<P> The Bosnian Crusade was a campaign against the independent Bosnian Church, which was accused of Catharism (Bogomilism). However, it was also possibly motivated by Hungarian territorial ambitions . In 1216 a mission was sent to convert Bosnia to Rome but failed . In 1225 Honorius III encouraged the Hungarians to crusade in Bosnia . This ended in failure after the Hungarians were defeated by the Mongols at the Battle of Mohi . From 1234 Gregory IX encouraged further crusading, but again the Bosniaks repelled the Hungarians . </P> <P> In the Iberian peninsula, Crusader privileges were given to those aiding the Templars, the Hospitallers, and the Iberian orders that merged with the orders of Calatrava and Santiago . The Christian kingdoms pushed the Muslim Moors and Almohads back in frequent Papal - endorsed Iberian Crusades from 1212 to 1265 . The Emirate of Granada held out until 1492, at which point the Muslims and Jews were finally expelled from the peninsula . </P> <P> Minor Crusading efforts lingered into the 14th century, and several Crusades were launched during the 14th and 15th centuries to counter the expansion of the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans . In 1309 as many as 30,000 peasants gathered from England, north - eastern France, and Germany proceeded as far as Avignon but disbanded there . Peter I of Cyprus captured and sacked Alexandria in 1365 in what became known as the Alexandrian Crusade; his motivation was as much commercial as religious . Louis II led the 1390 Barbary Crusade against Muslim pirates in North Africa; after a ten - week siege, the Crusaders signed a ten - year truce . </P> <P> The Ottomans had conquered most of the Balkans and reduced Byzantine influence to the area immediately surrounding Constantinople after victory at the Battle of Kosovo in 1389 . Nicopolis was seized from the Bulgarian Tsar Ivan Shishman in 1393 and a year later Pope Boniface IX proclaimed a new Crusade against the Turks, although the Western Schism had split the papacy . This Crusade was led by Sigismund of Luxemburg, King of Hungary; many French nobles joined Sigismund's forces, including the Crusade's military leader, John the Fearless (son of the Duke of Burgundy). Sigismund advised the Crusaders to adopt a cautious, more defensive strategy, when they reached the Danube, instead they besieged the city of Nicopolis . The Ottomans defeated them in the Battle of Nicopolis on 25 September, capturing 3,000 prisoners . </P>

When did the first christian armies head for the holy land