In the course of human history wars have been waged primarily over two things, land and religion. Sometimes for both of those reasons at the same time. Sometimes you do it 8 times. The Crusades are the best example of using the "will of god" as an excuse to do what the Europeans did best, conquer and kill. The Church (you know the one) decreed the man up stairs wanted Jerusalem and the Holy Land back and lo and behold, if you went and fought you would be absolved of all your sins. Now for the ruling classes of Europe who were pretty much sin factories, this was music to their ears. Now coincidentally this whole reclamation of one of JC's hangouts also happened to bring the crusader armies through the Byzantine Empire. The Byzantines were kinda like the Holy Roman Empire's hot ex who they fucked it up with and wanted them back. The Pope thought if they could help them out with the issues they were having on their borders with the Islamic peoples in the Middle East, maybe they would see how the H.R.E. had grown and matured and come back to them, and by come back, I mean start sending their money. And thus the Crusades, an almost 200 year mission for christianity to take back their shit when they really didn't have the shit to begin with. This one has it all folks. More Popes that you can shake his pope stick thing at, kings, knights, castles, battles, severe dysentary, friendship, betrayal. Why are you still reading this? Stop, just hit play.
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