The fall of the city removed what was once a powerful defense for Christian Europe against Muslim invasion, allowing for uninterrupted Ottoman expansion into eastern Europe. "Fall of the Empire", Byzantium and Putin's Russia", World History Encyclopedia 1453: The Fall of Constantinople, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Fall_of_Constantinople&oldid=1148497328. In Mehmed's view, he was the successor to the Roman Emperor, declaring himself Kayser-i Rum, literally "Caesar of Rome", that is, of the Roman Empire, though he was remembered as "the Conqueror". Students will read about the sack of Constantinople and its effects on the Byzantine Empire at the hands of the Ottoman Empire and analyze it by answering 9 questions to get a first hand look at what happened in the city when it was razed . This was once thought to be the origin of the Ottoman millet system; however, it is now considered a myth and no such system existed in the fifteenth century. [107][108] However many of the myths surrounding the disappearance of Constantine were developed later and little evidence can be found to support them even in friendly primary accounts of the siege. DIVERSION TO CONSTANTINOPLE 1. [31]:81, Meanwhile, in Venice, deliberations were taking place concerning the kind of assistance the Republic would lend to Constantinople. By April 22 the ships had circumvented the chain in this way and, barring the chain itself, seized control of all the waters surrounding the city. The Empire of Trebizond, an independent successor state that formed in the aftermath of the Fourth Crusade, was also present at the time on the coast of the Black Sea. History. After conquering the city, Mehmed II made Constantinople the new Ottoman capital, replacing Adrianople. It is estimated that perhaps 60 million people lived within its borders. In the evening, a solemn last ceremony of Vespers was held in the Hagia Sophia, in which the Emperor with representatives and nobility of both the Latin and Greek churches partook. They fought as allies against the Latin establishments, but also fought among themselves for the Byzantine throne. [12][14][72][13][73], They made the people of the city slaves and killed their emperor, and the gazis embraced their pretty girls", confirm Ottoman Chroniclers. Document 1 . [1] Score As western Europe fell to the Germanic invasions, imperial power shifted to the Byzantine Empire, that is, the eastern part of the Roman Empire, with its capital at Constantinople. [43], After these inconclusive attacks, the Ottomans sought to break through the walls by constructing tunnels to mine them from mid-May to 25 May. Historical!Context:! The Secret History is his personal, and perhaps more honest, description. [103], Pope Pius II believed that the Ottomans would persecute Greek Orthodox Christians and advocated for another crusade at the Council of Mantua in 1459. Bulgaria, Bosnia, and Herzegovina gained autonomy. Emperor Constantine XI is reported to have been killed while either fighting near the breach or fleeing to an escape boat. [31]:93, Two tactical reserves were kept behind in the city: one in the Petra district just behind the land walls and one near the Church of the Holy Apostles, under the command of Loukas Notaras and Nicephorus Palaeologus, respectively. [31]:147 Another legend refers to the Marble Emperor (Constantine XI), holding that an angel rescued the emperor when the Ottomans entered the city, turning him into marble and placing him in a cave under the earth near the Golden Gate, where he waits to be brought to life again (a variant of the sleeping hero legend). Mehmed ordered a third attack on the gate, this time with one of his own palace regiments of 3,000 Janissaries. According to Judith Herrin, what was one reason the Ottoman were interested in conquering the . Thereafter, there was little peace for the much-weakened empire as it fended off successive attacks by the Latins, Serbs, Bulgarians and Ottoman Turks. . You will protest that the Turks moved from Asia to Greece a long time ago, that the Mongols established themselves in Europe and the Arabs occupied parts of Spain, having approached through the straits of Gibraltar. The Ottoman army had made several frontal assaults on the land wall of Constantinople, but they were costly failures. In Rome, Thomas and his family received some monetary support from the Pope and other Western rulers as Byzantine emperor in exile, until 1503. [26] This calculation was boosted by Mehmed's friendly overtures to the European envoys at his new court. Byzantine Emperor Constantine XI swiftly understood Mehmed's true intentions and turned to Western Europe for help; but now the price of centuries of war and enmity between the eastern and western churches had to be paid. https://www.britannica.com/event/Fall-of-Constantinople-1453, Ancient Origins - The Fall of Constantinople: Relentless Ottoman Fire Power Finally Pulverizes the Last Vestiges of the Roman Empire, Chemistry LibreTexts - The Fall of Constantinople, World History Encyclopedia - The Fall of Constantinople, 1453. Despite his pleas, no Western monarch stepped forward to lead the effort. Save. He also began to view himself as Kayser-i Rm (Caesar of Rome), the inheritor of the Roman Empire and all its historical lands. We have never lost a city or a place comparable to Constantinople, The Morean (Peloponnesian) fortress of Mystras, where Constantine's brothers Thomas and Demetrius ruled, constantly in conflict with each other and knowing that Mehmed would eventually invade them as well, held out until 1460. Pope Nicholas V called for an immediate counter-attack in the form of a crusade,[citation needed] however no European powers wished to participate, and the Pope resorted to sending a small fleet of 10 ships to defend the city. Our men shot at them with guns and crossbows, aiming at the Turk who was carrying away his dead countryman, and both of them would fall to the ground dead, and then there came other Turks and took them away, none fearing death, but being willing to let ten of themselves be killed rather than suffer the shame of leaving a single Turkish corpse by the walls. "[29]:59, For others, there was still a distant hope that the lights were the campfires of the troops of John Hunyadi who had come to relieve the city. He promised he would allow the Emperor and any other inhabitants to leave with their possessions. 1 - Internal Strife. This section was considered the weakest spot in the walls and an attack was feared here most. When most of Constantinople was secure, Mehmed himself rode through the streets of the city to the great cathedral of Hagia Sophia, the largest in all of Christendom, and converted it into the mosque Ayasofya. Sultan Murad II laid siege to Constantinople in 1422, but he was forced to lift it in order to suppress a rebellion elsewhere in the empire. After the fall of Constantinople, the synod's membership became limited to bishops of the patriarchate. Mehmed himself erected his red-and-gold tent near the Mesoteichion, where the guns and the elite Janissary regiments were positioned. 10th grade. The land walls spanned 4 miles (6.5 km) and consisted of a double line of ramparts with a moat on the outside; the higher of the two stood as high as 40 feet (12 metres) with a base as much as 16 feet (5 metres) thick. [40]:44, Before the siege of Constantinople, it was known that the Ottomans had the ability to cast medium-sized cannons, but the range of some pieces they were able to field far surpassed the defenders' expectations. Emperor who moved Rome's capital to the east. Mehmed II had sent an advance guard to protect these key buildings.The Catalans that maintained their position on the section of the wall that the emperor had assigned them, had the honor of being the last troops to fall. In 1461 the independent Byzantine state in Trebizond fell to Mehmed. Thanks to its location on the Bosporus Strait, Constantinople became a major trading center. Most of the primary sources seem to be in Latin or Byzantine period Greek. Mehmed planned to attack the Theodosian Walls, the intricate series of walls and ditches protecting Constantinople from an attack from the West and the only part of the city not surrounded by water. Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. Criers roamed the camp to the sound of the blasting horns, rousing the Ghazis:[63], Shortly after midnight on Tuesday 29 May, the offensive began. [note 10]. Byzantine DBQ Questions 8/21 DRAFT. While Mehmed II had been steadily preparing for the siege of Constantinople, he had sent the old general Turakhan and the latter's two sons, Ahmed Beg and Omar Beg, to invade the. A codification of Roman law that saved Roman laws, established by Justinian in the Byzantine Empire. [40][pageneeded] Contemporary estimates of the strength of the Ottoman fleet span from 110 ships to 430 (Tedaldi:[44] 110; Barbaro:[43] 145; Ubertino Pusculo:[49] 160, Isidore of Kiev[46] and Leonardo di Chio:[50] 200250; (Sphrantzes):[45][pageneeded] 430). [20]:374 His 27 feet (8.2m) long cannon was named "Basilica" and was able to hurl a 600lb (270kg) stone ball over a mile (1.6km). After Diocletian died, a new emperor named Constantine (ruled 306-337 A.D.) would move the capital of Rome to the Greek city of Byzantium, which became known as Constantinople (he named it after himself). In the 15th century, Constantinoples walls were widely recognized as the most formidable in all of Europe. The rest of the citizens repaired walls, stood guard on observation posts, collected and distributed food provisions, and collected gold and silver objects from churches to melt down into coins to pay the foreign soldiers. They enslaved boys and girls and took silver and gold vessels, precious stones and all sorts of valuable goods and fabrics from the imperial palace and the houses of the rich Every tent was filled with handsome boys and beautiful girls. [31]:92 The sea walls were guarded more sparsely, with Jacobo Contarini at Stoudion, a makeshift defence force of Greek monks to his left hand, and Prince Orhan at the Harbour of Eleutherios. Constantine XI's survival and subsequent rescue by an angel, bringing with them knowledge and documents from the Greco-Roman tradition to Italy, "One among many renegades: the Serb janissary Konstantin Mihailovi and the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans", "Militarization of the Serbian State under Ottoman Pressure", "Fall of Constantinople | Facts, Summary, & Significance | Britannica", "stanbul'un fethinde 600 Trk askeri, Fatih'e kar savat", "Constantinople: City of the World's Desire 14531924", "The Conquest of Constantinople and the end of empire", "Bosphorus (i.e. Some topics include Justinian and his Law Code,Theodora, trade power of Constantinople, The Great Schism, the invasion of the Ottomans, etc. DIFFICULTIES WITH ALEXIS 1. In contrast to the Byzantines, the Ottoman Turks had extended their control over virtually all of the Balkans and most of Anatolia, having conquered several Byzantine cities west of Constantinople in the latter half of the 14th century. Byzantine DBQ Questions 8/21 DRAFT. Compares the ottomans and the byzantines. [110][bettersourceneeded] They brought to Western Europe the far greater preserved and accumulated knowledge of Byzantine civilization. [84], Mehmed II granted his soldiers three days to plunder the city, as he had promised them and in accordance with the custom of the time. It falls in 476 AD due to speculated reasons. Robert of Clari's account of the Fourth Crusade. [20]:378 Prayer and resting was then granted to the soldiers on 28 May before the final assault would be launched. The account of the cannon's collapse is disputed,[3][pageneeded] given that it was only reported in the letter of Archbishop Leonardo di Chio[47] and in the later, and often unreliable, Russian chronicle of Nestor Iskander. He was carried to the rear, and his absence sowed confusion and lowered morale among the ranks. He asserted this claim with a series of campaigns that thoroughly subjugated both the Balkans and Greece by the late 15th century. On 2 June, the Sultan found the city largely deserted and half in ruins; churches had been desecrated and stripped, houses were no longer habitable, and stores and shops were emptied. 10 Qs . Zagan Pasha argued against Halil Pasha and insisted on an immediate attack. [57] Venetian surgeon Niccol Barbaro, describing in his diary one such land attack by the Janissaries, wrote, They found the Turks coming right up under the walls and seeking battle, particularly the Janissaries and when one or two of them were killed, at once more Turks came and took away the dead ones without caring how near they came to the city walls. The Christian reconquest of Constantinople remained a goal in Western Europe for many years after its fall to the Ottoman Empire. When the Venetians retreated over to their ships, the Ottomans had already taken the walls of the Golden Horn. This city expanded into the Byzantine Empire, a continuation of the Roman Empire in Eastern Europe even after the Western Roman Empire fell. [109], The migration waves of Byzantine scholars and migrs in the period following the sacking of Constantinople and the fall of Constantinople in 1453 is considered by many scholars key to the revival of Greek and Roman studies that led to the development of the Renaissance humanism[100][dead link][bettersourceneeded] and science. Why. The Public Defiance 3. 10th grade . Document 2 At the same time Procopius saw Justinian as a liar and a hypocrite. Giustiniani intended to concentrate most of these men at the land walls to the north and west, the centre of which he observed to be the most vulnerable section of the city. Five books have been chosen to review different speculations on . Perhaps most important was the conflict that developed between the churches of east and west. The fall of Constantinople was a major turning point in history, as it marked the end of the Byzantine Empire and the beginning of the Ottoman Empire. A small group reached the top of a tower through another gate but were nearly eliminated by the defenders until Giustiniani was mortally wounded by Ottoman gunfire while on the ramparts. [105], Four days later, the whole city was blotted out by a thick fog, a condition unknown in that part of the world in May. In the west, Latin was the language of scholars, diplomats, and the church. The Byzantines knew him by the Latin spelling of his name, "John Justinian", named after the famous 6th century Byzantine emperor Justinian the Great. Although some troops did arrive from the mercantile city-states in northern Italy, the Western contribution was not adequate to counterbalance Ottoman strength. He then ordered a muezzin ascend the pulpit and sound a prayer[89][90] The Hagia Sophia was converted into a mosque, but the Greek Orthodox Church was allowed to remain intact and Gennadius Scholarius was appointed Patriarch of Constantinople. They mounted a frontal assault of the land walls on April 7, but the Byzantines repelled them and were able to repair the defenses. The sultan thus completed his conquest of the Byzantine capital. The defending army's Genoese corps were well trained and equipped, while the rest of the army consisted of small numbers of well-trained soldiers, armed civilians, sailors and volunteer forces from foreign communities, and finally monks. Name Constantinople Dbq Historical Context: Fillable, Printable & Blank PDF Form for Free. [40]:32 [note 5] Turkish commander Dorgano, who was in Constantinople working for the Emperor, was also guarding one of the quarters of the city on the seaward side with the Turks in his pay. 4.9. The Capture of Zara III. Robert seems to have returned to France in 1205, since although his work contains references up . Among many modern historians, the fall of Constantinople is considered the end of the medieval period. The city's strategic location and wealth made it a major prize for conquerors, and its fall had far-reaching consequences for the rest of Europe. Between 60,000 and 80,000 soldiers fought on land, accompanied by 69 cannon. The wordplay emphasizes its strategic position: in Turkish boaz means both "strait" and "throat". The Emperor was not willing to leave the city without a fight: As to surrendering the city to you, it is not for me to decide or for anyone else of its citizens; for all of us have reached the mutual decision to die of our own free will, without any regard for our lives. The first target was the Byzantine garrison at nearby Galata on the other shore of the Golden Horn. 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