Take The Vow

The Crusader's Vow was a solemn promise to God made before a representative of the Catholic Church legally binding oneself to undertake a crusade. The vow and its attendant privileges were among the defining features of a crusade, along with crusade indulgences.

There could be no crusade without crusaders and what made a man or woman a crusader was the making of a vow . . .

The act of making a crusader's vow was often referred to as "taking the cross", since it was normal to sew a cross onto one's garments, a practice that began with the First Crusade in 1095.

Through some surviving records, such as Pope Urban II Speech at Council of Clermont, 1095 or A letter from Robert II, Count of Flanders, 1096 we can get a pretty good sense of what a Crusader's Vow might have sounded like. If you'd like to take up the cross with us, we've prepared a Crusader's Vow below! Deus Vult!