[Erdmann explains that disagreements between the European Crusaders and the Byzantines broke out during the First Crusade and their aftermath colored accounts of it written after 1100, obscuring its initial goals. In order to understand what this expedition was intended to accomplish, it is necessary to consider sources from before this falling out, particularly the statements of Pope Urban II. Some historians have argued that he authorized the First Crusade in response to Turkish molestation of European pilgrims to Jerusalem; however, this had been going on for a long time prior to 1095 and cannot have been the direct cause. According to Erdmann, Urban's comments show equal or greater concern for the native Christians of the East than for Western pilgrims.]

A considerably simpler conclusion is reached when we shift our gaze from the motivation of the crusade to its objective. Is it true that the crusaders did not intend to help the Byzantine Empire at all? A point not to be forgotten is that half the result of the crusade consisted in the crusaders' joining with Alexius to win back the larger part of Asia Minor for the Byzantine Empire. Had this been avoidable? The first Moslems whom an army would encounter were the neighbors and old enemies of the Byzantine Empire: could one seriously conceive of combating them without an alliance with Alexius? Was not such an alliance essential simply for reasons of supply? Geography spoke in plain language. Constantinople and its environs were the only possible point of departure that could also serve as the concentration point for the various crusading armies. Regardless of what the final object was to be, the campaign had to set out from Constantinople. If so, the crusaders were forced, whether they liked it or not, to adopt the objective of assisting the Byzantine emperor for at least the first part of the war.

Of course, it cannot be denied that Urban designated Jerusalem as an objective. Other papal statements clearly prove that he did. The canon of the Council of Clermont concerning the crusade establishes a plenary indulgence for everyone who "sets out for Jerusalem to liberate the church of God." A letter of Urban to the clergy and people of Bologna mentions that the indulgence is for all those who proceed to Jerusalem "only for the good of their souls and the liberation of the church," since they expose their persons and their goods "out of love for God and their neighbors." Another letter, to the monks of Vallombrosa, speaks of the knights who "set out for Jerusalem in order to liberate Christendom" and are thereby "to humble the ferocity of the Saracens with their weapons and to restore the Christians to their former freedom." Here, as in the texts previously cited, the liberation of the church or of Christendom is stated as the goal of the war [Kriegsziel], but Jerusalem is the goal of the campaign [Marschziel]. This distinction fully explains how the pope spoke of goals in his appeals to crusade. The inference is that, while Urban did not in fact mention Byzantium, his military objectives fully coincided with those of Alexius. The whole Eastern church was to be freed from the Turkish yoke. The first step, accordingly, had to be the reconquest of those parts of the Byzantine Empire that had been lost in the last decades--geography alone required that this be so--and these were precisely the districts whose recovery Alexius had in mind when he sent his embassy to the pope.

In view of these comments, it may not even be said that the pope presented the crusaders with the double objective of assisting the Eastern Christians and liberating the Holy Sepulcher. No official statement had to be made about the second objective: it was the practical implication of the first. There was a certain discrepancy between the goal of the campaign and that of the war, the former being Jerusalem in particular, while the latter was the Eastern church in general. This duality is particularly clear in the earliest account of the origin of the crusade, namely that of Fulcher of Chartres, who wrote this part of his work soon after 1100. Fulcher relates that the pope had heard of the suffering of the Christians in inner Romania (Asia Minor) and for this reason brought about the resolution of the Council of Clermont. In reporting Urban's great speech at the council, he again speaks of Romania as far as the Bosphorus, along with Eastern Christians in general. But Jerusalem and the holy places have no place in his prehistory of the Crusade. Only later, when Fulcher speaks of the army's departure, does he directly say that it was going to Jerusalem; how this was connected to the papal appeal cannot be inferred from his narrative.

Yet it is evident that, in the minds of the crusaders, a special war aim involving Jerusalem would have easily and almost necessarily evolved from the special objective of the campaign. Indeed, the earliest testimony for it is a crusading hymn that seems to have originated in the very year 1096. It refers not only to proceeding to Jerusalem and destroying Saracens--agreeing to this extent with the sources mentioned above--but also to acquiring God's temple. Regardless of whether the Temple rather than the Holy Sepulcher is mentioned, the goal of the war is clearly a particular locality, and no longer the liberation of Christians. We observe the same thing in the anonymous Gesta Francourum, whose core was composed during the crusade. There, the journey to the Holy Sepulcher first appears as an end in itself, as though it had been a pilgrimage without warlike intent. But as the account goes on, the idea often recurs that the Holy Sepulcher also gave strength to the warriors in battle against the heathens. This makes it conceivable that "help for the Holy Sepulcher" and "liberation of the way to the Holy Sepulcher" were sometimes offered as the rationale of the war. The slogan "liberation of the Holy Sepulcher" also emerged during the crusade. We find it for the first time in the memorable letter that Bohemond's crusaders wrote to the pope after the capture of Antioch.