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Turning points in history: The fall of constantinople

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 560e anniversaire de la chute
de Constantinople (1453)

1150e anniversaire de l’arrivée

des missionnaires Constantin (Cyrille)
et Méthode en Grande-Moravie (863)

Turning points in history: the Fall

of Constantinople1

Michael ANGOLD (Edinburgh)

Strangely enough few historians have seen the crusader conquest

of Constantinople in 1204 as a historical turning point, possibly
because the Latin Empire of Constantinople was such an ephemeral
affair that it is easy to dismiss the whole episode as an historical aber-
ration. The fall of the city to the Ottomans in 1453 is another matter.
It used to be singled out as the turning point, which traditionally
marked the end of the Middle Ages. However, Sir Steven RUNCIMAN
devoted the preface to his The Fall of Constantinople 1453 to an elegant
rebuttal of any such notion.2 Few if any historians continue to subscribe
to the idea that a single event or even a complex of events can by them-
selves alter the course of history. They know only too well that – to
quote RUNCIMAN – ‘the stream of history flows on relentlessly and there
is never a barrier across it.’ They approach the question of historical

1 There is a vast bibliography on both events. For 1204 the key work remains
D. E. QUELLER – T. F. MADDEN, The Fourth Crusade. The Conquest of Constantinople,
2nd ed., Philadelphia 1997. See also J. GODFREY, 1204. The Unholy Crusade,
Oxford 1980; M. J. ANGOLD, The Fourth Crusade. Event and Context, Harlow 2003;
J. P. PHILLIPS, The Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople, London 2004. For
1453 see most recently M. PHILIPPIDES – W. K. HANAK, The Siege and the Fall of
Constantinople in 1453. Historiography, Topography and Military Studies, Farnham
2011; M. J. ANGOLD, The Fall of Constatinople to the Ottomans, Harlow 2012.
2 S. RUNCIMAN, The Fall of Constantinople 1453, Cambridge 1965, xi-xii. 11
 Michael Angold

change from a Braudelian angle, where change is understood in terms

of long-term trends and cumulative impact.3 You look for ‘triggers’ that
make change possible or for ‘tipping points’ where cumulative build-up
produces discernible changes. The notion of a turning point, which
presupposes some chance event changing the course of history, seems
crude by comparison. Perhaps this will explain why historians have
given such a wary reception to chaos theory and historical contingency,
which might appear to support the notion that chance events have
momentous consequences. For guidance on historical turning points
we still have to turn to Geoffrey BARRACLOUGH’s Turning points in World
History, now more than thirty years old, which singles out the Scientific
Revolution of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as the only sig-
nificant turning point in world history.4 His argument is a circular one.
World history was a consequence of European world domination, which
in its turn was only possible because of the Scientific Revolution. He is
not interested in events as turning points in history, but merely equat-
ing a turning point with an historical process rather than an historical
event. Though this was not his intention it underlines an important
fact: that an event becomes a turning point in history largely because it
initiates or radically alters historical processes, but as the Scientific
Revolution demonstrates the latter can rarely be tied down to any sin-
gle event.
Why in that case should the two falls of Constantinople be any dif-
ferent? The answer lies in the way that Constantinople was at the cen-
tre of historical processes by virtue of being itself a turning point, one
of those hubs around which extensive areas of the globe revolve. What
happened at Constantinople had repercussions that went far beyond its
walls. For much of a period that runs from the early fourth century to
the end of the First World War it was at the heart not so much of
empires, as of systems of imperial hegemony, for the power its rulers
exercised was not only political, but rested on strong religious, cultural
and economic forces, which transcended any political frontiers. It
made Constantinople a focus for regions and peoples outwith the
direct political control of its ruler. It gave the latter access to resources
of manpower and materials, which were rather greater than those
offered by the Empire itself. It goes some way to explaining how the
Ottoman Empire retained its importance into the twentieth century
and how after the loss of Syria and Egypt to Islam Byzantium was able
to fend off the threat from Islam and become once again a dominant
force. It goes without saying that Constantinople’s place in the world

3 F. BRAUDEL, A History of Civilizations, Harmondsworth 1995, 27-36.

4 G. BARRACLOUGH, Turning Points in World History, London 1979.
12
 Turning points in history: the Fall of Constantinople

ensured that it was a centre of international commerce, much of it

directed towards supplying the City’s everyday needs. Trade was
important to Constantinople, but could not by itself sustain any very
large population. The key factor was the creation and maintenance of
an impressive apparatus of state required for the exercise of power. It
was all the more substantial for comprising the administrative organs
of both Church and State. Not only did they concentrate power in
Constantinople, but also its corollary: wealth. It was this combination,
which more than anything explains the huge size of the city. The pre-
ponderant role of Constantinople was a defining feature of Byzantium
in its medieval heyday, which lasted until the end of the twelfth centu-
ry. In many respects Constantinople was the empire.5 It provided the
underlying stability and continuity, which counteracted the superficial
volatility of Byzantine politics. The lack of certainty over the rules of
succession often produced coups and counter-coups, which at least in
the short-term left Byzantium in a vulnerable position. But these need
to be put into perspective: they performed a function not dissimilar
from presidential elections and referenda and were only marginally
more disruptive to the day-to-day running of the state, which was in the
hands of a corps of functionaries. These not only ensured administra-
tive continuity; they were also the guardians of a political system, of
which the emperor was very often a prisoner. Their experience allowed
them by a process of adaptation (oikonomia in Byzantine terms) to
assimilate or neutralize the tensions inherent in any political system.
But, in the same way as all political systems, however solid and endur-
ing they seem, it had its moments of vulnerability. It too would find its
nemesis. It came in the shape of the fourth crusade.

I No event illustrates the role of the contingent in history quite so

well as the story of the fourth crusade. It was famously ‘a tale of men
enmeshed in the toils of their own miscalculations.’6 When the fourth
crusade hove to under the walls of Constantinople in July 1203, there
was no question of the establishment of any Latin regime at
Constantinople. The crusade was there to back the claims to the
Byzantine throne of Alexios Angelos, a nephew of the reigning emper-
or. It was part of a dynastic dispute, into which the crusade was drawn.7

5 P. J. ALEXANDER, The Strength of Empire and Capital as seen through Byzantine

eyes, Speculum 37 (1962) 339-357.
6 J. GODFREY, 1204. The Unholy Crusade, Oxford 1980, vii.
7 See C. M. BRAND, Byzantium confronts the West, 1180-1204, Cambridge, Mass.
1968, 117-157; M. ANGOLD, Byzantine Politics vis-à-vis the Fourth Crusade, in: Urbs
Capta. The Fourth Crusade and its consequences, ed. A. Laiou (= Réalités
byzantines, 10), Paris 2005, 55-68.
13
 Michael Angold

There is no doubt that dynastic infighting left Byzantium in a politi-

cally fragile state, but these crises punctuate Byzantine history. If the
arrival of the fourth crusade in 1203 bears comparison with the events
of 717, when with Arab backing Leo III was able to secure the
Byzantine throne,8 their outcomes were quite different. Leo III turned
on his Arab supporters and drove them from the walls of
Constantinople. In 1204 the Byzantines tried to do much the same with
the fourth crusade, but failed. However, the crusader conquest should
not necessarily have entailed the breakdown of the Byzantine system,
but it did. It was this, as much as anything, that made 1204 an histori-
cal turning point. I want to start by examining more closely the dis-
mantling of the Byzantine system in the years following 1204, which
only the conquest of Constantinople made possible.
The main evidence is Constantinople itself.9 Before 1204 the best
estimate is that it was a city of around half a million inhabitants on a
par with the great cities of the Islamic world.10 It dwarfed any towns or
cities in the Latin West. It was also out of all proportion to the landmass
and population of the Empire itself, for its size and wealth did not
depend on the Empire alone, but on a circle of lands beyond its bor-
ders. However, the crusader conquest reduced Constantinople’s popu-
lation in a matter of decades to a fraction of its former size. This
requires an explanation. It was not as if the crusader conquest of
Constantinople bore any resemblance to the Mongol conquest of
Baghdad in 1258, when there was systematic destruction of the coun-
tryside and a massacre the inhabitants. The number of Byzantines
killed by the crusaders when they stormed the walls of Constantinople

8 M. ANGOLD, The Byzantine Political Process at Crisis Point, in: The Byzantine
World, ed. P. Stephenson, Abingdon 2010, 15.
9 On Constantinople under Latin rule see D. JACOBY, The Urban Evolution of
Latin Constantinople (1204-1261), in: Byzantine Constantinople: Monuments,
Topography and Everyday Life, ed. N. Necipog¢lu (= The Medieval Medi-
terranean 33), Leiden 2001, 277-297; V. KIDONOPOULOS, The Urban Physiognomy of
Constantinople from the Latin conquest through the Palaiologan era, in: Byzantium:
Faith and Power (1261-1557), New York – New Haven 2006, 98-117.
10 There are no accurate figures for the population of Constantinople. The
chronicler of the fourth crusade Geoffrey of Villehardouin mentions in passing
that at the time of the conquest the city had a population of 400,000, which
modern historians have seized upon. It does not seem to be a conventional num-
ber. If nothing else, its approximation to the well documented estimate for the
size of the population of mid-16th-century Istanbul gives it credibility. It is also
the case that as a member of the commission charged with the partition of the
Byzantine Empire Geoffrey of Villehardouin had access – if at second hand – to
Byzantine administrative records.
14
 Turning points in history: the Fall of Constantinople

was minute. The one precise figure we have is a mere 2,000.11 The cru-
saders appear to have obeyed the admonition of their clergy against
unnecessary bloodshed, though they had no qualms about putting
Constantinople to the sack. Could the looting have been on such a
scale that it triggered the city’s long-term decline? There is no doubt
that the booty taken by the crusaders was colossal. We have the chron-
icler Geoffrey of Villehardouin’s word for it: “to his knowledge, so
much booty had never been gained in any city since the creation of the
World.” He reckoned that it amounted to at least 450,000 silver
marks.12 It was likely to have been much more than this. The poor
knight Robert of Clari grumbled that there were vast quantities of rich-
es in the palaces taken over by the leaders of the crusade.13 These
appear not to have been included in the general booty to be shared
out. Much of the treasure stored in the main imperial palaces of the
Blachernai and Boukoleon came from the stripping of church treasures
ordered by the new Emperor Alexios Angelos in the autumn of 1203 in
order to pay his debts to the crusaders. If we should absolve the cru-
saders of many of the crimes imputed to them, the damage done to
Constantinople over the years 1203-1204 was a great deal more than
that perpetrated by the crusaders themselves. It went way beyond mere
looting. The most serious damage was the result of three terrible
fires.14 The most devastating occurred on 19-20 August 1203 and
burnt out the heart of the city from the Golden Horn to the Marmora
shore. As T. F. MADDEN has noted, it utterly dwarfed the so-called Great
Fire of London, which in 1666 had roughly the same population as
Constantinople in 1204. If the bulk of the damage done to
Constantinople was not the crusaders’ direct responsibility, they were
certainly responsible for failing to make good the damage done, which
is indicative that something had gone badly wrong, for it was not as
though these were the only serious fires Constantinople had known. As
with its successor Istanbul fires were always a hazard in a city, where
there was so much building in wood. Equally, it was not as though eccle-
siastical treasures had not been confiscated before. They were a
resource Byzantine emperors had recourse to at times of exceptional
difficulties. It meant putting wealth into circulation, which was likely to

11 Given by Gunther of Pairis: The Capture of Constantinople. The “Hystoria

Constantinopolitana” of Gunther of Pairis, ed. & transl. A. J. Andrea, Philadelphia
1997, 107.
12 Geoffroy de Villehardouin, La conquête de Constantinople, ed. E. Faral, 2nd ed.,
Paris 1961, vol. II, §254.
13 Robert de Clari, La conquête de Constantinople, ed. P. Noble (= British
Rencesvals Publications 3), Edinburgh 2005, 98-99.
15
 Michael Angold

have had a generally beneficial effect, but in 1204 that beneficial effect
was perhaps more likely to be felt in Italy and the West than it was in
Byzantium itself. But it remains debatable how this would have con-
tributed directly to the impoverishment of Constantinople and its
inhabitants, if only because much of the plunder taken in 1204 served
no useful economic purpose. In other words, if past experience was any
guide, Constantinople should have recovered. It was after all a still
functioning city, when the crusaders took it over. It had suffered con-
siderable material damage, but little loss of life. Nor was there any gen-
eral expulsion of the inhabitants in the aftermath of the conquest,
though many of the elite departed voluntarily. On 17 April 1204 the
patriarch and members of his clergy left Constantinople under safe-
conduct for the Thracian city of Selymbria. Along with them went many
bureaucrats: the historian Niketas Choniates, for example, who took
his household with him.15 However, some members of the Byzantine
elite preferred to stay on, often serving the Latins in an administrative
capacity.16 One example would be the father of the historian George
Akropolites, who enjoyed many favours from the Latins, but by 1233 he
was seeking to escape from Constantinople together with his house-
hold, to which end he despatched his son now aged sixteen to the court
of the Nicaean Empire, the most successful of the Byzantine successor
states.17 The inference is that staying on in Latin Constantinople was
becoming less and less rewarding for members of the Byzantine elite.
Not only had Latin rule failed to deliver prosperity, but – a point,
which is often missed – it also brought radical social and ethnic change
to Constantinople.

II Its impoverishment under Latin rule emerges from George

Pachymeres’s description of Constantinople, when the Byzantines
returned in 1261. Neglect was everywhere. The Latin emperors had left
the Blachernai palace uninhabitable. The walls were smeared with
smoke and grease as a result of the disgusting eating habits of the Latin
emperor’s companions.18 The poverty of the Latin emperors became a

14 T. F. MADDEN, The Fires of the Fourth Crusade in Constantinople, 1203-1204: A

Damage Assessment, Byzantinische Zeitschrift 84/85 (1992) 72-93.
15 Nicetae Choniatae Historia, ed. J.-L. van Dieten, CFHB, Ser. Berol. 11, Berlin
1975, 589-593.
16 P. LOCK, The Latin Emperors as heirs to Byzantium, in: New Constantines. The
Rhythm of Imperial Renewal in Byzantium, 4th-13th centuries, Aldershot 1994,
300.
17 George Akropolites, The History, transl. R. Macrides (= Oxford Studies in
Byzantium), Oxford 2007, 189.
18 Georges Pachymérès, Relations historiques, ed. A. Failler and transl. V. Laurent,
16 CFHB 24/1, Paris 1984, ii. 31: I, 219.5-9.
 Turning points in history: the Fall of Constantinople

byword. The last Latin emperor famously stripped the lead off the
roofs of the Great Palace to raise cash.19 A Latin patriarch had antici-
pated him decades before when in 1222 he removed lead from the roof
of St Sophia.20 Actions such as these make it far less of a surprise that
the Latins failed to make good the damage done by the fires at the time
of the fourth crusade. Pachymeres recognized the pressures that the
Latin emperors of Constantinople had been under. They were sur-
rounded by hostile powers and the city was under blockade for long
periods. The lack of firewood became so desperate that the Latins dis-
mantled old houses for their wood.21 They also engaged in a brisk
trade in statuary and architectural features stripped from churches,
palaces, and public places. The Pilastri Acritani at Venice came from
the church of St Polyeuktos, which was broken up under the Latins.22
The porphyry group of tetrarchs united in brotherly love, which now
stands in an angle of St Mark’s at Venice, was originally at the
Philadelpheion in Constantinople.23 Constantinopolitan spolia equally
went to Ayyubid Egypt.24 The impression left is that to survive any-
thing of value in Constantinople was simply sold off by the Latins.
According to George Pachymeres the Latins were in such constant fear
of being deprived of what did not belong to them that they treated it
“as something that would not be theirs for long”.25 Or as another
Byzantine historian Nikephoros Gregoras put it: “Once it was theirs,
the Latins took no care of the city, but rather set about its complete
destruction, as if they had no confidence in their long-term possession
of the city.”26 This seems to be good psychology. But there was anoth-
er dimension. The crusaders were not as impressed as once they were
by the products of Byzantine civilization. These were reminiscent of the
19 R. L. WOLFF, Hopf’s so-called “Fragmentum” of Marino Sanudo Torsello, in:
Joshua Starr Memorial Volume, New York 1953, 150.
20 R. L. WOLFF, Politics in the Latin Patriarchate of Constantinople, 1204-1261,
Dumbarton Oaks Papers 8 (1954) 278.
21 Nicephorus Gregoras, Byzantina historia, ed. L. Schopen, CSHB, Bonn 1829,
81.8-11.
22 R. S. NELSON, The History of Legends and the Legends of History: The Pilastri
Acritani in Venice, in: San Marco, Byzantium, and the Myths of Venice, ed. H.
Maguire – R. S. Nelson, Washington, D.C. 2010, 63-90.
23 M. HARRISON, A Temple for Byzantium. The Discovery and Excavation of Anicia
Juliana’s Palace Church in Istanbul, London 1989, 100, 132, 143; F. BARRY, Disiecta
membra: Ranieri Zeno, the Imitation of Constantinople, the Spolia style, and Justice at
San Marco, in: San Marco, Byzantium, and the Myths of Venice, 34-35, 39-41.
24 K. CIGGAAR, Byzantine spolia in Egypt. Sultan Malik Al-’Adil and Byzantium’s cul-
tural heritage, in: Quarta Crociata. Venezia – Bisanzio – Impero Latino, ed. Gh.
Ortalli – G. Ravegnani – P. Schreiner, Venice 2006, II, 663-681.
25 Pachymérès, ii. 30: I, 215.4-5.
26 Gregoras, I, 88.5-9. 17
 Michael Angold

Romanesque, which was in the process of being superseded in the west

by a Gothic sensibility. Two works of art exemplify the taste of the Latin
leadership at Constantinople. The first is the cycle of St Francis dis-
covered in the Kalderhane Camii, which became a Franciscan Church
under the Latins. The cycle is in the Gothic style and close to contem-
porary work being carried out at Acre.27 The second work of art is the
reliquary made on the orders of the Latin Emperor Henry of Hainault
for a relic of the true cross, which is now in the Treasury of St Marks,
Venice.28 It is in the style of northern French goldsmith’s work of the
time.
This is a reminder that, notwithstanding a massive dispersal of
relics in the immediate aftermath of the crusader conquest,29 the Latin
emperor managed to secure many of the most precious relics kept at
Constantinople, including relics of the passion. He could use them as
prestigious diplomatic gifts. He could pawn them, if need be. This is
what happened to the Crown of Thorns, which was used as surety for a
loan. When the last Latin Emperor Baldwin II was unable to redeem
them, the French king Louis IX came to his aid, but on the under-
standing that the precious relic was now his, which is how the Crown of
Thorns came to Paris. The French king created the most glorious reli-
quary for it, which in its turn was housed in that most un-Byzantine of
buildings, the Sainte-Chapelle.30 But, when all is said and done, the
incident is one more example of the poverty of the Latin Emperors,
who had recourse to stripping Constantinople of anything valuable as
the only means of getting by.

III Their problem was lack of income. They had little or no landed
wealth. Tax revenues amounted to very little, while customs duties were
negligible, because Constantinople had ceased to be a major centre of
trade.31 Paradoxically, the Latin conquest destroyed the trading pat-
tern, which underpinned Venetian commerce in the twelfth century,
when the Venetians took over a significant proportion of the carrying
trade of the Byzantine Empire, the main purpose of which was provi-
sioning Constantinople. To explain the collapse of this trading network

27 C. L. STRIKER – Y. DOG¢AN KUBAN, Kalenderhane in Istanbul. The buildings, their

history, architecture and decoration, Mainz 1997, 17; D. WEISS, Art and the Crusade in
the Age of Saint Louis, Cambridge 1998, 102-103, 152.
28 The Treasury of San Marco, Venice, ed. D. Buckton, Milan 1984, no. 34, 244-
251.
29 M. BARBER, The Impact of the Fourth Crusade in the West: the Distribution of relics
after 1204, in: Urbs Capta, 325-334.
30 Le trésor de la Sainte-Chapelle, ed. J. Durand – M. P. Lafitte, Paris 2001, 37-
41.
18
 Turning points in history: the Fall of Constantinople

you need look no further than the disintegration of a centralized system

of taxation, which was a major consequence of the Latin conquest. It
meant that wealth was no longer concentrated in Constantinople. It
forced the Venetians to rebuild their commercial networks, but this was
complicated by the long struggle with Genoa for control of Crete. It was
not until 1252 that the Venetians could be completely confident that
Crete was theirs.32 The focus on Crete reflected the creation of a differ-
ent trading pattern. The island had the advantage of linking two dif-
ferent commercial networks: one that united Italy with the Aegean and
Constantinople and another that joined Italy to Egypt and Syria.
Already cut off from its hinterland this shift in the pattern of trade
threatened to turn Constantinople into a backwater. It was no longer the
capital of a great power, nor was it a major centre of international trade.
Not only did it suffer from the changing focus of Venetian trade; it had
also to confront the disruption caused by the Mongol invasions across
the Steppes from the 1220s. Paradoxically, these eventually worked to
Constantinople’s advantage. The establishment of a pax mongolica
opened up new and exciting possibilities. So, from the 1250s you find
Venetian fleets33 and individual merchants, such as Marco Polo’s father
and uncle, reconnoitring the commercial potential of the Black Sea.
The way was open for a new chapter of Venetian and for that matter
Italian maritime ascendancy but based on very different foundations
from those existing before 1204. It was the fate of Latin Constantinople
to preside over the breakdown of one pattern of trade without being
able to take advantage of the new one, which was taking shape. It was a
recipe for rapid economic and demographic decline.
Constantinople changed in other ways as well. Paradoxically, it
became more of a Latin city, even if it is difficult to find any remains of
the Latin occupation. There are strong reservations, for example,
about attributing to the Latin occupation the flying buttresses, which
shore up St Sophia.34 Far more plausible is a Latin origin for its belfry,

31 L. B. ROBBERT, Rialto business men and Constantinople, 1204-61, Dumbarton

Oaks Paper 49 (1995) 43-58 contra D. JACOBY, Venetian Settlers in Latin
Constantinople, in: Ðëïýóéïé êár Öôù÷ïr, ed. Ch. Maltezou, Venice 1998, 181-204;
D. JACOBY, The Economy of Latin Constantinople, 1204-1261, in: Urbs Capta, 195-
214.
32 S. BORSARI, Il dominio veneziano a Creta nel XIII secolo, Naples 1963; G. JEHEL,
The struggle for hegemony in the eastern Mediterranean: an episode in the relations
between Venice and Genoa according to the chronicles of Ogerio Pane (1197-1219),
Mediterranean Historical Review 11 (1996) 196-207.
33 E.g. the Venetian expedition of 1257 to the port of Mesembria.
34 R. J. MAINSTONE, Hagia Sophia: architecture, structure and liturgy of Justinian’s
Great Church, London 1988, 104-105 contra JACOBY, Urban evolution, 286.
19
 Michael Angold

which was still there at the end of the seventeenth century.35 It was an
easy and cheap way of putting a Latin stamp on the building. Not even
the Venetians who made the imperial monastery of the Pantokrator
their headquarters have left any signs of their occupation.36 However,
in good western fashion the Latins built a fortress over the Forum of
Constantine, which was well positioned to control the city. Even if the
returning Byzantines pulled it down,37 it was a sign of the way the
shape of the city was changing under Latin rule. Most obviously, there
was a retreat to a core between St Sophia and the Golden Horn, where
the water supply continued to function adequately.38 Much of the
remaining area within the walls was given over to agriculture of one
sort or another. It contained thirteen villages, as we learn from the
Moroccan traveller Ibn Battuta, who visited the city in the early
1330s.39 It had become a suburban region. In this way too Constan-
tinople was coming more and more to resemble the port cities of Italy.
The population became more mixed. The Latins held Constan-
tinople for approximately three generations, which was time enough
for radical demographic transformation, proof of which is supplied by
the Gasmoule community of mixed Latin and Greek race, which had
come into existence under the Latins.40 How different the populace of
Constantinople had become under Latin rule emerges from the mea-
sures taken by Alexios Strategopoulos, the Byzantine general, who
secured the city in July 1261. He organized patrols night and day,
because he knew he was dealing with a resentful populace. Even if he
recognized that it was made up of both Greeks (Romaioi) and Latins,
this did not prevent him from labelling the people of Constantinople a
foreign race (allotrion genos).41 Romaizontes (roughly translated as semi-
35 Ibidem, 113.
36 D. JACOBY, The Venetian Quarter of Constantinople from 1082 to 1261: topo-
graphical considerations, in: Novum Millennium. Studies on Byzantine history and
culture dedicated to Paul Speck, ed. C. Sode – S. Takács, Aldershot 2001, 160-
167.
37 Pachymérès, ii, 35; I, 227.4-6.
38 On the water supply of Constantinople, see J. CROW, The water supply of
Byzantine Constantinople (= Journal of Roman studies monographs, 11), London
2008. Cf. V. KIDONOPOULOS, The Urban Physiognomy of Constantinople from the Latin
conquest through the Palaiologan era, in: Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261-1557).
Perspectives on late Byzantine Art and Culture, ed. S. Brooks, New York – New
Haven 2006, 98-117.
39 The Travels of Ibn Battuta A.D. 1325-1354, transl. H. A. R. Gibb (= Hakluyt
Society, ser.ii. 117), Cambridge 1962, II, 508.
40 Pachymérès, iii. 9; I, 253.10-17.
41 Pachymérès, ii. 30: I, 215.15-27.
42 Pachymérès, ii. 27: I, 201.5.
20
 Turning points in history: the Fall of Constantinople

Byzantine) was the term used by the returning Byzantines for the
Greeks of Constantinople.42 As the Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos
admitted, the newly recovered Constantinople was a place, where the
streets sounded to “the confused accents of a half-barbarian people.”43

IV Contributing to the changing character of Constantinople were

the Franciscans and Dominicans, who had established themselves there
by the end of the 1220s.44 In the face of their activities the Orthodox
Patriarch Germanos II from exile at Nicaea tried to strengthen the
Greek community in their faith. He was alarmed by reports of Bogomil
success among the Greeks of Constantinople. What this meant is not
very clear. It is notoriously difficult to separate Bogomilism from pop-
ular dissatisfaction with the Church.45 The patriarch may only have
been admitting that the ecclesiastical organization of the Orthodox
Church in Constantinople was failing. Such a possibility receives sup-
port in this case from his worries about the lack of Orthodox priests
working in Constantinople. These were conditions exactly suited to the
pastoral talents of the Franciscans and Dominicans, who are known to
have had their successes among the Greeks of Constantinople.46 It was
part of a process of assimilation, which extended to the leaders of the
Greek community. Proof of this is the existence of a group of Greek
archontes of Constantinople, who in 1261 preferred to accompany the
last Latin emperor into exile.47 They were faced with the distinct pos-
sibility that the return of a Byzantine emperor would spell the end of
their social ascendancy, because it would mean the return too of the
court aristocracy, who would resume their accustomed position and
privileges. Such fears can only have been confirmed by Alexios
Strategopoulos, who immediately set about assigning mansions to
members of the Byzantine aristocracy. It was noted at the time that
such acts of expropriation were alienating the people of

43 G. DENNIS, Auxentios: Typikon of Michael VIII Palaiologos for the monastery of the
Archangel Michael on Mount Auxentios near Chalcedon, in: Byzantine monastic foun-
dation documents, ed. J. Thomas – A. C. Hero (= Dumbarton Oaks Studies, 35),
Washington, D.C. 2000, III, 1216.
44 R. L. WOLFF, The Latin Empire and the Franciscans, Traditio 2 (1944) 213-237.
45 M. J. ANGOLD, Church and Society at Byzantium under the Comneni (1081-1261),
Cambridge 1995) 468-501.
46 Registres des actes du patriarcat de Constantinople (I, fasc. 4), ed. V. Laurent,
Paris 1971, nos. 1287, 1291, 1303; J. GILL, An unpublished letter of Germanos, patri-
arch of Constantinople, Byzantion 44 (1974) 142-151.
47 The Chronicle of Morea, ed. J. J. Schmitt, London 1904, vv. 1331-1332. John
Phylax, a servant of the Emperor Baldwin II, preferred to throw in his lot with the
Byzantine forces, but he seems to have been the exception rather than the rule
among the Greek archontes of Constantinople (Pachymérès, ii. 27: I, 201.5-23).
21
 Michael Angold

Constantinople.48 These grants then received confirmation from

Michael VIII Palaiologos. Otherwise the emperor did little to alter the
arrangements pertaining under Latin rule, apart from providing sup-
port to the monasteries of Constantinople.49 If anything, he made it
impossible to reverse the changes that had occurred. He turned large
areas within the walls into farms to support the troops he brought in to
defend Constantinople. He even supplied them with plough-teams.50
The Italian communities were left undisturbed, as were the Gasmoules.
Under Latin rule the latters’ tax contributions were shared between the
Venetians and the Latin emperor. This arrangement continued after
1261 with the Byzantine emperor taking the share that had previously
fallen to the Latin emperor.51
If in 1261 the Dominicans of Constantinople fled with the Latin
Emperor Baldwin to Negroponte, the Franciscans stayed on. They were
not driven out of Constantinople until the accession of Andronikos II
Palaiologos in 1282.52 Whether they retained possession of the
Kalenderhane Camii is another matter, but in the person of John
Parastron – a native of Constantinople – they were a formidable pres-
ence in Constantinople under Michael VIII Palaiologos.53 His influ-
ence with the emperor reflected the latter’s policy of reconciliation with
the various communities of Westerners left over from the Latin Empire.
The Union of Churches was as much for their benefit as it was a diplo-
matic ploy, which is the way it is usually presented.54 If it had only been
a diplomatic ploy, there might have been less resentment by the
Byzantines. It united a series of groups, which saw their position threat-
ened by the Union of Churches: members of the aristocracy, who
objected among other things to the way the emperor increasingly
placed Latins in command of the Byzantine forces; local dynasts,

48 Pachymérès, ii. 30: I, 215.14-15.

49 Pachymérès, ii. 33: II, 220-222.
50 Pachymérès, iii. 9: I, 251.19-26.
51 D. JACOBY, Les Vénitiens naturalisés dans l’Empire byzantin: un aspect de l’expan-
sion de Venise en Romanie du XIIIe au milieu du XVe siècle, Travaux et mémoires 8
(1981) 221-223.
52 William Adam, De modo Sarracenos extirpandi, ed. C. Kohler, in: Recueil des
historiens des croisades. Documents arméniens, vol. II, Paris 1906, 548.
53 Pachymérès, v. 11; II, 475-477; D. J. GEANAKOPLOS, Bonaventura, the two men-
dicant orders and the Greeks at the Council of Lyons (1274), Studies in Church
History 13 (1976) 198-199.
54 E.g. D. J. GEANAKOPLOS, Emperor Michael Palaeologus and the West 1258-1282.
A study in Byzantine-Latin Relations, Cambridge, Mass. 1959; S. RUNCIMAN, The
Sicilian Vespers: a history of the Mediterranean World in the later thirteenth century,
Cambridge 1958.
22
 Turning points in history: the Fall of Constantinople

Frankish and Greek, who understood that the Union of Churches was
a cover for an attack on their independence; and provincial monaster-
ies, who believed that it put Orthodoxy in peril. There was very little
opposition to the union on the streets of Constantinople, which is not
surprising if the Franciscan John Parastron was as popular as the his-
torian Pachymeres suggests.

V The co-operation of Latin and Greek was probably Byzantium’s

only chance of recovering its dominant position, but it was doomed to
failure because of the structural changes that followed 1204. Crucial
was the way that the Latin conquest had emancipated the Byzantine
provinces from Constantinople. The best thing for Byzantium might
well have been recognition of a fait accompli and the establishment of a
Latin dynasty and ruling class, which with time would have become
Byzantine. Instead, there was resistance to the Latin conquest, out of
which would emerge a series of successor states. These would change
the face of Byzantium. Though their aim was initially to win back
Constantinople from the Latins, their effect was to infuse provincial
power bases with imperial pretensions. In a Byzantine context only
claims to imperial authority provided an institutional basis for state
building. Before 1204 there was much unrest in the Byzantine
provinces, but with one exception no attempt was made to create an
alternative system of government. That exception was the rebellion of
Peter and Asen in the Balkans in 1186. They used memories of the
Bulgarian Empire to lay the foundations of a new state, which became
the dominant political force in the Balkans during the Latin occupa-
tion of Constantinople.55 Out of the ruins of the Byzantine Empire we
see a quite different political system coming into being in the years
after 1204. It consisted of a series of petty states, most with imperial
pretensions, but united under the umbrella of the Orthodox patriar-
chate, which had been restored in 1208 in the city of Nicaea and quick-
ly recovered its ecumenical authority.56 This was to remain the reality,
even after the recovery of Constantinople in 1261.
The crusader conquest of Constantinople in 1204 therefore had a
double impact: on the one hand, it created the conditions for the dis-
mantling of the economic and political structures on which the integri-
ty of the Byzantine Empire was founded, leaving it at the mercy of out-
side forces; on the other, it left a legacy of distrust, not to say loathing,
of the Latins on the part of the Orthodox Church. This was unfortu-
55 J.-C. CHEYNET, Pouvoir et contestations à Byzance (963-1210) (= Byzantina
Sorbonensia, 9), Paris 1990, 427-458.
56 M. ANGOLD, Church and Society, 530-563.
23
 Michael Angold

nate, when political realism dictated that Michael VIII Palaiologos

make the Latins an essential element in his plans for the restoration of
the Empire. In retrospect, it becomes clear that he only ever had a slim
chance of success. He was not able to reverse the changes that occurred
during the period of exile, whether it was a sense of local identity tak-
ing precedence over loyalty to an emperor in Constantinople; whether
it was a more pronounced attachment to Orthodoxy, which undercut
his efforts to integrate Latins into a Byzantine framework. But, most of
all, Michael VIII Palaiologos was unable to reverse the deterioration
suffered by Constantinople under Latin rule. Why this should have
been is nowhere made clear. The most likely explanation is a combina-
tion of political fragmentation, which meant that tax revenues were
insufficient to stimulate a sustained recovery, and of changes in the
structure of international trade following on the establishment of a Pax
Mongolica. These benefited the Italians based in Constantinople (or in
the case of the Genoese at Pera across the Golden Horn). Constan-
tinople became their entrepôt. The Byzantine government derived
some revenues from the flow of trade through its waters, but not
enough to make a substantial difference to its financial position. The
role of the Latin occupation of Constantinople was therefore largely
destructive. It allowed the dismantling of the old imperial system,
which had sustained medieval Byzantium. A new system only emerged
after the Byzantines returned to Constantinople, but it was the work of
the Venetians and Genoese. Its basis was commercial rather than polit-
ical and religious. It was conditional upon the continuing political frag-
mentation of the region, which the Italian republics were determined
to maintain.
The Venetians reckoned that the main danger to their commercial
interests was from a resurgent Byzantine Empire, which will explain
their opposition to Michael VIII Palaiologos’s efforts to reunite the ter-
ritories of the old Byzantine Empire. Key to this was control of the
Aegean, which in the end eluded the Byzantine emperor because of his
failure to secure the two key Venetian strong points in the Aegean: the
fortress of Negroponte on the island of Euboea and the town of Candia
on the island of Crete.57 The struggle for control of the Aegean
exhausted the Byzantine Empire. On the death of Michael VIII
Palaiologos in 1282 his son and heir Andronikos II disbanded the
Byzantine navy, leaving the Venetians and the Genoese with command

57 M. J. ANGOLD, Michael Palaiologos and the Aegean, in: Liquid and Multiple.
Individuals and Identities in the Thirteenth-Century Aegean, ed. D.
Stathakopoulos – G. St. Guillain (= Centre de Recherche d’histoire et civilisa-
tion de Byzance, 36), Paris 2012, 27-44.
24
 Turning points in history: the Fall of Constantinople

of the Aegean. Supremacy at sea thereafter allowed them to undermine

the stability of the Byzantine Empire whether by embroiling it in their
commercial rivalry or by meddling in the civil wars, which disfigure
Byzantine history for much of the fourteenth century.

VI It took time for the Italians to recognize the dangers presented by

a new power – the Ottoman Turks, who had established themselves as
masters of Thrace by 1361.58 Unlike other Turkish emirates the
Ottomans showed relatively little interest in the sea. They relied to a
large extent on the Genoese for naval assistance, which mainly involved
ferrying men and materials across the Hellespont from Asia Minor.59
The Ottomans responded by facilitating Italian trading interests. That
there was little to be feared from the Ottomans appeared to be con-
firmed by the rapid disintegration of Ottoman power following their
defeat by Tamerlane at the battle of Ankara in 1402.60 This turned out
to be only a temporary interlude. Building on the work of his father
Mehmed I (1411-1421) Murad II (1421-1451) re-established Ottoman
ascendancy in the Balkans, but on a much sounder basis through his
elaboration of the slave institution; by which, I mean, a central admin-
istration and standing army composed of slaves of the ruler. The use of
slave administrators and soldiers goes back to the earliest days of
Islam,61 but was given new force by the various Turkic Empires, which
dominated Islam from the eleventh century.62 The Mamluks of Egypt
provide a good example.63 They became a ruling military caste, origi-
nally recruited from and continuously supplemented by the slave mar-
kets of the Middle East. The Ottomans devised something rather dif-
ferent. They took a tribute of children from their subject Christian
population, known as the devshirme.64 There is a debate about when it

58 In general, N. NECIPOG¢LU, Byzantium between the Ottomans and the Latins:

Politics and Society in the Late Empire, Cambridge 2009, esp. 119-148.
59 K. FLEET, European and Islamic Trade in the early Ottoman state: the merchants
of Genoa and Turkey (= Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization), Cambridge
1999.
60 D. J. KASTRITSIS, The Sons of Bayezid: Empire building and representation in the
Ottoman Civil War of 1402-1413 (= Ottoman Empire and its heritage, 38),
Leiden 2007.
61 See P. CRONE, Slaves on Horses. The evolution of the Islamic polity, Cambridge
1980.
62 See S. F. DALE, The Muslim Empires of the Ottomans, Safavids, and Mughals,
Cambridge 2010, 10-47.
63 See D. AYALON, Studies on the Mamluks of Egypt (1250-1517), London 1977;
idem, Mamluk Military Society, London 1979.
64 C. IMBER, The Ottoman Empire, 1300-1650: the structure of power, Basingstoke
2002, 131-136.
25
 Michael Angold

began, but its regularization was undoubtedly the work of Murad II. It
provided recruits for a standing army known as the janissaries. But
more important, it also provided slave administrators. Their increasing
power altered the character of the Ottoman state, which had hitherto
been a loose alliance of warlords and old Anatolian families under the
aegis of the Ottoman emir.65

VII The growth of the slave institution pointed towards the creation of
an autocracy. The resulting tensions produced a crisis in the mid-
1440s, when in 1444 Murad II decided to retire from office in favour
of his young son Mehmed II, but the strength and resilience of the
Ottomans showed itself in the concurrent struggle with Hungary, from
which they emerged victorious. It was a major crisis, for which the
Ottomans blamed Byzantium. They thought that it was the Byzantine
emperor, who had incited the Hungarians in co-ordination with the
ruler of Karaman to invade Ottoman territories in both Europe and
Anatolia.66 These suspicions raised the whole question of how much of
a liability the Byzantine Empire had become. Negligible though it was
in military terms it could still be of service to enemies of the Ottomans
and could foment internal discord by harbouring dissident Ottoman
princes. The Ottomans had in the past tolerated Constantinople’s
independence because it was useful to them. It provided a convenient
place of exchange with the Italian commercial powers, upon which they
depended for various strategic goods and also for experts to run their
economy. In other words, they remained dependent upon a commer-
cial system created and run by the Italians, but a corollary of this was
respect for the independence of Constantinople, for it was an impor-
tant factor ensuring the efficient functioning of the system, because of
the way, among other things, it helped to maintain a balance of power
between the Venetians and the Genoese. The Ottomans benefited
greatly from being part of the system, which had facilitated their emer-
gence as the dominant force in the Balkans. Breaking with the past was
not an easy step to take.
Why then should Mehmed II have flouted the received wisdom of
the Ottoman court and set about conquering Constantinople?67

65 C. KAFADAR, Between Two Worlds. The Construction of the Ottoman State,

Berkeley – Los Angeles 1995; H. W. LOWRY, The Nature of the Early Ottoman State,
Albany 2003.
66 See F. BABINGER, Von Amurath zu Amurath. Vor- und Nachspiel der Schlacht bei
Varna (1444), Oriens 3 (1950) 229-265; C. IMBER, The Crusade of Varna, 1443-
1445, Aldershot 2006.
67 See F. BABINGER, Mehmed the Conqueror and his time (= Bollingen Series, 96),
26
 Turning points in history: the Fall of Constantinople

Strategic thoughts were probably not uppermost in his mind. He was

still only 21 when he succeeded his father in 1451. Dreams of glory
nurtured by reading about the exploits of Alexander the Great were
more to the point, but among members of his inner circle – mostly
drawn from the slave institution – a far more pressing concern was
establishing the new sultan in power. His brief rule from 1444 to 1446
had left an impression of weakness. It was felt that he would be no
match for his father’s Grand Vezir Çandarli Halil Pasha, the head of
one of the greatest Anatolian families, who was a proponent of the sta-
tus quo. The conquest of Constantinople was a gamble, but the stakes
were high. If successful it would consolidate the position of the new sul-
tan and his supporters. It would also dent the Grand Vezir’s prestige
and make it that much easier to drive him from power. During the siege
of Constantinople the Grand Vezir was constantly agitating for a settle-
ment on terms: something, which Mehmed II refused to contemplate.
He is reported as saying, “I will take the city or the city will take me
dead or alive” when he turned down the offer of terms made in the
middle of the siege by the Byzantine emperor.68 The conquest of
Constantinople was not an easy task. The defenders dealt with the early
assaults very effectively. The consul of Ancona, who took part in the
defence, reckoned that up to the final assault the defenders had lost
only forty men against 7,000 on the other side.69 These figures cannot
be strictly accurate, but are surely of the right order. The famed
Ottoman artillery may have shattered sections of the land walls, but in
some ways this made things worse for the attackers. It was as difficult –
if not more so – to get across the rubble of a collapsed section of the
wall as to scale the wall itself.70 When the Ottomans finally broke in it
was through a sally port, which had been left unguarded. At different
times Mehmed II came under considerable pressure to raise the siege.
By 29 May when the final assault was launched, the Ottoman army had
been in place under the walls of Constantinople for almost exactly two
months. It would have been difficult to keep the whole army together
for very much longer. That it stayed together for as long as it did was
testimony to Mehmed II’s willpower. He realized that failure to capture

Princeton 1978; J. FREELY, The Grand Turk. Sultan Mehmet II – the Conqueror of
Constantinople, Master of an Empire and Lord of Two Seas, London 2009.
68 Ducae, Michaelis Ducae nepotis, Historia Byzantina, ed. I. Becker, CSHB, Bonn
1834, XXXVIII, 18: 276.15-16.
69 A. PERTUSI, Testi inediti e poco noti sulla caduta di Costantinopoli (= Mondo
Medievale: sezione di storia bizantina e slava, 4), Bologna 1983, 4-5.
70 K. DE VRIES, Gunpowder Weapons at the Siege of Constantinople, 1453, in: War
and Society in the Eastern Mediterranean, 7th-15th Centuries, ed. Y. Lev, Leiden
1997, 343-362.
27
 Michael Angold

Constantinople would leave him beholden to his Grand Vezir and the
interests he represented. One of his first significant political acts after
taking Constantinople was to have the Grand Vezir executed.71

VIII To conquer Constantinople was to enter into an imperial destiny.

One of his entourage records him as saying soon after the conquest
‘From henceforth Constantinople will be my capital’,72 but exactly how
Mehmed II would shape it was a matter of trial and error, which
emerges from the measures he took in the aftermath of his conquest.73
There were two stages. First, he ordered the repair of the walls; the con-
struction of a fortress at the Golden Gate and a palace around the old
forum of Theodosios. These works were completed within two years of
the conquest. He had no intention of abandoning the city to benign
neglect. He took steps to bring in settlers and encouraged the Greek
inhabitants to stay or to return by re-establishing the patriarchate of
Constantinople, which was done by January 1454.74 These measures
worked well. By the end of his reign Constantinople’s population was
pushing on the 100,000 mark, perhaps double what it had been on the
eve of the Ottoman conquest.75 At the very least, Constantinople would
be another official residence of the sultan along with Edirne in Europe
and Bursa in Anatolia. That it would be more than this is evident from
the decisions taken immediately after the completion of his initial mea-
sures. In 1456 he ordered the overhaul of the city’s water supply, which
had been failing from the late twelfth century.76 Proof of the success of
this measure was the large number of bath houses built, which were a
great advertisement for the Ottoman way of life.77 In 1458 he began
the construction of a new palace, the Top Kapi, which became the sul-
tan’s permanent residence.78 It was an expression of a new and auto-

71 F. BABINGER, Mehmed the Conqueror, 102; J. FREELY, Grand Turk, 50.

72 Tursun Bey, La conquista di Costantinopoli, transl. L. Berardi, Milan 2007, 85.
73 On Mehmed II’s reconstruction of Constantinople see Ç. KAFESCIOG¢LU,
Constantinopolis / Istanbul: Cultural Encounter, Imperial Vision, and the Construction
of the Ottoman Capital (= Buildings, Landscapes, and Societies, 5), University
Park, PA 2009.
74
.
H. INALCIK, The policy of Mehmed II toward the Greek population of Istanbul and
the Byzantine buildings of the city, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 23/24 (1969/1970) 231-
249; M.-H. BLANCHET, Georges-Gennadios Scholarios (vers 1400-vers 1472): un intel-
lectuel orthodoxe face à la disparition de l’Empire byzantin (= Archives de l’Orient
Chrétien, 20), Paris 2008, 85-98.
75 Ç. KAFESCIOG¢LU, Constantinopolis / Istanbul, 178.
76 J. CROW, Water Supply, 22-23, 28, 115, 242.
77 Ç. KAFESCIOG¢LU, Constantinopolis / Istanbul, 103-109.
78 G. NECIPOG¢LU, Architecture, Ceremonial, and Power: the Topkapi Palace in the fif-
28
 Turning points in history: the Fall of Constantinople

cratic concept of the sultan’s authority as the inscription over the outer
gateway made clear. It extols Mehmed II as ‘the Sultan of the Two con-
tinents and the Emperor of the Two Seas, the Shadow of God in this
world and the next, the Favourite of God on the Two horizons…’79 At
the same time as ordering the construction of a new palace Mehmed II
pulled down the Church of the Holy Apostles to make way for a new
mosque complex, which would supplant Aya Sofya as the chief mosque
of the city. This together with the construction of the Top Kapi palace
was a statement of intent that Constantinople was to be an imperial
capital.80
Mehmed II not only put his imperial stamp on Constantinople; he
also set about dismantling Italian maritime and commercial suprema-
cy. One of the disappointments of the siege was how badly the Ottoman
flotilla performed. Mehmed’s spectacular achievement of having ships
transported across land from the Bosphoros to the Golden Horn was a
sideshow. They were not war galleys, but more like caiques. Their main
value was to stretch the defenders a little more and to disrupt commu-
nications between Constantinople and the Genoese in Pera. Among
Mehmed II’s early actions after the conquest of Constantinople was to
build a fleet capable of taking on the Italians. The main base was at
Gallipoli, but he also took over the Genoese arsenal at Pera.81 The
Genoese gave up with scarcely a fight. They retained rights of residence
at Pera against the payment of customs duties. They did nothing to
support the Gattilusi, a Genoese dynasty, which held a series of islands
in the north-eastern Aegean, of which Mitylene was the most impor-
tant. They made no effort to defend Caffa in the Crimea, which was
their main base in the Black Sea.82 It was different with the Venetians.
They took on the Ottomans in a long war lasting from 1463 to 1479,
from which they emerged exhausted and badly beaten.83 They lost
their main base in the Aegean of Negroponte on the island of Euboea.
By the end of Mehmed II’s reign the Aegean and Black Seas were firm-
ly under Ottoman control. The Italians continued to trade at

teenth and sixteenth centuries, New York – Cambridge, Mass. 1991, 4-15; Ç. KAFES-
CIOG¢LU, Constantinopolis / Istanbul, 53-66.
79 M. NECIPOG¢LU, Architecture, 34-36.
80 Ç. KAFESCIOG¢LU, Constantinopolis / Istanbul, 66-92.
81 On the Ottoman navy, see C. IMBER, Ottoman Empire, 287-294.
82 E. BASSO, Genova e gli Ottomani nel XV secolo: gli “itali Teucri’ e il Gran Sultano,
in: L’Europa dopo la caduta di Costantinopoli, Spoleto 2008, 375-409.
83 F. BABINGER, Le vicende veneziane nella lotta contra I Turchi durante il secolo XV,
in: La civiltà veneziana del Quattrocento, ed. G. Piovene (= Storia della civiltà
veneziana, 3), Florence 1957, 51-73.
29
 Michael Angold

Constantinople, but gone forever was their domination of the seas,

which they had used to ensure the political fragmentation of the
region. Without the conquest of Constantinople it would have been
very difficult for the Ottomans to loosen the grip of Italian sea-power,
which seems to underline an essential feature of turning points: that
they make possible what would not otherwise be.
Broadly speaking, the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople
reversed the Crusader conquest by restoring it to its position of impe-
rial hegemony. So both 1204 and 1453 emerge as turning points in his-
tory, even if they cancelled each other out. It strikes me that 1204 was
the more dramatic for being unexpected, but beyond that it created a
new situation, which previously had only been the remotest of possibil-
ities; while 1453 was far from unexpected and simply gave clearer def-
inition to a situation, which was already taking shape. Between them
the two falls of Constantinople destroyed Byzantium, but it is not only
this that makes them turning points in history. It was much more the
role the city played in the affairs of the world and the place it occupied
in men’s imagination not only as an imperial capital, but also, in the
words of the Mandeville author, as a repository of “Choses Estranges”.84

84 See I. M. HIGGINS, Writing East: the “Travels” of Sir John Mandeville,

Philadephia 1997, 63-91.
30

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