By the early 15th century, the Islamic Ottoman Turks had conquered virtually all of present day Turkey, and the Byzantine empire was a shadow of its former self, consisting of a few scattered territories and islands outside of Constantinople itself. The mid-14th century saw the Black Death claim the lives of perhaps half the city's population. Practicing Orthodox Christianity, Constantinople had fallen to Catholic knights during the Fourth Crusade in 1204, ushering in nearly 60 years of Catholic rule before an Orthodox emperor was able to retake the throne. Toward the end of the Middle Ages, however, Byzantine power was waning considerably. Though the Franks had defeated Islamic armies from Spain, the loss of Byzantine to Islam may well have seen the creation of a Muslim Europe. As Constantinople held the line against Islam in the East, modern Western civilization developed in France and Western Europe. After the rise of Islam, the Byzantine empire lost much of its territory in the Middle East and North Africa, but the city of Constantinople proved an impervious rock upon which wave after wave of Muslim armies couldn't break. The Franks and the Italians of the time referred to its inhabitants simply as “the Greeks.” The inhabitants themselves, however, continued to refer to themselves as Romans, and saw their emperors as the literal successors to Augustus, Marcus Aurelius and Constantine.Ĭontaining impressive city walls, Constantinople was virtually impervious to attack, such as when an army of Goths approached the city after the battle of Adrianople in A.D. Historians refer to this medieval incarnation of the empire as Byzantine. Like Rome, Constantinople had seven hills divided into 14 districts.įor centuries, the city stood as the center of imperial power, even after the fall of the Western Roman Empire in A.D. Sitting on the Bosporus strait, which connects Europe and Asia, the new city was more easily defended than Rome, and it was a Christian city to reflect the emperor's religious preference. 330, the Roman Emperor Constantine founded the city of Constantinople on the Greek village of Byzantine to be the new imperial capital.
The fall of this great city signaled the end of the Byzantine Empire, the medieval incarnation of the Roman Empire, and saw the armies of Islam spread into Europe from Asia for the first time. On 560 years ago this week - Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Turks.
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