all its holy places, from the Muslim yoke. Although there is no real verbatim account of the pope's speech, it can be partially reconstructed from four contemporary reports of the speech, even though these four differ to a certain extent