It is, no doubt, impossible to regard the Crusades as entirely religious in their spirit and character, but it is equally impossible to ignore the fact that religious motives played a very large part in their history. We may venture to say that they commenced under the influence of the Cluniac reformation, and that most of those who took part in the First Crusade, if they had any regard for religion at all, accepted the Cluniac standards: whilst the Second Crusade was still more definitely associated with the Cistercian order, itself an after-math of the Cluniac reformation. The attitude of the Latin clergy towards the Greek Church was exactly the same as that of the Cistercian missionaries towards the native Keltic clergy of Ireland a few years later: wherever religion enters into the programme of the Crusaders it is always treated according to Cluniac standards, and everything is disapproved which does not conform to those standards. The Normans and Burgundians formed the most loyal contingent of those who contended for Cluniac ideals, and they, the Normans especially, formed the real nucleus of the First Crusade. The Crusading movement cannot be separated from the Cluniac reformation. In referring to the Cluniacs we do not confine the term to those who were actually monks in the Abbey of Cluny, nor even to those in the priories which were in obedience to Cluny, but extend it to all those portions of the Latin Church which followed the leadership of Cluny in the way of church reform and saw the ideal Christianity in the Cluniac programme, an ideal of which we have the fullest expression in the writings of S. Peter Damian. These reformers were loyal to the Papacy, but to an idealised Papacy reconstructed on Cluniac lines; they were outspoken in their criticism of the actual Papacy and its entourage as it existed in the 10th cent. Incidentally Rome ceased to be the chief place of pilgrimage, not because there was any repugnance felt towards Rome or the Papal court, but because, in conformity with the spirit of Cluny, a greater emphasis was laid upon the suffering Christ, and thus greater prominence was given to the sites connected with the Passion: thus Palestine tended to become a “Holy Land,” and Jerusalem itself the chief object of the pilgrim’s devotion. Thus, early in the 11th century, the thoughts of the leading and most vigorous element in the Latin Church began to turn towards Jerusalem and predisposed men to regard the liberation of the holy sites of Palestine from infidel rule as a work of piety.