This year marks the 570th anniversary of the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire, on 29 May 1453. The city at the Bosporus, on the border between the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, bridging…
This year marks the 570th anniversary of the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire, on 29 May 1453. The city at the Bosporus, on the border between the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, bridging Europe, Asia Minor and the Balkans, was originally called Byzantium. The exact date of its foundation is unknown, but according to legend it was founded in 667 BC.
Constantine the Great from the Synopsis of Histories (Eastern Mediterranean, 1574): Harley MS 5632, f. 2v
The city was already an important trading and military centre, but its significance rose when, on 11 May, AD 324, Emperor Constantine the Great selected it to be the new capital of the reunited Roman Empire, and called it the New Rome. Six years later, to honour the emperor, it was renamed Constantinople after him. From the 5th century onwards, Constantinople was enriched with enormous fortifications, churches and monasteries, and the world-renowned imperial library.
A view of Constantinople from Mandeville’s Travels (Bohemia; 1st quarter of the 15th century): Add MS 24189, f. 9v
Despite the tumult after the fall of the Western Roman Empire in AD 476, Constantinople remained the seat of the Emperor of the East and the centre of the political, religious and intellectual life of the Byzantine Empire for many centuries. Admired and envied by the West, it was visited by travellers, kings and pilgrims. In 1204, the Crusader army, originally destined for Palestine, turned against the city, occupied and sacked it, and made it the capital of the Western Emperor of Constantinople for the next half century.
A golden bulla of Baldwin II, the last Western Emperor of Constantinople (Biervliet, 1269): Add Ch 14365, obverse
Although it was retaken by the Palaeologan dynasty in 1261, Constantinople never regained its previous status. From the 14th century, it faced the rising Ottoman Empire in an ever-weakening state. Sultan Mehmed II arrived at the gates of the city in April 1453 and started besieging the city.
The Emperor Constantine XI tried to secure help from the West, but the timing was very unfortunate. Europe was riven by warfare: the Hundred Year War was consuming France and England, Spain was involved in the last phase of the Reconquista, and the Holy Roman Empire was divided by internal wars. Apart from some volunteers and assistance from Venice, Genoa and the Pope, the Emperor was left on his own against the formidable army of the Sultan. The British Library holds eye-witness accounts of what happened next, one of which is inserted in a 16th-century chronicle now attributed to Macarius of Melissa.
A page from the chronicle of Macarius of Melissa preserving the final speech of Emperor Constantine XI (Venice, 16th century: Add MS 36539, f. 79r
This manuscript records the Emperor's final speech to his army on the night of the fateful battle. According to the author, who was present, Constantine declared:
‘My noble peers, illustrious generals, noble fellow-soldiers, you know well that the hour has come and that the enemy of our faith wishes to hem us in more cruelly with every means … Into your hands I give this most illustrious and renowned city, the Queen of Cities and your homeland … There is no time to say more to you. I only entrust my humble sceptre to your hands. Brothers and fellow-soldiers, be prepared for battle in the morning with grace and courage …'
The battle started around midnight on 29 May. The defenders were able to hold the walls for a while but when the general of the Genoan troops was wounded by an arrow, its defence was shaken. Parts of the army started to flee and the emperor was apparently left on his own. Chronicles from both East and West all agree that Constantine fought hard in the battle.
A page from the chronicle of Macarius of Melissa preserving the last words of the Venetian soldiers witnessing the fall of Constantinople (Venice, 16th century): Add MS 36539, f. 85r
Some hours later the defence collapsed completely. Macarius noted the last words of the Venetian soldiers upon seeing the fall of the city: ‘Shudder Sun and groan Earth, the city is taken’. The Sultan then entered the city and a desperate search to find the emperor began. Eventually Constantine who identified under a heap of corpses by the imperial eagle embroidered on his shoes.
Detail of a grant by Sultan Mehmed II to the Genoese inhabitants of Galata, with the sultan’s monogram and the beginning of the Greek text (1 June 1435): Egerton MS 2817
A few days later, Sultan Mehmed II was in Constantinople when he issued one of his first edicts from his new capital, ensuring the trading rights of the Genoa merchants of Galata. The siege put an end to a long period in the history of this great city. No longer Byzantium or Constantinople, it started a new life as Istanbul.
Follow us on Twitter @BLMedieval
Read the original article
Comments
As nice as that is for a quick overview, the whole story was told rather well by Gibbon in his "History of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire".
If that has whet your appetite and you'd like a more in-depth telling of just this episode then you can skip right to : https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/895/pg895-images.html#l... and enjoy.
If you have an inclination, I'd heartily recommend the entire set of books. As an anecdote, it took me 2 years of reading 10-20 minutes per night most nights. I found it extremely enlightening and entertaining (Gibbon has a wicked wit).
As much as Gibbon is not in fashion these days, the research I did showed that the essential parts of our understanding of the nuts and bolts of the history haven't changed since it was written, and I don't think anyone else has contextualized and editorialized the whole story with as much intelligence and careful thought since.
I also found pretty well all the complaints about Gibbon's interpretation to have actually been though about and answered _by_ Gibbon in the text (in eloquent detail!), which I found surprising given the frequency with which he seems to be dismissed with simplistic arguments.
By countrymile 2023-06-2618:20 John Julius Norwich's trilogy on Byzantium is also well worth a read for coverage of this period
By derriz 2023-06-2620:54 I second this recommendation. I found it surprising easy to read - the sardonic humor kept me going even when I struggled to keep track of all the details/people/names/places. Although I didn't attempt the full set - just the thousand or so page "abridged" version.
By Nzen 2023-06-276:51 I have the second-hand impression [0] that Gibbon exemplifies a particular focus of explanation that some later authors drew contrast against by emphasizing the continuity/influence of some social and cultural (ex Christian church) institutions or trappings that continued after Augustus Romulus.
[0] in a three part blog by Bret Devereaux https://acoup.blog/?s=roman+empire+fall
It's not so much that Gibbon is out of fashion, it's that he is more often wrong than right. Good storyteller, if you want to read a story, but on his own, not a sufficient foundation if you want to learn something.
Learning about roman history from him is like learning from Aristotle or Freud. It's not all wrong, but there are better sources, and if that's all you read, you'll be way more confused than enlightened.
>it's that he is more often wrong than right.
I hear this a lot, but I really haven't been able to find much...is there an "errata" of where he is wrong on specific things that are material events in history?
By WillPostForFood 2023-06-2623:321 reply Most complaints these days about Gibbon are more about the Enlightenment era biases and tone. We have an additional 250 years of research and archaeology of the Roman Empire to build more facts, but Gibbon is still worthy and informative.
By namaria 2023-06-2821:33 History is about linear analysis of multidimensional phenomena. There is no way to increase objective accuracy over a certain honesty threshold. The only way to improve Historical knowledge is to consume the work of various competent analysts.
By colechristensen 2023-06-2619:191 reply I don't remember what they were, but Mary Beard had some seemingly credible criticisms or just updates to Gibbon.
I got through a significant portion of the decline and fall but got bored somewhere after Justinian as the decline and fall of my interest in the Roman empire begins somewhere around the state conversion to Christianity.
By DrPhish 2023-06-2622:09 > Mary Beard had some seemingly credible criticisms or just updates to Gibbon
I had a look at her back when I was reading, but also just now revisited some articles comparing them, and I couldn't find anything substantial that didn't boil down to a dislike of his style, or disagreement over approach.
I really would like to update any incorrect facts that I might have picked up when reading Gibbon, so something concrete would be much appreciated!
I'm not too worried about having picked up his conclusions, since I've come to my own based on the description of events and supplementing with a fair amount of other treatments (mostly "The Learning Company" stuff, for better or for worse)
By anonHash 2023-06-270:16 Just read it. There is a superiority bias in his description of world cultures and their histories.
Pet peeve. Colloquially people call it, the Byzantine empire, or Byzantium but this is an error. It was always the Roman empire. a German historian in 1500s popularized by Louis XIV library retold the story of the Roman empire, as having broken up into the eastern and western Roman Empire, but in reality, the western and eastern empire never did officially split.
The German goths conquered Italy but chose to remain part of the Roman empire. The Roman emperor at the time was a child. The Goths sent him the the purple cape, purple being a color of kings.
The Roman historian who retold the story in the 16th century told it after the conquest of Constantinople. This retelling made it seem that the Roman Empire was succeeded by the German Goths, as the Holy Roman Empire. Either he did to throw shade at the Ottoman Empire as not being the real successors. Or he did this because he was a catholic, and the Roman Catholic Church had a problem with the Eastern Orthodox Churches and had been excommunicated by them as well as excommunicated them (until the 20th century). Or both.
His narrative led to the coining of terms East and West, something that continues today (aka western world). Pejoratively Eastern Europe is just alien to Western Europe as the “Eastern world”, hence why Ukraine gets so much flack.
He named the “Eastern Roman empire” as the “Byzantine” empire. This Byzantium term had not been used since ancient history preceding the Roman Empire. (It’s like calling northeast America as the Iroquois States, or midwest US as the French Plains, or southwestern US as the Mexican States.) Byzantium was the name that preceded Constantinople.
The eastern Roman Empire always called themselves the Roman Empire and claimed the territories of the western Roman Empire.
Now only if I could find the name of this historian.
While Byzantium was still somewhat Roman it was also something distinct. For one thing the official language right up until the Fall of Constantinpole was Byzantine Greek not Latin.
so it may be true that the Goths in Italy were Romanized (as had repeatedly happened with conquerors, interestingly), the empire that remains after the Fall of Rome was, in total, different in character, culture, language and territory.
By ffgjgf1 2023-06-276:57 The official language did not change to Greek until the empire nearly collapsed as a result of the plague, Persian wars and the Arab invasion.
The state that emerged from this was were different to the Roman Empire rules by Justinian in many ways.
> after the Fall of Rome was
I would disagree that was the case in the 500s, the Fall of Rome was mostly seamless and most actual changes occurred years later.
I'm ok with this re-writing. It would be confusing to call 800's Italy/France and 800's Turkey both "Roman Empire". We need different names for those places, even if the residents of the places used the same name for themselves.
Nobody really says that the people at that time called themselves Byzantine, anyways. I've heard some derogatory remarks about the phrase "Holy Roman Empire" though - that it wasn't holy nor Roman nor an empire. But it serves as a name which is useful.
By georgeplusplus 2023-06-272:411 reply >>>> 800's Turkey
The Byzantines primary language was Greek. Followed by Latin, and included most of what is today, modern Turkey.
Turkey was not even a thought at that time. Calling it Turkish would be appropriation of the Greek culture.
I'm Eastern Orthodox, so trust me, I know.
Did you know Istanbul is the same word as Constantinople? It's like a slang version.
I'm probably talking to a Greek person, so I can't really say anything smart and not offend you. Kyrie eleison Kyrie eleison kyrie eleison... ;-)
By ithkuil 2023-06-273:16 "εἰς τὴν Πόλιν" ?
> Now only if I could find the name of this historian.
Is it Hieronymus Wolf? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hieronymus_Wolf
By anonHash 2023-06-270:17 Yes it was!
By causality0 2023-06-271:422 reply The German goths conquered Italy but chose to remain part of the Roman empire.
Did they continue paying taxes? Was the military under the control of the Roman emperor? Did they maintain the road linkages and postal service between the Eastern and Western halves of the empire?
By ffgjgf1 2023-06-277:03 Even before the official collapse the western half hardly had any of these.
The Goths who took Italy for themselves were infact the army of the Western Empire which was basically dead for years now.
The Gothic king simply realized that there was no point in pretending anymore and just decided he’d rather be a ‘vassal’ of the emperor in Constantinople than have his own emperor in Ravenna.
The Goths actually left the local Romans to themselves in general the power of the senate in Rome possibly even increased during the period cause they were no in charge of the Latin population who were still governed by a separate law code to that of the Germans.
By vondur 2023-06-272:42 Nope to all of those. The Goths under Theoderic paid lip service to the Emperor in Constantinople to keep the Roman elite on board. There were two law codes, one for Romans and one for Goths.
You’re not wrong about the name Byzantium but you are dead wrong about East/West being a later invention. The Romans themselves split it along these lines and even had an emperor for each half before Constantine.
By ffgjgf1 2023-06-276:54 They didn’t really consider these two halves to be separate states, the empire was viewed as universal and indivisible by most.
Having multiple emperors was perfectly acceptable though, if not entirely practical most of the time.
By nindalf 2023-06-278:58 The point you could be missing is that while there was an administrative split, the folks living in the East still considered themselves Roman citizens. Which they were, in law.
By georgeplusplus 2023-06-272:38 I always thought it had more to do with Western Rome aligning with Catholicism vs Orthodox Christianity of eastern Rome and the Great Schism causing early historians and conquerors alike to solidify boundaries between the two.
By namaria 2023-06-2821:39 Great comment. But I have to disagree with "His narrative led to the coining of terms East and West, something that continues today (aka western world). Pejoratively Eastern Europe is just alien to Western Europe as the “Eastern world”, hence why Ukraine gets so much flack."
The current concept of Eastern Europe is firmly grounded on the notion of Cold War. The concept of Eastern Roman Empire has nothing to do with Eastern Communist Europe. I think your jump in connecting both strands is not at all justified.
By BenoitEssiambre 2023-06-2620:34 In Laplace's 1795 essay introducing what is now known as Bayesian probabilities, one of the first example given was of a kind of simple language model, potentially making the first word used in such models, "Constantinople".
"This principle gives the reason why we attribute regular events to a particular cause. Some philosophers have thought that these events are less possible than others and that at the play of heads and tails, for example, the combination in which heads occurs twenty successive times is less easy in its nature than those where heads and tails are mixed in an irregular manner. But this opinion supposes that past events have an influence on the possibility of future events, which is not at all admissible. The regular combinations occur more rarely only because they are less numerous. If we seek a cause wherever we perceive symmetry, it is not that we regard a symmetrical event as less possible than the others, but, since this event ought to be the effect of a regular cause or that of chance, the first of these suppositions is more probable than the second. On a table we see letters arranged in this order, C o n s t a n t i n o p l e, and we judge that this arrangement is not the result of chance, not because it is less possible than the others, for if this word were not employed in any language we should not suspect it came from any particular cause, but this word being in use among us, it is incomparably more probable that some person has thus arranged the aforesaid letters than that this arrangement is due to chance."
