Reply #43: the Crusades, especially the early ones, were a "jobs"

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program for unemployed and impoverished European knights. In the 11th cent. the Church had managed fairly successfully to impose a relative peace ("The Peace of God") in Europe. Knights, whose job was to plunder, were running out of targets at home. In other words, The Church and European rulers (who had an interest in peace at home) managed to "externalize" the violence on which the aristocratic economy was based. That is, it was a kind of colonialist enterprise (literally, since these knights set up little kingdoms in the holy land).