The speech climaxes in Urban's call for orthodoxy, reform, and submission to the Church. 1120, added an account of the speech of Urban II at the Council of Clermont, of which he was an eyewitness. Robert the Monk, who re-wrote the Gesta Francorum ca. The anonymous author of the Gesta was himself among the soldiers capturing the wall towers, and recounts that 'seeing that they were already in the towers, they began to shout Deus le volt with glad voices so indeed did we shout'. It is again mentioned in the context of the capture of Antioch on 3 June 1098.

The Historia belli sacri, written later around 1131, also cites the battle cry. Medieval historian Guibert de Nogent mentions that 'Deus le volt' has been retained by the pilgrims to the detriment of other cries. According to this account, while the Princes' Crusade were gathered in Amalfi in the late summer of 1096, a large number of armed crusaders bearing the sign of the cross on their right shoulders or on their backs cried in unison 'Deus le volt, Deus le volt, Deus le volt'.

1100 by an anonymous author associated with Bohemond I of Antioch shortly after the successful campaign. The battle cry of the First Crusade is first reported in the Gesta Francorum, a chronicle written ca. Later variants include the Old French Dieux el volt and the Classical Latin Deus id vult ('God wills it') or Deus hoc vult ('God wills this'). According to Heinrich Hagenmeyer, the personal pronoun 'le' (or 'lo') was very likely part of the original motto as shouted during the First Crusade at Amalfi, since both the authors of the Gesta Francorum and the Historia Belli Sacri report it. The variants Deus le volt and Deus lo vult, incorrect in Classical Latin, are forms influenced by Romance languages. The phrase appears in another form in the Vulgate translation of 2 Samuel 14:14 from the Bible: nec vult Deus perire animam ('God does not want any soul to perish').

When you deus vult just right