Audita tremendi calls the Third Crusade

October 29, 1187

Pope Gregory VIII, elected days after the news of Hattin reached Rome, issued the encyclical calling for a new crusade to recover Jerusalem. He prescribed fasting on Fridays, forbade sumptuous clothing, and promised plenary indulgences. He died before the campaign was under way. The encyclical's tone of apocalyptic urgency mobilized three European kings and the largest military expedition the West had mounted since the First Crusade.