History of Palestine Orthodox Church. However, in 1090, Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos began taking reconciliatory measures towards the Papacy, with the intention of seeking western support against the Seljuqs. In 1095 his ambassadors appeared before Pope Urban II at the Council of Piacenza, to request mercenary forces, and later that year at the Council of Clermont Pope Urban II called for the First Crusade. The Kingdom of Jerusalem was a Christian kingdom established in the Levant in 1099 as a result of the First Crusade. Its control of Jerusalem and most of Palestine lasted almost a century until defeat by Saladin's forces
Religious war expansion into Asia Minor and Europe proper. Later, Crusades were launched against other targets, either for religious reasons, such as the Albigensian Crusade, the Northern Crusades, or because of political conflict, such as the Aragonese Crusade. In 1095, at the Council of Clermont, Pope Urban II raised the level of war from "bellum iustum" ("just war"), to "bellum sacrum" ("holy war"). In 16th-century France there was a succession of wars between Roman Catholics and Protestants (Hugenots primarily), known as the French Wars of Religion. In the first half of the 17th century, the German states, Scandinavia (Sweden, primarily) and Poland