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(kŏn'stăn'tĭnō'pəl) , former capital of the Byzantine Empire and of the Ottoman Empire, since 1930 officially called Istanbul (for location and description, see Istanbul). It was founded (A.D. 330) at ancient Byzantium as the new capital of the Roman Empire by Constantine I, after whom it was named. The largest and most splendid European city of the Middle Ages, Constantinople shared the glories and vicissitudes of the Byzantine Empire, which in the end was reduced to the city and its environs. Although besieged innumerable times by various peoples, it was taken only three times—in 1204 by the army of the Fourth Crusade (see Crusades), in 1261 by Michael VIII, and in 1453 by the Ottoman Sultan Muhammad II. Defended by Greek fire, it was also well fortified. An early inner wall was erected by Constantine I, and the enlarged Constantinople was surrounded by a triple wall of fortifications, begun (5th cent.) by Theodosius II. Built on seven hills, the city on the Bosporus presented the appearance of an impregnable fortress enclosing a sea of magnificent palaces and gilded domes and towers. In the 10th cent., it had a cosmopolitan population of about 1 million. The Church of Hagia Sophia, the sacred palace of the emperors (a city in itself); the huge hippodrome, center of the popular life; and the Golden Gate, the chief entrance into the city; were among the largest of the scores of churches, public edifices, and monuments that lined the broad arcaded avenues and squares. Constantinople had a great wealth of artistic and literary treasures before it was sacked in 1204 and 1453. Virtually depopulated when it fell to the Ottoman Turks, the city recovered rapidly. The Ottoman sultans, whose court was called the Sublime Porte, embellished Constantinople with many beautiful mosques, palaces, monuments, fountains, baths, aqueducts, and other public buildings. After World War I the city was occupied (1918–23) by the Allies. In 1922 the last Ottoman sultan was deposed and Ankara became (1923) the new capital of Turkey.

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Mideast & N. Africa Encyclopedia: Constantinople

Ancient Roman and Byzantine capital, now the city of Istanbul in modern Turkey.

The construction of the Roman city of Constantinople was begun in 324, after the final victory of the Roman emperor Constantine the Great (r. 306 - 337 C.E.) over his rivals for power. It was intended as a new, central capital, which would straddle the eastern and western portions of the Roman Empire. Originally known as New Rome, it came to be known as Konstantinoupolis, the City of Constantine.

The city was completed in May 330 on the site of the existing Greek settlement of Byzantium. It was set on a promontory extending eastward into the Sea of Marmara at the mouth of the Bosporus and was bordered on the north by a sheltered inlet known as the Golden Horn, which served as its harbor. In homage to the city of Rome, it was laid out on seven hills, with its own royal palace and square, senate, forum, and hippodrome. Lying at the crossroads of land routes through Europe and Asia and guarding the strategic and lucrative sea routes connecting the Mediterranean and Black Seas, it quickly assumed prominence as one of the wealthiest cities in the empire and benefited from both imperial patronage and intercontinental trade. The city's growth led it to extend toward the west and construct a new set of walls under Theodosius in 439.

A fire in the time of Justinian (r. 527 - 565) during the Nika Rebellion of 532 destroyed half the city. In its wake, Justinian embarked on an ambitious program of new building. This included a new hippodrome, which held up to 60,000 spectators, a new palace, and a massive church, the Cathedral of Hagia Sophia, dedicated to the wisdom of Christ. The latter stood on the site of the original church, which was built by Emperor Constantius in 360 and replaced after a fire in 404. Completed in 537 and rebuilt in 558 after an earthquake damaged it, the church is noted for its impressive, 110-foot-diameter domed vault, which dominates the city skyline to this day.

With the decline of Rome, Constantinople remained the capital of the Eastern (Byzantine) Roman Empire and the center of Eastern Christianity. A period of decline occurred during the eighth century, when losses to the early Muslim conquests threatened the empire. Yet Constantinople went on to become the wealthiest and largest city in medieval Europe, home of various nationalities and a trans-shipment center linking Europe with southwest and central Asia. It was venerated as the home of libraries and countless sacred relics. Its wealth and prestige made it the target of several invading armies. It was attacked and besieged variously by the Slavs (in 540, 559, and 581), the Persians and Avars (in 626), the Arabs (in 669 - 679 and 717 - 718), the Bulgarians (in 813, 913, and 924), and the Russians, who assaulted it four times in the period from 860 to 1043.

Following the schism of 1054, which divided Christianity between the Eastern and Western churches, Constantinople became a commercial rival to the Roman Catholic kingdoms in the western Mediterranean, especially Venice. The bishop of Constantinople came to be the ecumenical patriarch of the Eastern Orthodox Church, and the religious power of the city continued to be strengthened into the late Byzantine and Ottoman periods. The crusades of the late eleventh and twelfth centuries passed through Constantinople relatively peacefully. However, the common perception among the Crusaders that the Byzantine Empire sympathized with the Seljuk Turks allowed Venice to persuade the leaders of the fourth crusade to sack Constantinople. This established a Latin kingdom, centered on the city, that lasted until 1261, when the Byzantines restored their ancient capital. The city was greatly weakened and depopulated as a result and never reclaimed its earlier splendor. The weakness of Constantinople led the Byzantines to ally with Genoa, which came to eclipse the Byzantine state.

In 1453, the Ottoman Turks under Mehmet II defeated the last Byzantine emperor of Constantinople, Constantine XI, who was killed in battle over the city. Turks resettled the city under the Ottomans, changing its cultural makeup over time, although Greeks remained an important part of the population until the early twentieth century. Ottoman building activity ushered in a new age of Islamic architecture, and the church of Hagia Sophia became a mosque, surrounded by four towering minarets. Over time, the Turkish corruption of the Greek phrase eis teen polin (into the city) led to the popular renaming of the city as Istanbul. The city became the administrative capital of the Ottoman Empire, and continued as the capital until it was moved to Ankara under the modern state of Turkey in 1923. It remains the largest city in Turkey, and that nation's most important commercial center. In the early twenty-first century it had a population of more than 12 million.

Bibliography

Mango, Cyril. Studies on Constantinople. Aldershot, U.K.: Variorum, 1993.

Mansel, Philip. Constantinople: City of the World's Desire, 1453 - 1924. London: John Murray, 1995.

Sherrard, Philip. Constantinople: Iconography of a Sacred City. London: Oxford University Press, 1965.

— PAUL S. ROWE

History 1450-1789: Constantinople

The city of Constantinople, called Kostantaniyye in Arabic and in formal Ottoman usage and Istanbul in the vernacular, was the most cosmopolitan city in the Mediterranean world and the Middle East during the early modern period. Its geographic location—it connected Asia and Europe as well as the Black Sea and the Mediterranean—enhanced its importance during the Byzantine and Ottoman periods. In addition, its natural beauty, monumental architecture (Byzantine and Ottoman), size, and commercial importance surpassed former Ottoman and Islamic capitals like Bursa, Cairo, and Isfahan in the early modern period. European visitors to the Ottoman capital have left numerous accounts and hundreds of sketches of its beautiful panorama, its magnificent Byzantine and Ottoman monuments, and the colorful daily life of its residents, including women, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. According to Lady Mary Montagu, the wife of the English ambassador to the Ottoman Empire in 1717–1718, Istanbul surpassed European cities like London and Paris in size in the eighteenth century. It was the most exotic and yet familiar city for visiting Europeans who lived among local Greeks, Armenians, and Jews in the European neighborhood of Pera in the eighteenth century.

The Conquest of Constantinople and the Making of Istanbul

The Ottoman conquest of Constantinople by Mehmed II (ruled 1444–1446, 1451–1481) on 29 May 1453 led initially to its physical devastation as a result of a two-month siege and violent takeover by the Ottoman troops, who pounded the walls with heavy cannon fire. A good number of its residents fled the city during the siege, reducing the defending force to only seven thousand men, which included Venetian and Genoese volunteers. Lack of unity among its Greek residents, who defied Byzantine Emperor Constantine XI's (ruled 1449–1453) call for union with Rome, combined with the superior force of the Ottoman army, which numbered eighty thousand men, made possible the conquest of the city. The sultan assumed the title of Conqueror (Fatih) after this victory, which marked the end of Byzantium and the beginning of an imperial age for the Ottomans.

After witnessing the looting and pillaging of the city by his soldiers, Mehmed II immediately set out to rebuild Constantinople and convert it to an Ottoman-Islamic capital. He first granted amnesty to former residents who had fled and pressed Greeks and Turks from all over the empire to settle in the city in return for tax relief. In the process of occupation and resettlement, many former residents who had survived lost their property to the new settlers. The sultan entered the great Cathedral of Haghia Sophia (Turkish, aya sofya) mounted on his horse and ordered the erection of a minaret and the construction of a pulpit (mimber) and an ornamental niche (mihrab) indicating the direction of Mecca. The magnificent mosaics were obscured by plaster in accordance with the orthodox Islamic ban on human imagery. Many Greek and Armenian churches fell into ruin or were converted into mosques, symbolizing the new status of Islam under the Ottomans. Mehmed II ordered the construction of a new palace, the Topkapi Sarayi, next to the Aya Sofya mosque on the first Hill, which replaced the old palace on the third Hill and became the residence of the dynasty and the center of government until the late eighteenth century. The imperial harem, the residence of the Ottoman household, and its dependents became part of the Topkapi Palace. Mehmed II also ordered the construction of a royal mosque (Fatih Camii) complex with a commercial district that became known as the covered bazaar (Kapali Çarşi) at the heart of the city on the third Hill to revive the economy and promote trade. He commanded the members of the ruling class to set up similar religious and charitable foundations in the vicinity of his mosque.

The city was divided into four districts: Eyüp, which contained the tomb of Abu Ayyub (Eyüp) al-Ansari, one of the companions of the Prophet Muhammed who had taken part in the first Muslim siege in the seventh century; Galata, the Genoese town; Istanbul, the walled royal district; and Usküdar, on the Asiatic shore. Galata and Istanbul were the most populated towns. The city expanded beyond the walls and on both shores of the Bosphorus in the eighteenth century. In the absence of detailed and regular surveys, it is impossible to reach any firm conclusions about demographic trends in the city before the nineteenth century. The earliest Ottoman census for the two districts of Galata and intra muros Istanbul in 1477 records a civilian population of 16,324 tax-paying households, 9,486 of them Muslim, 3,743 Greek Orthodox, 1,647 Jewish, 434 Armenian, 332 European, 31 Gypsy (Roma), and various others (İnalcik, 1973, p. 141). According to some estimates, the population of the city, including its immediate suburbs, rose from 80,000 or so in the late fifteenth century to 500,000 in the sixteenth century. Foreign travelers estimated the population of the city to have been anywhere from 300,000 to 700,000 in the mid-eighteenth century, with Muslims making up 58 percent of the population. Orthodox Greeks continued to be the most dominant non-Muslim element in the capital as in the empire as a whole. Jews made up about 10 percent of the population of Istanbul in the eighteenth century. The Latin Catholic population of Galata is said to have numbered around 3,000 in 1714. Several hundred French households resided in the neighborhood of Bereket-zade in Pera, the neighborhood above Galata, in the eighteenth century.

The fires, plague, and earthquakes so often recorded in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries periodically reduced the population and destroyed whole neighborhoods. Rural migration, however, more than restored demographic balance. The state had to impose limits on rural migration to the city and deported unemployed single men regularly in the eighteenth century. The first formal census survey estimated the population of greater Istanbul to be around 359,000 people in the early decades of the nineteenth century. It rose to 1,077,000 in 1897. The population of greater Galata alone reached 291,406 persons (49.8 percent Muslim) in 1927.

Constructing an Islamic Capital

The Ottoman dynasty played an important role in the physical and economic development of the city. The sultan ordered the members of his household and his grandees to endow pious foundations (vakf) all over the city and particularly in the district of Istanbul, which became the residence of the dynasty. The female members of the Ottoman dynasty, like valide-sultans ('queen mothers') and princesses of the blood, also played an important role in founding the new complexes. These vakf complexes provided religious services, education, health care, shelter, and food for the population. The income to support the foundations came largely from commercial properties attached to these complexes. Philanthropy through vakf also enhanced the legitimacy of the dynasty and integrated the city physically, socially, and economically. The Süleymaniye mosque in the district of Istanbul on the seventh Hill and the Hürrem Sultan (d. 1558) mosque in Usküdar, built by Sultan Süleiman (1520–1566) and Hürrem, his beloved wife, are two outstanding examples of such vakf complexes.

The city was divided into thirteen districts (nahiye), each subdivided further into neighborhoods (mahalle). Every district, with the exception of one, was named after a mosque complex established by sultans and viziers, for example, Süleymaniye, Mahmud Pasha, Fatih, Beyazit, Aya Sofya, and so on. The districts were mixed in their ethnic and religious makeup while individual mahalles developed around mosques, churches, and synagogues.

The non-Muslim community was generally forbidden from building new churches and synagogues but received permission from the state to repair religious buildings, particularly after major fires. Sometimes the state urged communities to move and settle in new neighborhoods after major fires. In the late sventeenth century, the Jewish community of Bahçe Kapi was forced to move after a major fire to clear the way for the construction of a new imperial mosque, Yeni Cami. The displaced Jews were resettled in Hasköy, on the Golden Horn (an estuary that divides European Istanbul). The district of Galata housed Greeks, Armenians, Jews, and European communities. The Muslims settled in increasing numbers in the neighborhoods of Kasim Pasha and Tophane in the same district. Rural migrants and other single men settled in the bachelor lodges (bekar odalari) in these two neighborhoods, where jobs were available in the arsenal and the cannon foundry. The villages along the Bosphorus, Beşiktaş, Ortaköy, Arnavütköy, Bebek, Kuskunçuk, and so on also remained mixed in their ethnic composition. The neighborhoods enjoyed great autonomy and were usually divided along religious lines. Religious strife and tension, however, rarely undermined the harmony of intercommunal life. The city had become more cosmopolitan with the settlement of a growing number of western European merchants and visitors in Pera.

Commercial Life and Urban Growth

Istanbul had become an important center of commerce between the Middle East, western Europe, and Russia in early modern Europe. Its commerce with western Europe, particularly with France, expanded greatly in the eighteenth century. The European merchants exchanged bullion, woolen textiles, sugar, coffee from the colonies, and other luxurious goods for Russian furs, Iranian silks, carpets, hides, and cotton textiles. The Greek, Jewish, and Armenian merchants played an important intermediary role in trade with western Europe and Russia. The neighborhood of Pera, on the northern hills of Galata, the former Genoese colony, became the residence of western European diplomats and merchants. Galata and Pera also emerged as the center of banking and international commerce in the eighteenth century, overshadowing the traditional commercial center, the bazaar in the old district of Istanbul. This shift also symbolized the incorporation of the Ottoman Empire into the world economy and the dominance of Western trade in the economic life of the city. The new urban bourgeoisie composed of Greeks, Armenians, and, to a lesser extent, Jews and members of the Muslim elite, who enjoyed strong ties to European houses of commerce and credit networks, set up business in fashionable shops in Pera, later known as Beyoǧlu.

The royal household also moved out of the old district and settled in newly built palaces like the Dolmabahçe and the Yildiz Palace on the European shores of the Bosphorus. These palaces displayed European artistic and architectural influences like the baroque and rococo of the eighteenth century. In addition, the members of the dynasty, particularly the Ottoman princesses like Fatma Sultan, the daughter of Ahmed III (ruled 1703–1730) and wife of the Tulip era grand vizier Nevşehirli Ibrahim, built public parks and gardens and erected public fountains to supply water for the new neighborhoods. An air of leisure and festivity dominated the private and public lives of the Ottoman ruling class and, to some extent, that of the masses during the Tulip period (1718–1730). The royal household took every occasion to celebrate publicly new victories in the Morea (1715) and Tabriz (1725), the birth and circumcision of Ottoman princes, and the weddings of Ottoman princesses. This period came to an end with the Patrona Halil rebellion in September 1730 that led to the overthrow of Ahmed III and his grand vizier Ibrahim. The rebels, led by disgruntled janissaries and guildsmen, also destroyed the Sa'dabaâd palace in Kaǧithane and numerous others to express their resentment of ruling-class frivolities and perceived decadence.

Despite frequent outbreaks of popular discontent, the city continued to grow and attract rural migrants and Western visitors. Because inflation and food shortages caused numerous riots in the city (1687, 1703, 1730, and 1740), the provisioning of the Ottoman capital assumed a central importance in the urban administration. The courts sentenced bakers to the galleys for short-weighting and violating official prices of bread in the eighteenth century. The police department, which primarily consisted of the janissary corps, expanded its authority to reach into hitherto autonomous quarters of the city. Community policing under the control of the local Muslim, Christian, and Jewish religious authorities and notables also assumed greater importance in keeping the criminal elements, the unemployed, and single rural migrants out of residential neighborhoods. The ruralization of Istanbul, however, continued at a regular pace during the nineteenth century. The Tanzimat reforms of 1839–1868 led to the physical and administrative reorganization and centralization of the city along European lines such as the widening of streets, construction of pavements, street gas-lighting, the establishment of municipal councils, and a mayorship to enforce new municipal regulations.

Bibliography

Çelik, Zeynep. The Remaking of Istanbul: Portrait of an Ottoman City in the Nineteenth Century. Seattle, 1986.

Eldem, E. French Trade in Istanbul in the Eighteenth Century. Leiden, 1999.

Eldem, E., B. Goffman, and B. Masters. The Ottoman City between East and West: Aleppo, Izmir, and Istanbul. Cambridge, U.K., 1999.

Freely, John. Istanbul: The Imperial City. London, 1996.

İnalcik, Halil. "Istanbul." Encyclopedia of Islam, Volume 4. 2nd ed. Leiden, 1978.

——. The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age, 1300–1600. London, 1973.

——. "Ottoman Galata, 1453–1553." In Essays in Ottoman History, edited by Halil Inalcik, pp. 275–376. Istanbul, 1998.

Mantran, Robert. Histoire d'Istanbul. Paris, 1996.

Montagu, Mary Wortley, Lady. Turkish Embassy Letters. Edited by Malcolm Jack. Athens, Ga., 1993.

Tekeli, Ilhan. "Nineteenth Century Transformation of Istanbul Metropolitan Area." In Villes Ottomans à la fin de l'empire, edited by P. Dumont and F. Georgeon. Paris, 1990.

Zarinebaf-Shahr, Fariba. "Gendering Urban Space: Women's Smaller Vakfs in Eighteenth-Century Istanbul." In The Turks, edited by H. C. Güzel, C. Oǧuz, and O. Karatay, vol. 4, pp. 554–563. Ankara, 2002.

——. "The Role of Women in the Urban Economy of Istanbul: 1700–1850." International Labor and Working Class History 60 (Fall 2001): 141–152.

——. "The Wealth of Ottoman Princesses during the Tulip Period." In The Great Ottoman-Turkish Civilization, edited by Güler Eren, pp. 696–701. Ankara, 2000.

—FARIBA ZARINEBAF

History Dictionary: Constantinople

(kon-stan-tuh-noh-puhl)

A city founded by the Roman emperor Constantine the Great as capital of the eastern part of the Roman Empire. Constantine ruled over both parts of the empire from Constantinople, which was later capital of the Byzantine Empire. Constantinople was conquered by Turkish forces in the fifteenth century.

Today, under the name of Istanbul, Constantinople is the largest city in Turkey.

Wikipedia: Constantinople

This article is about the city before the Fall of Constantinople (1453). For after 1453, see Istanbul. For other uses see Constantinople (disambiguation).

Map of Constantinople. Detailed map.

Constantinople (Greek: Κωνσταντινούπολις, Konstantinoúpolis, or Πόλις, Polis) was the capital of the Roman Empire (330-395), the Byzantine/East Roman Empire (395-1204 and 1261-1453), the Latin Empire (1204-1261), and the Ottoman Empire (1453-1922). It was officially renamed to its modern Turkish name Istanbul in 1930^[1]^[2]^[3] as part of Atatürk's Turkish national reforms. This name was already in common use among the city's Turkish inhabitants for nearly five centuries. Strategically located between the Golden Horn and the Sea of Marmara at the point where Europe meets Asia, Byzantine Constantinople had been the capital of a Christian empire, successor to ancient Greece and Rome. Throughout the Middle Ages Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city, known as the Queen of Cities (Vasileuousa Polis).

Depending on the background of its rulers, it often had several different names at any given time; among the most common were Byzantium (Greek: Byzantion), New Rome (Greek: Νέα Ῥώμη, Latin: Nova Roma), although this was an ecclesiastical rather than an official name, Constantinople and Stamboul (see etymology).

Introduction

See also: Istanbul

The 1453 Siege of Constantinople (painted 1499).

Byzantium

Main article: Byzantium

Constantine refounded an existing city. The site had been strategically and commercially important from the earliest times, lying as it does astride both the land route from Europe to Asia and the seaway from the Black or Euxine Sea to the Mediterranean, and being possessed of an excellent and spacious harbour in the Golden Horn. Thus a city was first founded on the site in the early days of Greek colonial expansion, probaby around 671-662 BC.

Constantine I (306–337)

Emperor Constantine I presents a representation of the city of Constantinople as tribute to an enthroned Mary and baby Jesus in this church mosaic. St Sophia, c. 1000).

Constantine had altogether more ambitious plans. Having restored the unity of the empire, he was overseeing the progress of major governmental reforms and sponsoring the consolidation of the Christian church, and became well aware that Rome had become an unsatisfactory capital for several reasons. Rome lay too far from the eastern imperial frontiers, and hence also from the armies and the Imperial courts (emperors had long before abandoned administering the empire from Rome); it offered an undesirable playground for disaffected politicians; it suffered regularly from flooding and from malaria. Yet it had been the capital of the state for over a thousand years, and it will have seemed unthinkable to suggest that that capital be moved.

Nevertheless, Constantine identified the site of Byzantium as the correct place: a city where an emperor could sit, readily defended, with easy access to the Danube or the Euphrates frontiers, his court supplied from the rich gardens and sophisticated workshops of Roman Asia, his treasuries filled by the wealthiest provinces of the empire.

Coin struck by Constantine I to commemorate the founding of Constantinople.

Constantine laid out the expanded city, dividing it like Rome into 14 regions (Greek: ρεγεώνες), and ornamenting it with public works worthy of a great imperial metropolis. Yet initially Constantinople did not have all the dignities of Rome. It possessed a proconsul, rather than an urban prefect. It had no praetors, tribunes or quaestors. Although it did have senators, they held the title clarus, not clarissimus, like those of Rome. Constantinople also lacked the panoply of other administrative offices regulating the food supply, police, statues, temples, sewers, aqueducts or other public works. The new programme of building was carried out in great haste: columns, marbles, doors and tiles were taken wholesale from the temples of the empire and moved to the new city. Similarly, many of the greatest works of Greek and Roman art were soon to be seen in its squares and streets. The emperor stimulated private building by promising householders gifts of land from the imperial estates in Asiana and Pontica, and on 18 May 332 he announced that, as in Rome, free distributions of food would be made to citizens. At the time the amount is said to have been 80,000 rations a day, doled out from 117 distribution points around the city.

Medieval Constantinople

Constantine laid out a new square at the centre of old Byzantium, naming it the Augusteum. The new senate-house (or Curia) was housed in a basilica on the east side. On the south side of the great square was erected the Great Palace of the emperor with its imposing entrance, the Chalke, and its ceremonial suite known as the Palace of Daphne. Nearby was the vast Hippodrome for chariot-races, seating over 80,000 spectators, and the famed Baths of Zeuxippus. At the western entrance to the Augusteum was the Milion, a vaulted monument from which distances were measured across the Eastern Empire.

From the Augusteum led a great street, the Mese (Greek: "Μέση (Οδός)" lit."Middle Street"), lined with colonnades. As it descended the First Hill of the city and climbed the Second Hill, it passed on the left the Praetorium or law-court. Then it passed through the oval Forum of Constantine where there was a second senate-house, then on and through the Forum of Taurus and then the Forum of Bous, and finally up the Sixth Hill and through to the Golden Gate on the Propontis. The Mese would be seven Roman miles long to the Golden Gate of the Walls of Theodosius.

Constantine erected a high column in the middle of the Forum, on the Second Hill, with a statue of himself at the top, crowned with a halo of seven rays and looking towards the rising sun. Byzantium's population before AD 330 was 30,000 people.

Divided empire, 395–527

Theodosius I was the last Roman emperor who ruled over an undivided empire.

The first known Prefect of the City of Constantinople was Honoratus, who took office on 11 December 359 and held it until 361. The emperor Valens built the Palace of Hebdomon on the shore of the Propontis near the Golden Gate, probably for use when reviewing troops. All the emperors up to Zeno and Basiliscus were crowned and acclaimed at the Hebdomon. Theodosius I founded the Church of John the Baptist to house the skull of the saint (today preserved at the Topkapı Palace), put up a memorial pillar to himself in the Forum of Taurus, and turned the ruined temple of Aphrodite into a coach house for the Praetorian Prefect; Arcadius built a new forum named after himself on the Mese, near the walls of Constantine.

Gradually the importance of Constantinople increased. After the shock of the Battle of Adrianople in 378, in which the emperor Valens with the flower of the Roman armies was destroyed by the Goths within a few days' march, the city looked to its defences, and Theodosius II built in 413–414 the 18 metre (60 feet) tall triple-wall fortifications which were never to be breached until the coming of gunpowder. Theodosius also founded a University near the Forum of Taurus, on 27 February 425.

In the 5th century, the Huns, led by Attila, demanded tribute from Constantinople. The city refused to pay, and Attila was about to assault the city when a message from Honoria, a sister of the western Emperor Valentinian III, was interpreted by Attila as a marriage proposal. Turning away from the siege, Attila marched on the Western Empire instead.

Some years later the barbarians overran the Western Empire, its emperors retreated to Ravenna, and it diminished to nothing. Thereafter, Constantinople became in truth the largest city of the Empire and of the world. Emperors were no longer peripatetic between various court capitals and palaces. They remained in their palace in the Great City, and sent generals to command their armies. The wealth of the Eastern Mediterranean and Western Asia flowed into Constantinople.

Justinian 527–565

Map of Constantinople (1422) by Florentine cartographer Cristoforo Buondelmonti (Description des îles de l'archipel, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris) is the oldest surviving map of the city, and the only surviving map which predates the Turkish conquest of Constantinople (Istanbul) in 1453

The emperor Justinian I (527–565) was known for his successes in war, for his legal reforms and for his public works. It was from Constantinople that his expedition for the reconquest of the former Diocese of Africa set sail on or about 21 June 533. Before their departure the ship of the commander Belisarius anchored in front of the Imperial palace, and the Patriarch offered prayers for the success of the enterprise. After the victory, in 534, the Temple treasure of Jerusalem, looted by the Romans in 70 AD and taken to Carthage by the Vandals after their sack of Rome in 455, was brought to Constantinople and deposited for a time, perhaps in the church of St Polyeuctus, before being returned to Jerusalem in either the Church of the Resurrection or the New Church. ^[4]

Chariot-racing had been important in Rome for centuries. In Constantinople, the hippodrome became over time increasingly a place of political significance. It was where (as a shadow of the popular elections of old Rome) the people by acclamation showed their approval of a new emperor; and also where they openly criticized the government, or clamoured for the removal of unpopular ministers. In the time of Justinian, public order in Constantinople became a critical political issue. The entire late Roman and early Byzantine period was one where Christianity was resolving fundamental questions of identity, and the dispute between the orthodox and the monophysites became the cause of serious disorder, expressed through allegiance to the horse-racing parties of the Blues and the Greens, and in the form of a major rebellion of 532, known as the "Nika" riots (from the battle-cry of "Victory!" of those involved).

The partisans of the Blues and the Greens were said ^[5]to affect untrimmed facial hair, head hair shaved at the front and grown long at the back, and wide-sleeved tunics tight at the wrist; and to form gangs to engage in night-time muggings and street violence. Fires started by the Nika rioters consumed the basilica of St Sophia, the city's principal church. Justinian commissioned Anthemius of Tralles and Isidore of Miletus to replace it with a new and incomparable St Sophia, located at the north side of the Augusteum. This was the great cathedral of the Orthodox Church, whose dome was said to be held aloft by God alone, and which was directly connected to the palace so that the imperial family could attend services without passing through the streets.^[6] The dedication took place on 26 December 537 in the presence of the emperor, who exclaimed, "O Solomon, I have outdone thee!"^[7]

The social fabric of Constantinople was further damaged by the onset of bubonic plague between 541-542 A.D.

Justinian also had Anthemius and Isidore demolish and replace the original Church of the Holy Apostles, built by Constantine, with a new church under the same dedication. This was designed in the form of an equally-armed cross with five domes, and ornamented with beautiful mosaics. This church was to remain the burial place of the emperors from Constantine himself until the eleventh century. When the city fell to the Turks in 1453, the church was demolished to make room for the tomb of Mehmet II the Conqueror. Justinian was also concerned with other aspects of the city's built environment, legislating against the abuse of laws prohibiting building within 100 feet of the sea front, in order to protect the view^[8].

Restored section of the fortifications that protected Constantinople during the medieval period.

Survival, 565–717

In the early 7th century the Avars and later the Bulgars overwhelmed much of the Balkans, threatening Constantinople from the west. Simultaneously the Persian Sassanids overwhelmed the Prefecture of the East and penetrated deep into Anatolia. Heraclius, son to the exarch of Africa, set sail for the city and assumed the purple. He found the military situation so dire that he is said at first to have contemplated withdrawing the imperial capital to Carthage, but relented after the people of Constantinople begged him to stay. While the Great City withstood a siege by 80,000 Avars and the Persian fleet, Heraclius launched a spectacular campaign into the heart of the Persian empire. The Persians were defeated outside Nineveh, and their capital at Ctesiphon was surrounded by the Byzantines. Persian resistance collapsed, and all the lost territories were recovered in 627. Heraclius replaced Latin with Greek as the language of government, law and military command.

However, the unexpected appearance of the newly-converted and united Muslim Arabs took the Empire by surprise, and the southern provinces were overrun. Constantinople was besieged twice by the Arabs, once in a long blockade between 674 and 678, and once again in 717. The second Arab siege was laid by both land and sea. The Arab ground forces, led by Maslama, were met with the city's impregnable walls, the stout resistance of the defenders, freezing winter temperatures, chronic outbreaks of disease, starvation, and Bulgar attacks on their camp. Meanwhile, their naval fleet was decimated by the newly-devised Greek Fire of the Byzantine navy, and its remnants were subsequently utterly destroyed in a storm on the return home. The crushing victory of the Byzantines was a severe blow to Caliph Umar II, and the expansion of the Umayyad Caliphate was severely stunted during his reign.

Recovery, 717–1025

Emperor Leo VI (886–912) adoring Jesus Christ. Mosaic in the Hagia Sophia.

For the Byzantines, the victory at Constantinople was an epic triumph. A long period of Byzantine retreat and stagnation came to an end, and the imperial frontier in the east became fixed on the Taurus and Anti-Taurus mountain ranges in eastern Asia Minor, where it would remain unchanged for the next two hundred years.

Asia Minor became the heartland of the empire, and from this time onwards the Byzantines began a recovery that resulted in the recovery of parts of Greece, Macedonia and Thrace by the year 814. By the early years of the eleventh century, the Bulgarians had been utterly destroyed and annexed to the empire, the Slavs and the Rus' had converted to Orthodoxy. In Italy, the emperor Basil I (867-886) reconquered the whole of the south, restoring Byzantine power to a position stronger than at any time since the seventh century.

In the east, the imperial armies began a major advance during the tenth and eleventh centuries, resulting in the recovery of Crete, Cyprus, Cilicia, Armenia, eastern Anatolia and northern Syria, and the reconquest of the holy city of Antioch.

The Iconoclast controversy, 730–787, 814–842

In the eighth and ninth centuries the iconoclast movement caused serious political unrest throughout the Empire. The emperor Leo III issued a decree in 726 against images, and ordered the destruction of a statue of Christ over one of the doors of the Chalke, an act which was fiercely resisted by the citizens. Constantine V convoked a church council in 754 which condemned the worship of images, after which many treasures were broken, burned, or painted over. Following the death of his son Leo IV in 780, the empress Irene restored the veneration of images through the agency of the Second Council of Nicaea in 787.

The iconoclast controversy returned in the early 9th century, only to be resolved once more in 843 during the regency of Empress Theodora (9th century), who restored the icons. These controversies contributed to the deterioration of relations with the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church.

The Vikings, from 860

The Vikings (who knew the city as Miklagarð - the great city) couldn't resist the city's riches. In 860 they plundered Constantinople for the first time, setting fire to churches and houses, plundering and looting. The emperor was forced to offer gold for peace and later had to pay the Vikings annual tribute to avoid further plundering. There was little trust of the Vikings, if they wanted to trade in the city they had to go through a certain gate followed by the emperor's men, and they had to leave their weapons outside the city walls and couldn't enter with more than 50 at a time.^{[citation needed]}

In 980 emperor Basil II received an unusual gift from Prince Vladimir I(Valdemar) of Kiev. He received an army of 6,000 Scandinavian-Russian Vikings which Basil incorporated into his own army as a single unit, which became known as the "The Axe-Wielding Guard"—after the huge axes they used in battle. Posterity knows this unit as the Varangians—the sworn. They were the best paid troops in the empire, they were allowed to keep any booty they managed to obtain from the battlefield and towns they conquered. They also had a right to "polutasvarv" (palace plundering) whenever the emperor died, in which they went through the palaces in the capital and grabbed all the treasures and valuables they could carry. ^{[citation needed]}The Varangians served the emperor for over 300 years.

Prelude to the Komnenian period 1025–1081

In the late eleventh century, catastrophe struck the Byzantine empire. With the imperial armies weakened by years of insufficient funding and civil warfare, Emperor Romanos IV Diogenes suffered a surprise defeat at the hands of Alp Arslan (sultan of the Seljuk Turks) at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071. Romanus was captured, and although the Sultan's peace terms were not excessive, the battle was catastrophic for the Byzantine Empire.

On his release, Romanus found that his enemies had conspired against him to place their own candidate on the throne in his absence. Romanus surrendered and suffered death by torture. The new ruler, Michael VII Ducas, refused to honour the treaty that had been signed by Romanus. In response, the Turks began to move into Anatolia in 1073, while the collapse of the old defensive system meant that they met no opposition. To make matters worse, chaos reigned as the empire's remaining resources were squandered in a series of disastrous civil wars. Thousands of Turkoman tribesmen crossed the unguarded frontier and moved into Anatolia. By 1080, an area of 30,000 square miles had been lost to the empire, and the Turks were within striking distance of Constantinople.

The Komnenoi 1081–1185

The Byzantine Empire under Manuel I, c. 1180.

Under the Komnenian dynasty (1081–1185), Byzantium staged a remarkable military, financial and territorial recovery. This is sometimes called the Komnenian restoration, and is closely linked to the establishment of the new military system of this period.

In response to a call for aid from Alexios I Komnenos, the First Crusade assembled at Constantinople in 1096 and set out for Jerusalem. Much of this is documented by the writer and historian Anna Komnene in her work The Alexiad. The Crusaders agreed to return any Byzantine territory they captured during their advance. In this way Alexios gained territory in the north and west of Asia Minor. During the twelfth century Byzantine armies continued to advance, reconquering much of the lost territory in Asia Minor. The recovered provinces included the fertile coastal regions, along with many of the most important cities. By 1180, the Empire had gone a long way to reversing the damage caused by the Battle of Manzikert. Under Manuel Komnenos, the emperor had attained the right to appoint the King of Hungary, and Antioch had become a vassal of the empire.

With the restoration of firm central government, the empire became fabulously wealthy. The population was rising (estimates for Constantinople in the twelfth century vary from approximately 100,000 to 500,000), and towns and cities across the empire flourished. Meanwhile, the volume of money in circulation dramatically increased. This was reflected in Constantinople by the construction of the Blachernae palace, the creation of brilliant new works of art, and the general prosperity of the city at this time. It is possible that an increase in trade, made possible by the growth of the Italian city-states, may have helped the growth of the economy at this time. Certainly, the Venetians and others were active traders in Constantinople, making a living out of shipping goods between the Crusader Kingdoms of Outremer and the West while also trading extensively with Byzantium and Egypt. The Venetians had factories on the north side of the Golden Horn, and large numbers (60-80,000) of westerners were present in the city throughout the twelfth century.

Twelfth century mosaic from the upper gallery of the Hagia Sophia, Constantinople. Emperor John II (1118–1143) is shown on the left, with the Virgin Mary and infant Jesus in the centre, and John's wife Piroska of Hungary on the right.

In artistic terms, the twelfth century was a very productive period in Byzantium. There was a revival in the mosaic art, for example. Mosaics became more realistic and vivid, with an increased emphasis on depicting three-dimensional forms. There was an increased demand for art, with more people having access to the necessary wealth to commission and pay for such work. According to N.H.Baynes (Byzantium, An Introduction to East Roman Civilization):

"With its love of luxury and passion for colour, the art of this age delighted in the production of masterpieces that spread the fame of Byzantium throughout the whole of the Christian world. Beautiful silks from the work-shops of Constantinople also portrayed in dazzling colour animals - lions, elephants, eagles, and griffins - confronting each other, or represented Emperors gorgeously arrayed on horseback or engaged in the chase."

"From the tenth to the twelfth century Byzantium was the main source of inspiration for the West. By their style, arrangement, and iconography the mosaics of St. Mark's at Venice and of the cathedral at Torcello clearly reveal their Byzantine origin. Similarly those of the Palatine Chapel, the Martorana at Palermo, and the cathedral of Cefalù, together with the vast decoration of the cathedral at Monreale, demonstrate the influence of Byzantium on the Norman Court of Sicily in the twelfth century. Hispano-Moorish art was unquestionably derived from the Byzantine. Romanesque art owes much to the East, from which it borrowed not only its decorative forms but the plan of some of its buildings, as is proved, for instance, by the domed churches of south-western France. Princes of Kiev, Venetian doges, abbots of Monte Cassino, merchants of Amalfi, and the Norman kings of Sicily all looked to Byzantium for artists or works of art. Such was the influence of Byzantine art in the twelfth century, that Russia, Venice, southern Italy and Sicily all virtually became provincial centres dedicated to its production."

The Palaeologi, 1204–1453

The Entry of the Crusaders into Constantinople, by Eugène Delacroix, 1840.

However, after the demise of the Comnenian dynasty at the close of the twelfth century, the Byzantine Empire declined steeply. Dynastic strife under the Angelid dynasty (1185–1204) culminated in the disastrous capture and sack of Constantinople by soldiers of the Fourth Crusade on 13 April 1204. At the end of the Comnenian dynasty, Constantinople had a population of 400,000 people, but by the time the Fourth Crusade arrived at Constantinople, the population had dropped to perhaps 150,000. For the next half-century, Constantinople was occupied by the forces of the so-called Latin Empire. During this time, the Byzantine emperors made their capital at nearby Nicaea, which became a resort for refugees from occupied Constantinople. From this base, Constantinople was liberated from its final Latin ruler, Baldwin II, by Byzantine forces under Michael VIII Palaeologus in 1261. By 1261 the population of the city may have fallen as low as 35,000, but fortunately Michael VIII succeeded in increasing the population to 70,000 people by the end of his reign. Besides the Empire of Nicaea, two other small states formed as a result of the Latin occupation in 1204: the Empire of Trebizond and Despotate of Epirus. After the liberation of Constantinople by the Palaeologi, the imperial palace of Blachernae in the north-west of the city became the main imperial residence, with the old Great Palace on the shores of the Bosporus going into decline. When the Ottoman Turks captured the city in 1453, the population was at 50,000 people.

Importance

Eagle and Snake, 6th century mosaic flooring Costantinople, Grand Imperial Palace

Culture

Constantinople was the largest and richest urban centre in the Eastern Mediterranean during the late Roman Empire, mostly due to its strategic position commanding the trade routes between the Aegean and the Black Sea. After the fourth century, when Emperor Constantine I relocated his eastern capital to Byzantium, it would remain the capital of the eastern, Greek speaking empire for over a thousand years. As the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire (now commonly known as the Byzantine Empire), the Greeks called Constantinople simply "the City", while throughout Europe it was known as the "Queen of Cities." In its heyday, roughly corresponding to what are now known as the Middle Ages, it was the richest and largest European city, exerting a powerful cultural pull and dominating economic life in the Mediterranean. Visitors and merchants were especially struck by the beautiful monasteries and churches of the city, particularly Hagia Sophia, or the Church of Holy Wisdom. A Russian 14th-century traveller, Stephen of Novgorod, wrote, "As for St Sophia, the human mind can neither tell it nor make description of it". The cumulative influence of the city on the west, over the many centuries of its existence, is incalculable. In terms of technology, art and culture, as well as sheer size, Constantinople was without parallel anywhere in Europe for a thousand years.

Politics

Photo of a 15th Century map showing Constantinople in the upper left corner.

The city provided a defence for the eastern provinces of the old Roman Empire against the barbarian invasions of the 5th century. The 18 metre (60 feet) tall walls built by Theodosius II (413-414) were essentially invincible to the barbarians who, coming from the Lower Danube, found easier targets to the west than the richer provinces to the east in Asia. From the 5th century the city was also protected by the Long Walls, a 60 kilometre chain of walls across the Thracian peninsula. Many scholars argue that these sophisticated fortifications allowed the east to develop relatively unmolested, while Rome and the west collapsed. With the emergence of Christianity and the rise of Islam, Constantinople became the veritable gates to Christian Europe that stood at the fore of Islamic expansion. As the Byzantine Empire was situated in-between the Islamic world and the Christian west, so did Constantinople act as Europe’s first line-of-defense against Arab advances in the 7th and 8th centuries. The city, and the empire, would ultimately fall to the Ottomans by 1453, but its enduring legacy had provided Europe centuries of resurgence following the collapse of Rome.

Architecture

Constantinople's monumental center.

The influence of Byzantine architecture and art can be seen in the copies taken from it throughout Europe. Particular examples include St. Mark's in Venice, the basilicas of Ravenna, and many churches throughout the Slavic East. Also, alone in Europe until the 13th century Italian florin, the Empire continued to produce sound gold coinage, the solidus of Diocletian becoming the bezant prized throughout the Middle Ages. Its city walls were much imitated (for example, see Caernarfon Castle) and its urban infrastructure was moreover a marvel throughout the Middle Ages, keeping alive the art, skill and technical expertise of the Roman Empire.

Religious

Constantine's foundation gave prestige to the Bishop of Constantinople, who eventually came to be known as the Ecumenical Patriarch, vying for honour with the Pope.^[9] They were often regarded as "first among equals", a situation which contributed to the Great Schism that divided Christianity into Western Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy from 1054 onwards (although the anathemas that each religious leader pronounced against the other have been withdrawn in recent times). The Patriarch of Constantinople is still today considered outstanding in the Orthodox Church, along with the Patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, Moscow and the later Slavic Patriarchs. This position is largely ceremonial but still today carries great weight, particularly since by tradition Constantinople carries the administrative burden of the orthodox churches in 'barbarian lands'.

Constantinople appears as a city of wondrous majesty, beauty, remoteness and nostalgia in William Butler Yeats' 1926 poem Sailing to Byzantium.
Robert Graves, author of I, Claudius, also wrote Count Belisarius, a historical novel about Belisarius, much of which is set in Constantinople under Justinian I.
Constantinople's change of name was the theme for a song made famous by The Four Lads and later covered by They Might Be Giants and many others entitled "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)". "Constantinople" was also the title of the opening track of The Residents' EP Duck Stab!, released in 1978.
Constantinople under Justinian is the scene of "A Flame in Byzantium" by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro released in 1987.
"Constantinople" is the title of a song by The Decemberists.
Stephen Lawhead's novel "Byzantium" (1996) is set in 9th Century Constantinople.
Filmmaker Peter Jackson said he wanted images of Minas Tirith in his The Lord of the Rings trilogy to look like "Constantinople in the morning."
"Constantinople 1453 (On the Eve of the Fall)" is a song by American heavy metal band Phoenix Reign.
Folk/Symphonic Metal band Turisas have a song on their latest album The Varangian Way called Miklagard Overture.

Notes

^ BBC - Timeline: Turkey
^ Britannica, Istanbul
^ Lexicorient, Istanbul
^ Margaret Barker, Times Literary Supplement 4 May 2007 p 26
^ Procopius' Secret History: see P Neville-Ure, Justinian and his Age, 1951.
^ St Sophia was converted into a mosque after the Ottoman conquest of the city, and is now a museum
^ Source for quote: Scriptores originum Constantinopolitanarum, ed T Preger I 105 (see A. A. Vasiliev, History of the Byzantine Empire, 1952, vol I p 188).
^ Justinian, Novellae 63 and 165
^ The Fourth Canon of the First Council of Constantinople: http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/NPNF2-14/Npnf2-14-61.htm#P3914_689786