A class of barbarous thugs with titles were rampaging around Europe, so in an effort to send them somewhere else, the Pope asked for them to band together to recapture the Holy Land. As these thugs were highly religious, the plan worked! The knights mostly left Europe to be slaughtered by middle easterners. It also backfired! A new group of noble thugs emerged, but these ones said they were there to protect pilgrims. This lead to extortion and corruption, and many of these thugs would go on to be slaughtered by middle easterners. And eventually they were all slaughtered by other Europeans when they became too politically powerful.
The given justification was that the wrong religion has control over a particular piece of rock.
A class of barbarous thugs with titles were rampaging around Europe, so in an effort to send them somewhere else, the Pope asked for them to band together to recapture the Holy Land. As these thugs were highly religious, the plan worked! The knights mostly left Europe to be slaughtered by middle easterners. It also backfired! A new group of noble thugs emerged, but these ones said they were there to protect pilgrims. This lead to extortion and corruption, and many of these thugs would go on to be slaughtered by middle easterners. And eventually they were all slaughtered by other Europeans when they became too politically powerful.
The given justification was that the wrong religion has control over a particular piece of rock.
The wrong religion was also conquering lands of the right religion, so the right religion just conquered the lands back.