What was the motivation for the Crusades? They were expensive and required the pope to beg for money from nobility, and continued even during times when Jerusalem was under Christian control. Kings would make "crusade" pilgrimages to the Holy Land just to be blessed, then go home, killing muslims on the way there and on the way back if possible just to score points. Was the whole thing just a way to work off aggression?
>>285560
Domination of sacred space, a particularly Frankish expression of Christianity in which the more Classical tradition of many religions existing alongside (if subservient) to the leading faith with their own religious buildings were replaced with the idea that a religious people could not be pure and their land not sacred if corrupted with non-(Frankish) Christian relics, temples, or people.
That and diplomatic supremacy of the papacy over the princes of Europe, creating alliances directed against enemies of the Church.
Over time it became a tradition for young knights and nobles to emulate their heroic ancestors.
>>285601
Pretty much this
Not forgetting the attempt to extend papal influence eastwards
This is a really really really convoluted question in scholarship
Look into Contesting the Crusades by Norman Housley and What Were The Crusades by Jonathan Riley-Smith
Insanely fucking dense question with tons of turnover with each new generation of scholars. Don't trust any one answer you read.
>>285560
Considering what a difficult question it is to answer I'd hazard that at the time not much thought actually went into it and it was really just a massive YOLO moment.
To destroy everything noble
"Christianity destroyed for us the whole harvest of ancient civilization, and later it also destroyed for us the whole harvest of Mohammedan civilization. The wonderful culture of the Moors in Spain, which was fundamentally nearer to us and appealed more to our senses and tastes than that of Rome and Greece, was trampled down (—I do not say by what sort of feet—) Why? Because it had to thank noble and manly instincts for its origin—because it said yes to life, even to the rare and refined luxuriousness of Moorish life!... The crusaders later made war on something before which it would have been more fitting for them to have grovelled in the dust—a civilization beside which even that of our nineteenth century seems very poor and very “senile.”—What they wanted, of course, was booty: the orient was rich.... Let us put aside our prejudices! The crusades were a higher form of piracy, nothing more! The German nobility, which is fundamentally a Viking nobility, was in its element there: the church knew only too well how the German nobility was to be won.... The German noble, always the “Swiss guard” of the church, always in the service of every bad instinct of the church—but well paid.... Consider the fact that it is precisely the aid of German swords and German blood and valour that has enabled the church to carry through its war to the death upon everything noble on earth! "
-Friedrich Nietzsche
>>288090
Gotta love Germanic self haters.
>>288090
>The German nobility, which is fundamentally a Viking nobility
Haha what?
Anyway the Crusaders were overwhelmingly French.
>>288090
>the whole harvest of Mohammedan civilization
Lolololololo.
The crusades were essentially a Christian reply to Muslims denying safe passage to the holy land for Christian pilgrims.
>>288145
I bet you also think the Iraq invasion was because of 9/11
>>285560
No expert, but I would guess retaliation against the many Muslim raids in the Mediterranean, reinforcing the strength of the Catholic Church, reclaiming lost Byzantine land.
