Deus Vult: Meaning, Origin and Wording of the Crusaders’ Cry

Two Latin words, shouted by a whole assembly at once: Deus vult, God wills it. With this cry the crowd at Clermont answered the speech of Pope Urban II in November 1095, and with it the crusaders of the First Crusade went into battle. Yet the chroniclers write it in different ways, now “Deus vult”, now “Deus le volt” or “Deus hoc vult”. This guide sets the accounts side by side, explains the spellings and asks what the cry has to do with the third petition of the Our Father.

What does Deus vult mean in English?

In English Deus vult means “God wills it”. Deus means God; vult is the third person singular of velle, to will. The cry is therefore neither a request nor a command but a statement: those who cried it professed that what they were setting out to do accorded with the will of God.

The word “will” already stands in the first sentence of a chronicle of the First Crusade. The Gesta Francorum, the diary of a participant which, according to Hagenmeyer, Ekkehard of Aura was already reading in Jerusalem in 1101, begin with the word of the Lord: Si quis vult post me venire, abneget semetipsum et tollat crucem suam et sequatur me. The Douay-Rheims version renders Mt 16:24: “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.” The chronicler places the departure of the crusaders, who wore the cross on their shoulders, under this word. How the taking of the cross took place and what the vow meant is explained in our guide on the crusaders.

Who first cried Deus vult?

Deus vult was first cried by the crowd assembled at the Council of Clermont in November 1095, when Pope Urban II had finished his speech. So reports Robert the Monk, who according to Heinrich Hagenmeyer attended the council as an eyewitness. Urban took up the cry and made it their battle cry.

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, the council sat from 18 to 28 November 1095; on 27 November the Pope addressed the assembly. Robert writes that Urban so united the hearts of all that they cried out: Deus vult! Deus vult!

The Pope gave thanks with his eyes raised to heaven and interpreted the unanimous cry by the word of the Lord in Mt 18:20: where two or three are gathered together in his name, there is he in the midst of them. Without God, says Urban in Robert’s account, they would not all have cried the same thing. Therefore the cry was to be their militare signum, their military signal, in battle, and all were to shout it at every attack. The background of the speech is described in our guide to the Crusades.

“… licet enim vox vestra numerosa prodierit, tamen origo vocis una fuit.” For although your cry came forth from many mouths, yet the origin of the cry was one.

Urban II according to Robert the Monk, Historia Iherosolimitana I, 2 (Recueil des historiens des croisades, Historiens occidentaux III, p. 729)

Deus vult or Deus lo vult: which is correct?

Deus vult is the Latin form; Deus lo vult or Deus le volt is probably the form the people really shouted. The chroniclers write the cry differently. In 1890 Heinrich Hagenmeyer took the version with “le” or “lo” for the wording actually heard, since the Italian author of the Historia belli sacri has it too.

The little word “le” or “lo” is not classical Latin but a pronoun of the vernacular, as in the Italian Dio lo vuole. Hagenmeyer cites the scholar Barth, who calls the cry a “barbarous Latin” exclamation of the people. Most manuscripts of the Gesta, on the other hand, write Deus vult, and Tudebode and Fulcher Deus hoc vult, “God wills this”. None of the forms, then, is wrong: Deus vult is the Latin of the books, Deus lo vult the cry of the street.

How did Deus vult become the battle cry of the crusaders?

Deus vult became a battle cry because, according to the chroniclers, the crusaders shouted it on the march, in combat and at the storming of Antioch in 1098. The Gesta Francorum expressly call it the signal the crusaders sounded in battle and relate how it moved Bohemond to take the cross.

In 1096 the Norman Bohemond, together with Count Roger, was besieging the city of Amalfi. There he heard of the crusaders passing through and asked what arms they bore and what cry they sounded in battle. The answer: they wore the cross of Christ on the right arm or between the shoulders and cried as with one voice “Deus le volt”. Bohemond then had his most precious cloak cut up into crosses.

Robert the Monk tells the scene somewhat differently: in his account the passing crusaders were practising arms in the fields, throwing their lances at one another in sport and all crying with one voice: “Deus vult! Deus vult!”

Fulcher of Chartres writes that the cry was their signal whenever they wished to undertake some good work. When the crusaders climbed into the towers of Antioch on 3 June 1098, the first men at the top cried with joyful voice “Deus vult”, as the manuscripts read; Hagenmeyer prints “Deus le volt”. The author of the Gesta writes: “Nos vero idem clamabamus”, and we cried the same. How the military orders carried on the legacy of this expedition is shown in our guide on the Knights Templar.

What does Deus vult have to do with the Our Father?

Deus vult has to do with the Our Father because both speak of the will of God. In the third petition, “Thy will be done”, the one who prays asks, according to the Roman Catechism, that God may help him to direct his own will according to the will of God.

In the Vulgate the third petition reads fiat voluntas tua, sicut in caelo et in terra (Mt 6:10), in the Douay-Rheims version: “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Our Lord himself prayed this petition on the Mount of Olives: fiat voluntas tua (Mt 26:42).

The Roman Catechism explains the petition thus: we ask our heavenly Father that we may be able to keep his commandments, after the example of Christ, who became obedient unto death on the Cross (Phil 2:8), and to suffer anything rather than depart in the least from his will. At the same time we ask not to follow what sensuality and weakness suggest, but to direct our will according to his. In Robert’s account, Urban saw in the unanimous cry of Clermont a sign that God was among those assembled. The full text with all seven petitions is given in our guide to the Our Father.

“My Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from me. Nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.”

Mt 26:39, Douay-Rheims version

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