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Constantinople: Byzantine Empire
built 650 days ago
The Fall of Constantinople refers to the capture of the Byzantine Empire's capital by the Ottoman Empire on Tuesday, May 29, 1453 (Julian Calendar). The event marked the end of the political independence of the millennium-old Byzantine Empire, which was by then already fragmented into several Greek monarchies.[9] Most importantly, the fall of Constantinople accelerated the scholarly exodus of Byzantine Greeks which caused the influx of Classical Greek Studies into the European Renaissance.[10] In addition, it played a crucial role in Ottoman political stability and its subsequent expansion in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Balkans. The date of the event is one of the frequently proposed events marking the end of the Middle Ages as a historical period.
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Constantinople was a Greek Orthodox Christian city, lying in the most Christianised part of the Empire. Justinian ordered the Pagan temples of Byzantium to be deconstructed, and erected the splendid Church of the Holy Wisdom, Sancta Sophia (... known as Hagia Sophia in Greek), as the centrepiece of his Christian capital. He oversaw also the building of the Church of the Holy Apostles, and that of Hagia Irene.
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Together with the Latin Empire a Latin patriarchate had been established in 1204 at Constantinople, on which occasion the Greek patriarch took refuge at Nicæa. Notwithstanding the missions of Cardinal Benedict a Sancta Susanna (1205-1207) and Pelagius of Albano (1213), negotiations, and even persecutions, the Latins failed to induce all their Greek subjects to acknowledge the authority of the pope. In its best days the Latin patriarchate never numbered more than twenty-two archbishoprics and fifty-nine suffragan bishoprics, situated in Europe, in the islands, and even in Asia Minor. However, the Latin Patriarchate of Constantinople outlived the Latin Empire, after the fall of which the Latin patriarchs resided in Greece or in Italy. From 1302 the Holy See reserved to itself the appointment to this office and united with the patriarchate first the Archbishopric of Candia, later the Bishopric of Negropont; this was still the situation as late as 1463. A consistorial decree of 1497 reserved this high title to cardinals ; the rule... was subject to many exceptions.
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[B]y 1453, Constantinople had been besieged many times—by Persians, Avars, Arabs (twice), Bulgars, Russians (three times) and Pechenegs. During the Byzantine era, it had been conquered only once—in 1204, by soldiers of the Fourth Crusade. The city served as the capital of the Crusaders' short-lived Latin kingdom until it was recaptured by the Byzantines in 1261.
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In 1453, the Ottoman Turks under Mehmet II defeated the last Byzantine emperor of Constantinople, Constantine XI, who was killed in battle over the city. Turks resettled the city under the Ottomans, changing its cultural makeup over time, although Greeks remained an important part of the population until the early twentieth century. Ottoman building activity ushered in a new age of Islamic architecture, and the church of Hagia Sophia became a mosque, surrounded by four towering minarets. Over time, the Turkish corruption of the Greek phrase eis teen polin (into the city) led to the popular renaming of the city as Istanbul. The city became the administrative capital of the Ottoman Empire, and continued as the capital until it was moved to Ankara under the modern state of Turkey in 1923. It remains the largest city in Turkey, and that nation's most important commercial center.
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With Constantinople beneath his belt, Mehmed II had acquired a city ruined by years of defeat and war. However, the city's use for the Ottoman Turks was far greater than its use to the Byzantine Greeks. The Capital allowed the Turks to establish a permanent supply base in "Christian Europe". Further advances into Hungary and the principalities bordering the two kingdoms was difficult, if not impossible without the harbours of Constantinople bringing in supplies and a fortified center from which to administer the empire and strategy.
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