Benedetto Accolti's second composition as chancellor and his longest work was De bello a christianis contra barbaros gesto pro Christi sepulcro et Iudea recuperandis libri IV, a history of the first crusade. He begins the first book with an account of the rise of Islam and the loss to Christianity of the holy lands, and goes on to recount Peter the Hermit's and Pope Urban II's efforts to launch a crusade, including a version of Urban's famous oration at Clermont in 1095. He then describes the abortive expeditions of Peter the Hermit, Walter the Penniless and Gottschalk, and ends the first book with Bohemond, the Norman prince of Taranto, taking the cross and delivering a long oration to persuade his compatriots to follow his lead. In the second book, after describing the journey to the East of the main crusading armies under Bohemond and Godfrey of Bouillon, Accolti gives an account of the siege and capture of Nicea, whose Moslem governor is portrayed delivering an impassioned oration to rouse his subjects to withstand the Christian onslaught. There then follows a long digression on Baldwin of Bouillon's success in winning a principality in Armenia, and an account of the journey of the main crusading force to Antioch; the second book concludes with an oration by Godfrey to the crusading army before the walls of Antioch. The main event of the third book is the siege and capture of Antioch by the crusaders, after which Accolti describes the unsuccessful attempt by a large Muslim force to recapture the city.