However, for the most part, these crusades were not popular in Britain and Ireland, and the Holy Land continued to exert the strongest pull, perhaps because people in Britain and Ireland did not have to face enemies of Christianity within or along their own borders, unlike those in France, Spain, Hungary and Scandinavia, where Muslims or pagans lived in near proximity. In these areas there was perhaps a broader appreciation of what a crusade actually was, how it could be employed, and what it might achieve, and as a result there may have been an increased willingness to engage with a wider selection of crusading ‘areas’ than there was among the people from Britain and Ireland.