Weren’t the crusades also just a Papal project to reduce the intensity of European wars by dumping excess military capacity into colonising the Middle East?
Partly. The first Crusade had a lot to do with the Seljuks winning at Manizkert, which left the Byzantines needing help from Western Europe to take back their lands. They also wanted to direct knights violence at a common enemy as you said, but from the soldiers and knights to the 4 princes to Peter the hermit and Pope Urban II, all of them truly believed they were religiously called to reclaim the holy land. It’s kind of the opposite of those modern conflicts, it was a religious war with political overtones. The balance of religion and politics as motivating factors is different for each crusade.
Similarly, you could make an argument that Muhammed was motivated in his early conquests by political and territorial ambition, but he and his followers truly believed they were following divine orders. There’s always a mix of the two in those conflicts and it’s a sliding scale.
Weren’t the crusades also just a Papal project to reduce the intensity of European wars by dumping excess military capacity into colonising the Middle East?
Partly. The first Crusade had a lot to do with the Seljuks winning at Manizkert, which left the Byzantines needing help from Western Europe to take back their lands. They also wanted to direct knights violence at a common enemy as you said, but from the soldiers and knights to the 4 princes to Peter the hermit and Pope Urban II, all of them truly believed they were religiously called to reclaim the holy land. It’s kind of the opposite of those modern conflicts, it was a religious war with political overtones. The balance of religion and politics as motivating factors is different for each crusade.
Similarly, you could make an argument that Muhammed was motivated in his early conquests by political and territorial ambition, but he and his followers truly believed they were following divine orders. There’s always a mix of the two in those conflicts and it’s a sliding scale.