Although dated, the late Princeton scholar Dana Carleton Munro produced some of the most important scholarship of lasting relevance on Pope Urban, the conditions surrounding his calling of the First Crusade, and his speech at Clermont. Munro's best works on these issues include "The Speech of Urban II at Clermont." American Historical Review 11 (1906), 231-40 and "Did the Emperor Alexius Ask for Aid at the Council of Piacenza 1095?" American Historical Review 27 (1922). He has also addressed the subject of urban's speech in other works including Dana Carleton Munro, The Middle Ages, 395-1272. New York: The Century Company, 1921.
Munro has described Urban's speech as follows,
The pope began by praising the valor of the Franks and re-calling to them the great deeds of their
ancestors. Then he spoke of the necessity of aiding their brethren in the East, of the appeals for
help that had come so frequently because of the victorious advance of the Turks. He dwelt at
length upon the sufferings that were inflicted upon the Christians and upon the desecration
of the holy places. He gave examples of cruelty, and aroused deep emotion in his hearers by pointing
out the ma1ner in which the places they held most sacred were being defiled. Then emphasizing the
special sanctity of Jerusalem, he declared that this was God's own work, that, for all who participated,
the journey itself would take the place of all other penance. He urged them to engage in righteous
warfare instead of wasting their strength and imperiling their souls by civil strife at home. He pointed
out the evil conditions in France which reduced many to starvation, and compared with this the
opportunity for acquiring homes in a land flowing with milk and honey, and l for securing at the same
time eternal rewards. He urged them not to let any ties prevent them from entering upon this holy
undertaking in which they would march with Christ as their leader. This speech aroused the utmost
enthusiasm. Thousands pressed forward to take the cross. Urban seems to have been surprised at
his own success, and found it necessary to attempt to check the excessive enthusiasm by ordering
that women should not go without the consent of their husbands, that priests and monks should not
join the movement without the approbation of their superiors, and that old men and children should
remain at home. But he was powerless to stay the flood that he had set in motion. When ambassadors
arrived on the following day to say that Raymond of Toulouse, the most powerful count in France,
had taken the cross, success seemed assured.
Dana Carleton Munro. The Middle Ages, 395-1272 (New York: The Century Company, 1921), pp. 242-255]
Among the sources which claim to reproduce accounts of the speech are Robert the Monk, Balderic of Dol, The Gesta Francorum, Guibert of Nogent, Fulcher of Chartres, Ekkehard of Aurach, William of Malmesbury, Roger of Wendover, William of Tyre, and Odericus Vitalis. Additionally, there is some speculation that the so-called Letter of Alexius to Count Robert of Flanders may have been based in part on Urban's speech. Various versions of the speech made available online are linked to below.