The conquest of Constantinople (Istanbul) was the capture of the Byzantine capital by the Ottoman sultan Mehmed II on 29 May 1453. According to the TDV Encyclopedia of Islam, the siege lasted 54 days. The conquest ended the Eastern Roman Empire, which had existed since 330, and made the city the Ottoman capital. For this reason it is regarded as the beginning of the Ottomans’ imperial era; its effects reached from Europe to the Islamic world.
Quick Summary
- On 29 May 1453 Mehmed II, known as Mehmed the Conqueror (Fatih Sultan Mehmed), took Constantinople, the capital of Byzantium.
- The siege lasted 54 days, from 6 April to 29 May; 8,000–9,000 men defended the city against an Ottoman army of around 100,000.
- The last Byzantine emperor, Constantine XI, died in the fighting, and the Eastern Roman Empire came to an end.
- On 30 May the sultan made the city the centre of the state, saying “My throne is Istanbul”.
- The conquest of Constantinople led to new calls for a crusade in Europe and raised Ottoman prestige in the Islamic world.
- The claims that the conquest closed the trade routes and started the Renaissance, however, should be treated with caution.
Contents
- What happened in 1453? The conquest of Constantinople in brief
- Byzantium before the conquest
- Why could the city not be taken earlier?
- The siege in brief: 6 April–29 May 1453
- How did the conquest of Constantinople change world history?
- Disputed claims
- Frequently asked questions
- Conclusion
What Happened in 1453? The Conquest of Constantinople in Brief
In the spring of 1453 the Ottoman army besieged Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire. On one side stood the 21-year-old Sultan Mehmed II; on the other, the last Byzantine emperor, Constantine XI. According to the encyclopedia’s entry on Mehmed II, the siege lasted 54 days, from 6 April to 29 May. The city was taken towards dawn on Tuesday, 29 May, in a general assault launched on all fronts at once.
The sources of the period put the Ottoman army at between 100,000 and 300,000. According to Feridun Emecen, however, the figure was around 100,000 or slightly more. According to contemporary Byzantine and Latin sources, there were about 5,000 soldiers in the city; with the auxiliary units the number rose to 8,000–9,000. Venetians and Genoese also took part in the defence. With this conquest Mehmed II received the title “Abu’l-Fath”, that is, Fatih, “the Conqueror”.
Byzantium Before the Conquest: An Empire Within Its Walls
The Byzantium of 1453 was a shadow of the old Eastern Roman Empire. The great break came in 1204: the participants in the Fourth Crusade seized the city on 13 April 1204 and plundered it for days. According to the encyclopedia’s entry on Istanbul, under Latin rule the city lost all its wealth and its population fell to 50,000–75,000. The Byzantines were able to retake the city only in 1261.
According to the encyclopedia’s entry on Byzantium, after the Ottoman victory of 1371 the empire agreed to pay tribute and to serve in the Ottoman army; it was now a vassal state. According to Işın Demirkent, Byzantium eventually turned into a city-state enclosed by the walls of Constantinople. The Morea, meanwhile, was in the hands of the emperor’s brothers Thomas and Demetrios.
To obtain help from the West, the last emperors tried to unite with the Church of Rome. The church union proclaimed at the Council of Florence in 1439 brought no benefit at all. When the pope’s envoy, Cardinal Isidore, proclaimed the union in Hagia Sophia on 12 December 1452, the people’s reaction was fierce. Grand Duke Lukas Notaras was voicing these feelings when he said that he would rather see the Turkish turban than Latin priests.
For the Ottomans, the city’s importance came first of all from its geography. According to Feridun Emecen, Constantinople constantly blocked the link between the lands of Rumelia and Anatolia. The hadith tradition foretelling the conquest of Constantinople would also give great spiritual strength to the sultan who achieved it. According to Emecen, the state’s entry into the imperial phase also depended on this.
Why Could the City Not Be Taken Earlier?
The Arab sieges and Abu Ayyub al-Ansari
The Muslim goal of taking Constantinople was very old. According to the entry on Istanbul, the armies of the Umayyad caliph Muawiya arrived before the walls in 669; Abu Ayyub al-Ansari, one of the Companions of the Prophet, fell ill and died during this first siege. The great offensive took place in 674–678, and Maslama’s siege, too, was repulsed in 717, in the reign of Leo III. On both expeditions the strong walls and the incendiary weapon known as “Greek fire” were decisive. According to the entry on Byzantium, Western historians consider the repulse of the siege that began in 674 important because it prevented the collapse of the Christian world.
Ottoman sieges: from Bayezid I to Murad II
The Ottoman army first appeared before the walls of Constantinople in 1359. According to Emecen, these approaches in the reigns of Orhan Bey and Murad I were not serious sieges but the result of alliance relations. The first serious attempt came from Bayezid I, known as Yıldırım (the Thunderbolt): the city, under a tight blockade, was besieged in 1395, but the siege was lifted when news arrived that Crusader forces had entered the Balkans. Byzantium was also forced to accept the founding of a Turkish quarter in the city.
According to the entry on Byzantium, after the victory at Nicopolis in 1396 there seemed to be no hope of salvation left for Constantinople. Bayezid had Anadoluhisarı (the Anatolian Fortress) built on the Anatolian side of the Bosphorus. But the siege, which intensified in the spring of 1400, ended when Timur entered Anatolia. The entry writes that the turmoil that followed the defeat at Ankara in 1402 gained Byzantium at least fifty more years. We described this period in our article on Bayezid I and the Battle of Ankara.
Musa Çelebi suddenly besieged the city in the autumn of 1411 but achieved nothing. Murad II’s siege of June 1422, which lasted more than fifty days, came to nothing because of the revolt of his brother Küçük Mustafa. According to the entry on the Crusaders, the army that Murad II defeated at Varna in 1444 was the last crusade organized by the West. We covered these years in our article on the reign of Murad II and the Battle of Varna.
The Siege in Brief: 6 April–29 May 1453
A day-by-day account of the siege can be found in our article Who Was Mehmed the Conqueror? Here, drawing on the encyclopedia’s entries on Istanbul and Mehmed II, we give only the main turning points.
- August 1452: Rumelihisarı (the Rumeli Fortress) was completed at the narrowest point of the Bosphorus; the fortress was to block any help that might reach the city from the direction of the Black Sea.
- 6 April 1453: In keeping with Islamic tradition, the sultan called on the city to surrender; the offer was refused.
- 18 April: The first great assault failed because of the effective defence of the Genoese Giustiniani.
- 20 April: Three Genoese ships and one Byzantine ship bringing supplies managed to enter the Golden Horn.
- Night of 21–22 April: Some 60–70 ships were hauled overland and lowered into the Golden Horn.
- 23 May: The last offer, sent by the sultan through an envoy, was also rejected.
- 29 May: The city was entered in a general assault; Constantine XI died in the fighting.
Several factors combined to bring success. According to the entry on Byzantium, the great cannon cast for this siege played a major role. Thanks to the ships lowered into the Golden Horn, the walls were bombarded both from the land and from the Golden Horn side. According to the entry on Mehmed II, the sources also regard as decisive the discord between the Byzantines and the Latins and the fact that Giustiniani was wounded and gave up his command.
How Did the Conquest of Constantinople Change World History?
The importance of the conquest cannot be explained by a single consequence. One empire collapsed, and another found its new centre. Europe’s agenda changed, and the Ottomans’ standing in the Islamic world rose.
The end of Byzantium: the eastern half of Rome passed into history
The encyclopedia defines Byzantium as the Eastern Roman Empire, which ruled between 330 and 1453 as the continuation of the Roman Empire. According to the “Kayser” (Caesar) entry, the western half of Rome, which was divided in two in 395, fell in 476, and the eastern half in 1453. With these two falls, both empires of the caesars that had emerged from the division came to an end. The remaining Greek lands were also taken within a short time: the Morea, except for Venice’s coastal fortresses, was annexed to the Ottoman lands in 1460, and the Empire of Trebizond in 1461.
A new capital: “My throne is Istanbul”
According to Halil İnalcık’s section in the encyclopedia, Mehmed the Conqueror declared on 30 May that the state of war was over. Then, saying “My throne is Istanbul”, he made the city the centre of the state. According to İnalcık, the city that had been the centre of Eastern Rome for thirteen centuries would be the Ottoman capital for the next five centuries. Edirne and Bursa, meanwhile, were regarded as the second and third capitals.
Nor did Edirne’s importance end overnight; according to the entry on Edirne, Mehmed the Conqueror used the city as a base of operations for his activities in the Balkans. Istanbul, which had been emptied, was repopulated through sürgün (forced resettlement): orders were given for Muslim, Christian and Jewish families from Rumelia and Anatolia to be sent to the city. The census of 1477 recorded 16,326 households, including Galata. According to the entry on Mehmed II, the Conqueror once again placed all the Orthodox of his empire under the authority of the patriarch. He also settled the Orthodox and Armenian patriarchs and the Jewish chief rabbi (hahambaşı) in his capital.
The imperial claim: khan, sultan and kayser
The encyclopedia’s entry on the Ottomans interprets the conquest of Constantinople as the beginning of the period in which the Ottomans entered the imperial phase. According to the entry, as master of the New Rome, Mehmed II became its true political heir. This imperial idea drew on the old Turkish conception of sovereignty, on Islamic sources and on the legacy of Eastern Rome. Mehmed the Conqueror symbolized it with the titles “khan, sultan, kayser”.
The Greek scholar George of Trebizond (Georgios Trapezuntios) told the Conqueror: “No one doubts that you are the emperor of the Romans”, because the centre of the Roman Empire was Constantinople. According to the “Kayser” entry, the Ottoman sultans adopted the title of kayser from Mehmed the Conqueror onwards. The entry on Mehmed II, however, stresses that for the Conqueror, too, these claims were political tools. It also considers it mistaken to see his state, in Nicolae Iorga’s words, as a revival of Eastern Rome in Islamic guise.
The conquest also changed the internal order. According to the entry on Mehmed II, the conquest of Constantinople was the fundamental event that prepared the definitive establishment of the Ottoman state and the great conquests that followed. On 30 May 1453 Mehmed the Conqueror dismissed the grand vizier Çandarlı Halil Pasha, who limited his power; the pasha was executed forty days later. All the grand viziers the Conqueror appointed after this, except the last of them, Karamani Mehmed Pasha, were of kul origin (men raised in the sultan’s service).
How was the conquest of Constantinople received in Europe?
According to the entry on Mehmed II, the news of the conquest caused great agitation throughout Europe. Pope Nicholas V called on all Christians to gather under the banner of the crusade. In April 1454, at the imperial diet in Regensburg, it was proposed that a fleet be sent to the Dardanelles. Mehmed the Conqueror, for his part, signed a treaty on 18 April 1454 with Venice, which could have been the Crusaders’ main supporter. Having secured its colonies, Venice avoided taking part in the crusade meetings.
According to the entry on the Crusaders, the conquest proved Ottoman superiority in Europe, and control of the Eastern Mediterranean passed into the hands of the Turks. The Papacy nevertheless did not give up: in 1463, through the pope’s efforts, Venice and Hungary formed an alliance against the Ottomans. Under the partition plan that was drawn up, part of the former Byzantine lands was to be given to Greek notables.
The Black Sea and the open seas
The conquest also changed the Ottomans’ view of the seas. According to the Black Sea entry, the rise of the Ottomans and the conquest of Constantinople marked the beginning of the Black Sea’s transformation into an entirely Turkish lake. Mehmed the Conqueror took Amasra, Sinop and, in 1461, Trebizond; in 1475 Caffa (Kefe), the last Genoese colony, was also captured. The main centre of the Black Sea trade under Ottoman rule was Istanbul. According to the entry on the Ottomans, naval policy also turned towards the open seas.
What did the conquest of Constantinople mean for the Islamic world?
For Muslims this city had been a goal for centuries. The “Kayser” entry relates that a hadith in al-Bukhari gives the good news that those who first besiege the city of Caesar will be forgiven. The entry on Byzantium also writes that those who achieved the conquest earned the praise “What a fine commander is the one who conquers it, and what a fine army is that army”. The conquest brought the sultan great spiritual prestige in the Islamic world.
The Arabic fetihname (letter announcing the victory) that informed the Mamluk sultan of the conquest was written by the kazasker (chief military judge) Molla Gürani. Hagia Sophia was converted into a mosque as the symbol of the conquest; at the first Friday prayer the sermon was delivered by Akşemseddin. It was also he who, at the Conqueror’s request, discovered the tomb of the Companion Abu Ayyub al-Ansari.
According to the entry on the Ottomans, the state, having gained a central place in the Islamic world with the conquest of Constantinople, succeeded in attracting scholars from abroad. Members of the Samarkand school of mathematics and astronomy, such as Ali Qushji, enriched Ottoman scholarly life. In the letter he wrote to the Mamluk sultan in 1463, the Conqueror also, contrary to custom, treated him as his equal.
Disputed Claims: The Middle Ages, Trade Routes and the Renaissance
Did the Middle Ages end in 1453?
In history textbooks in Turkey, the conquest of Constantinople is often presented as the event that closed the Middle Ages and opened the Modern Age. This is a choice of periodization; it does not mean that a single event ended an era in a single day. Its concrete counterpart in the encyclopedia lies in the dates on which the two halves of Rome fell: the West in 476 and the East in 1453. The entry on the Ottomans, too, regards the accession of Mehmed II as the beginning of the “age of empire” or, to use an anachronistic expression, of the Ottoman classical age.
Did the conquest close the trade routes?
According to a widespread narrative, the conquest closed the trade routes between East and West and pushed Europeans to look for new routes. The information in the encyclopedia paints a more complex picture. According to the entry on Mehmed II, the Conqueror wanted not to undermine the Levant trade but to develop it; the trade with India by way of Arabia also grew in his reign.
The Silk Road entry attributes the route’s loss of security in the 16th century to wars among the Mongol groups of East Turkestan. According to the entry on Portugal, spices began to be carried by way of the Cape of Good Hope after Vasco da Gama reached India in 1498. We discussed the consequences of the discoveries in our article on the impact of the Geographical Discoveries on the Ottomans.
Did Byzantine scholars start the Renaissance?
Another frequently repeated claim is that the Byzantine scholars who fled to Italy after the conquest started the Renaissance. This view, too, should be treated with caution. The encyclopedia’s entry on the Papacy mentions the Avignon crisis, which spanned the years 1305–1376 and 1378–1403, as part of the “Renaissance era”; in other words, the period had begun before 1453.
Nor did all the scholars go to the West. According to the entry on the Ottomans, with the conquest of Constantinople many Byzantine scholars made scholarly and intellectual contributions to the Ottomans. The interaction ran both ways: the Venetian painter Gentile Bellini decorated the walls of the Conqueror’s new palace with frescoes in the Renaissance style.
Frequently Asked Questions
What happened in 1453?
On 29 May 1453 the Ottoman sultan Mehmed II conquered Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire. Byzantium came to an end, and the city became the Ottoman capital.
Who conquered Constantinople?
The city was conquered by Mehmed II, known as Fatih Sultan Mehmed (Mehmed the Conqueror). Born in Edirne on 30 March 1432, the sultan was 21 years old at the time of the conquest.
How many days did the conquest of Constantinople take?
According to the encyclopedia’s entry on Mehmed II, the siege lasted 54 days, from 6 April to 29 May 1453. Some researchers, however, write that the actual fighting began on 12 April, when the great cannon was fired.
Had the Ottomans besieged Constantinople before?
Yes. Bayezid I, Musa Çelebi and Murad II all besieged the city. The Crusader threat, Timur’s attack and struggles for the throne left these attempts without result.
Why is the conquest of Constantinople important?
The conquest ended the Eastern Roman Empire and turned the city into an Ottoman capital that would last five centuries. The encyclopedia interprets the conquest as the beginning of the Ottomans’ imperial era.
Conclusion
The conquest of Constantinople was not merely a city changing hands. The Eastern Roman Empire came to an end, the Ottomans entered their imperial era, and the city was the Ottoman capital for five centuries. The process by which the Black Sea became a Turkish lake began; Europe responded with new crusade plans, while in the Islamic world Ottoman prestige rose. Claims such as that the trade routes were closed or that the Renaissance began because of the conquest should, however, be read with caution.
Sources
- TDV Encyclopedia of Islam, entry “İstanbul” (sections by Işın Demirkent, Feridun Emecen and Halil İnalcık)
- TDV Encyclopedia of Islam, entry “Mehmed II”
- TDV Encyclopedia of Islam, entry “Bizans” (Byzantium)
- TDV Encyclopedia of Islam, entry “Osmanlılar” (Ottomans)
- TDV Encyclopedia of Islam, entry “Kayser” (Caesar)
- TDV Encyclopedia of Islam, entry “Haçlılar” (Crusaders)
