Orthodox leaders voted in favour of union, but the people of Constantinople were adamantly against it and rioted in response.He is expected to graduate from the University of Chicago in 2021 with bachelors degrees in English language and literature and political.The dwindling Byzantine Empire came to an end when the Ottomans breached Constantinoples ancient land wall after besieging the city for 55 days.Mehmed surrounded Constantinople from land and sea while employing cannon to maintain a constant barrage of the citys formidable walls.
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. Context By the mid-15th century, constant struggles for dominance with its Balkan neighbours and Roman Catholic rivals had diminished Byzantine imperial holdings to Constantinople and the land immediately west of it. Furthermore, with Constantinople having suffered through several devastating sieges, the citys population had dropped from roughly 400,000 in the 12th century to between 40,000 and 50,000 by the 1450s. Vast open fields constituted much of the land within the walls. Byzantine relations with the rest of Europe had soured over the last several centuries as well: the Schism of 1054 and the 13th-century Latin occupation of Constantinople entrenched a mutual hatred between the Orthodox Byzantines and Roman Catholic Europe. Nevertheless, just as deeply entrenched was the understanding that Byzantine control of Constantinople was a necessary bastion against Muslim control of land and sea in the eastern Mediterranean. 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. Hungary was the primary European threat to the Ottomans on land, and Venice and Genoa controlled much of the Aegean and Black seas. 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. In 1444 he lost an important battle to a Christian alliance in the Balkans and abdicated the throne to his son, Mehmed II. However, he returned to power two years later after defeating the Christians and remained sultan until his death in 1451. Now sultan for the second time, Mehmed II intended to complete his fathers mission and conquer Constantinople for the Ottomans. He also began the construction of the Boazkesen (later called the Rumelihisar ), a fortress at the narrowest point of the Bosporus, in order to restrict passage between the Black and Mediterranean seas. Mehmed then tasked the Hungarian gunsmith Urban with both arming Rumelihisar and building cannon powerful enough to bring down the walls of Constantinople. By March 1453 Urbans cannon had been transported from the Ottoman capital of Edirne to the outskirts of Constantinople. In April, having quickly seized Byzantine coastal settlements along the Black Sea and Sea of Marmara, Ottoman regiments in Rumelia and Anatolia assembled outside the Byzantine capital. Their fleet moved from Gallipoli to nearby Diplokionion, and the sultan himself set out to meet his army. Rumeli Fortress, Istanbul Rumeli Fortress (Rumeli Hisar) on the European bank of the Bosporus, Istanbul. William J. Bowe. Get exclusive access to content from our 1768 First Edition with your subscription. Hungary refused to assist, and, instead of sending men, Pope Nicholas V saw the precarious situation as an opportunity to push for the reunification of the Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches, a priority of the papacy since 1054.
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