The decision by the crusaders to continue on and capture Jerusalem was almost certainly religiously motivated. However the decision to capture Jerusalem without capturing any of the surrounding territory first wasn 't motivated by religious zeal but was motivated mainly by desperation and possibly a small amount of impatience. The reason the crusaders moved on Jerusalem without taking the surrounding area first was that "al-Afdal had seized Jerusalem from the Turks." Al Afdal was the vizier of Egypt. Given time he would be able to raise an army to reinforce the city. Clearly time was working against the crusaders. Attempting to capture Jerusalem before a relief army could arrive to reinforce it would be very difficult but by no means impossible. …show more content…
The motivations of the crusaders whose names have been largely forgotten is much more uncertain. As mentioned in an earlier paragraph Urban made appeals that listed both secular and religious reasons to join. Some have argued that since most of the crusaders made no money from the crusade that they were not motivated by a desire for material goods when they joined. This argument is supported by the fact that most of the crusader army returned to Europe rather than staying in the new crusader states which indicates that they didn 't join in order to gain land. However just because the crusaders made no money doesn 't prove that greed didn 't inspire people to join. People buy lottery tickets all the time and many never win. Just because they don 't turn a profit doesn 't prove that they didn 't buy a ticket to make money. Also the fact that most of the army returned to Europe doesn 't prove that they didn 't desire land when joining. They may have initially wanted to gain land in the Holy Land and make a new start somewhere else. However they could easily have changed their minds and decided that they preferred to live in Europe rather than live in the Holy Land. It 's impossible to prove for certain that the main part of the crusader army joined for secular reasons but it also can 't be