34). Furthering the claim that a crusade is a papacy calling. Bishops and priests spread the message quickly across Europe which led countless people to answer the call and assembled towards Constantinople. Some were barons whom kings had volunteered to represent them with scores of men at the baron's command, others ranged from ordinary men who chose to go for their own personal reasons. Their reasons could have been anything from faith, wonder lust, fortunes, or simply something new. Whatever their reasons, the goal was clearly illustrated. Retake the holy land from the Muslim conquerors and retake the city of Jerusalem.
The crusades were heavily religious in terms of their motivations and goals. However one must not conclude that to define it as a holy war is all that is needed to accurately describe the crusades, even for the first crusade. The first crusade was also an armed pilgrimage at times due to certain events that transpired during and after the crusade. The one thing that is not disputed among scholars is how vital the Frankish people viewed Jerusalem from a sacred point of view. However, if liberating Jerusalem and driving out the aggressors had been their only goal then why did the Latin kings come to power? Housley acknowledges this by stating, "the church was always conscious that what was being promoted as a holy war carried the possibility of material gain for those taking part" (pg. 76). The answer to this question is simply the lust for territory, money, and power. Had the Franks truly gone for the sole purpose of liberation, the territory they had retaken would have been returned to the previous owner, the Byzantines. This is not what transpired however. Instead new states arose in the Middle East known as the county of Edessa, the principality of Antioch, the kingdom of Tripoli, and the kingdom of Jerusalem, the most influential of the group.
The original question that was posed was whether the crusades were a holy war, an armed pilgrimage, or somewhere in between.
