crusaders and King Sigismund of Hungary at the Nicopolis, in 1444 destroyed a crusading Polish and Hungarian force at Varna, four years later again defeated the Hungarians at Kosovo and in 1453 captured Constantinople. The 16thcentury saw growing rapprochement. The Habsburgs, French, Spanish and Venetians and Ottomans all signed treaties. Francis I of France allied with all quarters, including from German Protestant princes and Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. Anti-Christian crusading declined in the 15thcentury, the exceptions were the six failed crusades against the religiously radical Hussites in Bohemia and attacks on the Waldensians in Savoy. Crusading became a financial exercise; precedence was given to the commercial and political objectives. The military threat presented by the Ottoman Turks diminished, making anti-Ottoman crusading obsolete in 1699 with the final Holy League. Crusading movement Origins The First Crusade was an unexpected event for contemporary chroniclers, but historical analysis demonstrates it had its roots in developments earlier in the 11thcentury. Clerics and laity increasingly recognised Jerusalem as worthy of penitential pilgrimage. The desire of Christians for a more effective church was evident in increased piety. Pilgrimage to the Holy Land expanded after safer routes through Hungary developed from 1000. There was an increasingly articulate piety within the knighthood and the developing devotional and penitential practises of the aristocracy created a fertile ground for crusading appeals. The papacy's decline in power and influence had left it as little more than a localised bishopric, but its assertion grew under the influence of the Gregorian Reform in the period from the 1050s until the 1080s. The doctrine of papal supremacy conflicted with the view of the Eastern church that considered the pope as only one of the five patriarchs of the Christian Church, alongside the Patriarchates of Alexandria, Antioch, Constantinople and Jerusalem. In 1054 differences in custom, creed, and practice spurred Pope Leo IX to send a delegation to the Patriarch of Constantinople, which ended in mutual excommunication and an East–West Schism. Military orders The military orders were forms of a religious order first established early in the twelfth century with the function of defending Christians, as well as observing monastic vows. The Knights Hospitaller had a medical mission in Jerusalem since before the First Crusade, later becoming a formidable military force supporting the crusades in the Holy Land and Mediterranean. The Knights Templar were founded in 1119 by a band of knights who dedicated themselves to