The objective conditions for the First Crusade were not actually ripe, first of all, the Seljuks had risen to the top, but they had not completely replaced the Abbasid dynasty, had not defeated the Byzantine Empire and captured Asia Minor, and had not sent Fatifa troops to capture Jerusalem.

For the time being, at least during the Fatifa's reign, attitudes towards Christians were tolerant and the pilgrimage was not much of a problem.

It was the indiscriminate massacre of Christians in Jerusalem by Aziz that would later spark the anger of Christians, something that would not have happened until decades later.

Of course, with William's energy, it is not difficult to move the pope to launch a crusade, because launching a crusade is very beneficial to the Church, not only to bridge the split between the Eastern and Western Churches, so that Western Catholicism occupies a leading position, but also to plunder wealth to the East and take the opportunity to expand the power of the Church.

Let the Christian knights occupy the East, and make the Pope the Papacy the supreme ruler of the East and the West, and then the Pope and the Church will be truly invincible.

In addition, the Crusades were also a golden opportunity for the Italians, during the 11th century, the world and the Byzantine world were at the height of the commercial revolution, and the trading centers and the Mediterranean were still in the hands of the world.

It was only after the First Crusade that Italian merchants turned the Mediterranean into their sea again with their merchant ships, and for 500 years, Italian merchants became the undisputed hegemon of the Mediterranean.

But was the Crusades really beneficial to William? Perhaps for the average monarch, this is advantageous, to participate in the crusade can gain prestige, to establish a state in Jerusalem, and if not to participate, to sit behind and reap the benefits.

For example, during the First Crusade, King Philip I of France, he was able to buy the Count of Bourges from the Count of Bourges at a very low price, thanks to the Crusades.

Later, Philip I did the same thing, buying land at a very low price, more than doubling the crown of the crown domain.

But for William, he had enough dominion to buy land from the nobility, as Philip I had done, but it didn't work very well, and instead, because of the Crusades, a large number of Normans would venture to Jerusalem.

William did not approve of the collective adventures of the Normans, and the Normans of Sicily, the Norman country, which was outside William's control, was the result of the Norman adventures.

The Crusades, without William's leadership, would at best create a country that was out of his control.

The Crusades were of great benefit to the Church and the Italian merchants, but not really much to William, so he did not intend to push the Crusades at this time, he was waiting for a better opportunity.

For now, William's primary goal was to conquer Italy, but he did not want to send an army to conquer it.

Why use the sword when you can get it by other means?

This is William's idea at this time, thinking that the 100,000 troops of the HRE Empire went south to Italy, and it was not a failure, and thinking about the later HRE Emperor Barbarossa Frederick I the Redbeard went south to conquer Italy several times, but he also sank into the sand, and the combat effectiveness of the Italian nation was not as weak as everyone imagined.

Perhaps when fighting abroad, when conquering other countries, the Italians will always make jokes of one kind or another, which will become everyone's after-dinner conversation, but when they fight for their homeland, the Italians will burst out with great courage and fighting power.

The great potential of the Italians in the face of aggression was something William feared. Therefore, he did not act at this time when the Italians were just becoming independent and at their weakest, but chose to seize Italian territory through marriage and internal evolution.

For now, the results are not bad, and William's future daughter-in-law, Matilda, is now the Grand Duchess of Tuscany and Spoleto.

Originally, Matilda was still living in the shadow of her mother, and it was William who intervened and plotted for the spy to kill her brother, which allowed Matilda to succeed to the throne.

With the help of William's thousands of troops, Mahilda succeeded in seizing power in Tuscany and Spoleto, and she also took advantage of the situation to canonize and appoint a large number of Normans who helped her.

This also means that William can also indirectly control one of the two largest principalities in Italy by influencing his daughter-in-law Matilda, and in the future, when Matilda marries his heir Richard, Tuscany and Spoleto will not be part of the Normandy royal family.

Now, the only obstacle that could prevent William from taking control of Italy was Duke Ezzo II of Lombardy, who had won the Italian War of Independence.

If you want to solve this person, you have to use the hands of the Archduchess Matilda, otherwise if William directly intervenes in Italian affairs, I am afraid that it will cause a fierce backlash from the Italian states, and even make the Holy See directly intervene.

Although William was not afraid to fight with the church, it was better to avoid unnecessary disputes, after all, the Normans were now judged negatively enough in Europe, and they were often called "insatiable robbers and bandits", "unscrupulous fishmongers", and "uneducated savages......

The clash with the Holy See, which had the right to speak, only made the situation of the Normans in Europe even more dire.

The Normans under the leadership of William were very powerful, and the Norman kingdom was also extremely strong, but no matter how strong they were, they could not withstand the targeting of European countries.

Therefore, in order to dispel the hostility and defense of the Normans in various countries, William was ready to temporarily lay dormant minions, pretending to be harmless to humans and animals, and minimizing conflicts with the church, so as not to fall into the mouth.

In addition, in order to reverse the bad reputation of the Normans, William planned to build the largest library in all of Europe, in order to improve the cultural literacy of the Normans and revive literature and art.

This plan was already on the agenda last year, when Duke Hubert offered to donate thousands of pounds of silver to finance the construction of the library.

It was only later, when William thought that the plan to build the library was too petty, and the architect repeatedly revised it according to his requirements, so that the construction was delayed until now.

The library, to be built next to the Saint-Denis Church in Paris and to be attached to an academy, will cover more than 30 hectares, making it one of the largest in the Middle Ages.

Of course, the new library is not only a building and a site, but also a collection of books, in this regard, William exchanged tens of thousands of regular books from Córdoba, which are all precious books accumulated during the reign of the Umayyad dynasty, and on the other hand, William is also going to send people to Italy to collect books.