ABSTRACT
Paradoxically, whilst neither Christendom nor the crusade has proved easy to define with precision, the relationship between them is clear. Ideologically, crusading represented the mobilization of Christendom's military and devotional resources under the aegis of papal authority, in order to achieve goals that were represented as being of central importance to all Catholics. The international background to Thomas More's exchange with St German was the Turkish defeat of the Hungarians and their occupation of much of Hungary. For St German and More, a crusade would have as its goal not just the recovery of the two great patriarchal cities of Jerusalem and Constantinople, but the liberation of thousands of Christians who were currently doomed to live under Muslim rule. Like many historical figures, More is not an easy man to understand, but that is not the same thing as saying that he was radically inconsistent in his outlook.
