Had an interesting conversation with a Middle Eastern man this morning....

[Act_of_Reparation]

24. Did you just make that up?

Because it sounds like you just made that up.

There is no way to assess the motives of the thousands of poor who journeyed from Europe to Outremer during the First Crusade, as the largely illiterate largely don't write shit down. We do know how they were recruited, however, and that was by homilies given by bishops in churches. We also have some general idea of what these homilies entailed, because they were given by order of the Pope himself.

The notion that landed knights would take the cross for riches is likewise unconvincing. The cost of equipping one's self and one's coterie for battle and travel from western Europe to Outremer was astronomical. How much riches do you think they would get? Moreover, most that survived the journey and the battles opted to return to Europe rather than try to carve out new fiefs for themselves in the Holy Land.

Even the nobility's motivations are questionable. If greed was the motivating factor, then one would expect to have seen younger, non-firstborn sons without much prospect for advancement at home making up the bulk of the fighting force. But this wasn't the case. Many of those who took the cross were established, powerful nobles with more to lose than to gain.

Under the circumstances, it would be absolutely ludicrous to discount personal zeal as at least a major factor in the decision to take the cross, no matter one's social standing.