Sacred Violence: The European Crusades to the Middle East, 1095–1396 (review)
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Sacred Violence: The European Crusades to Middle East, 1095-1396. By Jill N. Claster. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 2009. Pp- xix, 356. $29.95 paperback. ISBN 978-1-442-60060-7.) On eve of September 1 1 , 2001 , there were in print only three singlevolume histories of crusades written by scholars. Today there are dozens, with more published each year. When a new volume is produced, therefore, it is natural to wonder how it could differ from all of those that have come before. However, in scope, content, and execution Jill N. Claster's book really does offer something new. Although most authors provide an introductory chapter, Claster devotes two full chapters to setting historical background of medieval Near East and West. One might quibble whether it is necessary to stretch back to second millennium BC to understand crusades, yet there is no denying that Claster provides a solid foundation on which her reader can build. Throughout, she writes with energy and emotion, drawing reader along step by step. At times this results in some awkward colloquialisms, such as the Byzantine Empire by 1300 was totally down on its luck (p. 301); yet in most cases it works well. Unlike other modern histories, Sacred Violence provides no working definition of a crusade to inform its narrative. Claster does state that [t]he underlying theme of this book is quest for Jerusalem and belief that Jerusalem was, and remained, central to ideology of crusading. . (p. xix). At first glance this suggests a traditionalist approach; yet book itself includes descriptions of crusades in Baltics, in Spain, against heretics, and against enemies of pope at home. It also extends its coverage beyond traditional date of 1291 to Crusade of Nicopolis in 1396. Claster contends that this was a turning point, since Europeans were thereafter on defensive against Ottomans and neglectful of Jerusalem. Yet Turks had invaded Europe almost four decades earlier, and no serious attempt to recapture Holy City had been launched from Europe in well over a century. Nevertheless, an epilogue briefly continues story until fall of Constantinople in 1453. One great strength of this book is evenhandedness and empathy with which it approaches its subjects. There are no cardboard cutout villains or heroes here. Pope Urban ?, who is often depicted in modern histories as cunning, deceitful, and avaricious, is here a pious, careful, and complicated man of his times. …
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.005 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.008 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".