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Constantinople: Roman Empire
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It was a major turning point in world history as Constantinople, founded by the Roman Emperor Constantine, was a seat of learning and the tangible presence of Western civilization in the East. It has been said that the flight of many scholarly refugees from Constantinople to Italy was the single most important mainspring of the European Renaissance. Yet the antagonists of the siege of Constantinople had the minds of the Middle Ages era, and the effect of ‘ominous’ heavenly wonders probably affected the outcome.
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The defense of Constantinople was heroic, but doomed. With but few cannon, and those frequently too heavy to be mounted on the walls, the defenders did what they could. The first breach was made at the military gate of St. Romanus on 11 April. Through herculean efforts the defenders beat off a storming party and managed to patch the walls. Other breaches followed, and though each time the defenders beat off attempts to storm the breech and repaired the damage, the overall effect was to further weaken the aged walls. Finally, on Tuesday, 29 May the weakened structure on both sides of the St. Romanus gate collapsed, the Janissaries swept over the pitiably few defenders.
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Photius of Constantinople, a patriarch, whose ambition was equal to his curiosity, congratulates himself and the Greek church on the conversion of the Russians. Those fierce and bloody Barbarians had been persuaded, by the voice of reason and religion, to acknowledge Jesus for their God, the Christian missionaries for their teachers, and the Romans for their friends and brethren. His triumph was transient and premature. In the various fortune of their piratical adventures, some Russian chiefs might allow themselves to be sprinkled with the waters of baptism; and a Greek bishop, with the name of metropolitan, might administer the sacraments in the church of Kiow, to a congregation of slaves and natives. But the seed of the gospel was sown on a barren soil: many were the apostates, the converts were few; and the baptism of Olga may be fixed as the aera of Russian Christianity.
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At the first hour of the night, there appeared a wonderful sign in the sky, which was to tell Constantine the worthy, emperor of Constantinople, that his proud empire was to come to an end.... The moon rose, being at this time at the full...but it rose as if it were no more than a three-day moon, with only a little of it showing.... The moon stayed in this form for about four hours.
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Gradually the importance of Constantinople increased. After the shock of the Battle of Adrianople in 378, in which the emperor Valens with the flower of the Roman armies was destroyed by the Goths within a few days' march, the city looked to its defences, and Theodosius II built in 413–414 the 18 metre (60 ft) tall triple-wall fortifications which were never to be breached until the coming of gunpowder. Theodosius ... founded a University near the Forum of Taurus, on 27 February 425.
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On the twenty-ninth of May, 1453, three hours before daybreak, Mahomet Bey son of Murat the Turk came himself to the walls of Constantinople to begin the general assault which gained him the city. The Sultan divided his troops into three groups of fifty thousand men each: one group was of Christians who were kept in his camp against his will, the second group was of men of a low condition, peasants and the like, and the third group was of janissaries in their white turbans, these being all soldiers of the Sultan and paid every day, all well-armed men strong in battle, and behind these janissaries were all the officers, and behind these the Turkish Sultan. The first group, which was the Christians, had the task of carrying the ladders to the walls, and they tried to raise the ladders up, and at once we threw them to the ground with the men who were raising them, and they were all killed at once, and we threw big stones down on them from the battlements, so that few escaped alive; in fact, anyone who approached beneath the walls was killed. When those who were raising up the ladders saw so many dead, they tried to retreat towards their camp, so as not to be killed by the stones, and when the rest of the Turks who were behind saw that they were running away, at once they cut them to pieces with their scimitars and made them turn back towards the walls, so that they had the choice of dying on one side or the other; and when this first group was killed and cut to pieces, the second group began to attack vigorously. The first group was sent forward for two reasons, firstly because they preferred that Christians should die rather than Turks, and secondly to wear us out in the city; and as I have said, when the first group was dead or wounded, the second group came on like lions unchained against the walls on the side of San Romano; and when we saw this fearful thing, at once the tocsin was sounded through the whole city and at every post on the walls, and every man ran crying out to help; and the Eternal God showed us His mercy against these Turkish dogs, so that every man
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