Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 4.djvu/353

 CONSTANTINOPLE


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CONSTANTINOPLE

tanates anil jirincipalities of tlio Scljuk Turks and othoi-s. As early as 1320 Brusa in Bithynia had become the centre of their jjower. A Genoese fleet Boon conveyed theii army into Europe, where they took Gallipoli in 1397. Thenceforth, while the popes were especially anxious to save the Greek East and Constantinople, the Byzantines, excited by their priests and monks, appeared daily more hostile to the West and exhausted their opportunities in useless thcdliiijical disputes. The memorable defeat of the Serbs and Bulgarians at Ko.ssovo in 1389, and that of the crusaders at Nicopolis in 1396, seemed to indi- cate the hopelessness of the Byzantine cause, when the Mongol invasion of Timur-Leng (Tamerlane) and the defeat of Sultan Bayazid at Angora in 1402 com- bined to assure another half-century of existence to the doomed empire.

Scarcely had Manuel II heard of the Turkish dis- aster when he pulled down the mosque in his capital and abandoned his negotiations at Rome, where he liad initiated proposals of peace, but only for political reasons. However, the Turkish power had not been destroyed on the plain of .\ngora. From June to Septeiiiber, 1422, Sultan Murad II laid siege to Con- st.nitinople which he nearly captured. Though finally repulsed, the Turks tightened daily their con- trol o\-er all apjiroaches to the city, which only a new crusade could have relieved. At the Council of Florence, therefore (1439), the Greeks again declared themselves Catholics. This formal rcimion, however, imjiosed by the emperor and again rejected by the Gieek nation, could not in the beginning be pro- claimed even at Constantinople, in spite of the election of a patriarch favourable to Rome, and of Western promises to help the Greeks with men and money. Mark of ]0|ihesus and after him Gennadius Scholarius were omnipotent with clergy and peo[)le, and infused into them fre.sh hatred of the LatiiLs. Nevertheless, the promi-sed crusade took place under the direction of Cardinal Giuliano Cesarini. Janos Hunyady and Iskender-Beg (Scanderbeg) performed miracles of valour, but in vain. The crusaders were completely defeated at Varna in 1444, and nothing was left to Constantinople but to perish honourably. The reunion with Rome, as accepted at Florence, was at last proclaimed officially in St. Sophia by Cardinal Isidore. Metropolitan of Kiev (12 Dec, 1452). It was thus fated that Emperor Constantine Dragases, the last heir of the great Constantine, was to die in the Catholic Faith.

Fall of Con'ST.\ntinople ; Capital of Ottoman Empihe. — When the tragic hour .struck, the emperor had only about 7000 men, including all foreign suc- cour. Since March, 14.53, the Turks, to the number of 2(M),000, had invested the city; the preceding year they had built on the Bosporvis the redoubtable fortress of Rumeli-Hissar. Tlieir fleet also held the entrance to the Dardanelles, but was prevented from entering the Golden Horn by a strong iron chain that barred its mouth. But Mohammed II caused seventy of his ships to slide on grea.se<l f)lanks behind Galata; in this way they entered the (iolden Horn (22 April). He then cast across it a bridge of boats broad enough to allow the passage of five .soldiers abreast, while his troops, constantly renewed, kept up without ceasing their attacks by land. Eventually the defenders were exhausted by the toils of a continuous and hopeless conflict, while their ranks grew steadily thinner through death or wounds. The population gave no help and w.as content to taunt the Latins, while wait- ing for the miracle of Heaven that was to save them. Finally, 29 May, 14.53, about 4 o'clock in the morning, a furious a.s.sault of the Turks broke down the walls ami gates of the city, and the besiegers burst in from everj- side. Emperor Constantine fell like a hero at the gate of ."^t. Romanus. St. Sophia was imnie- diatelv transformed into a mosque, and during three Iv— 20

days the imha|)py city was abandoneil to unspeakable excesses of cruelty and debauchery. The ne.xt year, at the demand of the sultan himself, Gennadius Scholarius, Rome's haughty advereary, was ap- pointed Patriarch of Constantinople, and soon the Greek Church was re-established, almost in its former position.

Thus was granted the sacrilegious prayer of so many Greeks, blinded by unreasoning hate, that henceforth, not the tiara, but the turban .should rule in the city of Constantine. Even the name of the city was changed. The Turks call it officially (in Arabic) Der-es-Saadet, Door of Happiness, or (chiefly on coins) Konstantinieh. Their usual name for it is Stamboul, or rather Istamboul, a corruption of the Gieek expression eis rriv 7r6Xi>' (pronounced slimboli), perhaps under the influence of a form, Islamboul, which could pass for "the city of Islam". Most of the churches, like St. Sophia, were gradually con- verted into mosques. Tliis was the fate of SS. Sergius and Bacchus, a beautiful monument built by .Justin- ian, commonly called "the little St. Sophia"'; of the church of the monastery of Khora, whose splendid mosaics and pictures, mostly of the fourteenth century, are among the principal curiosities of tlie city; of the churches of the celebrated Pantocrator and Studium monasteries, etc. Other churches were demolished and replaced by various buildings; thus the church of the Holy Apostles gave w-ay to the great mosque built by the conquering Sultan Mohammed II. The imperial tombs in this church were violated; some of their gigantic red porphjTj' sarcophagi were taken to the church of St. Irene. The latter is the only church taken from the Greeks that has not been changed into a mosque or demolished; it became, and is yet an arsenal, or rather a museum of ancient weapons.

The sultans in turn endowed their new capital with many beautiful monuments. Mohanuncd II built the castle of Yedi-Kouleh, the Tchinili-Kiosk (now a museum), the mosques of Cheik 15okliari, of the Janizaries, of Kassim-Pasha, of Eyoub, where every sultan at his accession is obliged to be girt with the sword of Othman, etc. Bayazid II built the Bayazid- ieh (14.")S). Soliman the Magnificent built the'Sulci- manieh, the most beautiful Turkish monument in Constantinople. His architect Sinan constructed fifty other mosques in the empire. Ahmed I built (1610) the .\hmedieh on the foundations of the imperial Great Palace, a pretty fountain near St. Sophia, etc. The buildings of the old seraglio at Seraglio Point are also of Turkish origin; nothing is left of the Byzantine imperial palaces that once stood there. The Blachernse palace has also disap- peared ; its church was accidentally burned in the seventeenth century. Not far distant are the impor- tant ruiiLs of the palace of the Porphyrogenitus. When the Turks took Constantinople, "the hippo- drome was already in ruinous decay. There remain yet three precious monuments of ancient imperial splendour: the Egj'ptian obelisk brought thither by Theodosius the Great, the Serpentine Column brought from Delphi by Constantine, and the Byzantine monu- ment known as the Walled-up Column. Near them has been con.structed,on the plans and attheexpen.se of the Gennan Emperor, William II, a foimtain in Byzantine style. The Turks have also respected some other relics of antiquity, especially the columns of Constantine, Marcian, Theodosius, and Arcadius, the aqueduct of Valens, and many of the great sul)- terraneous cisterns.

The Turkish (Jity. — This is not the place to narrate the later historj' of the city, so often the scene of .sanguinary events, revolts of the Janizaries, palace- revolutions, etc. In 1S2 Mahniud II su))- pressed the redoubtable pnetorians, but the tragic domestic revolutions go on as before. lu 1807 a