An outline, era by era

Ottoman Empire rises; fall of Constantinople (1453)

Medieval / Post-Classical Era · ~500 – ~1500 CE

The Ottoman Empire grew from a small Turkish principality in north-western Anatolia, led by Osman around 1300, into one of the largest and longest-lasting states in history. In the fourteenth century the Ottomans crossed into Europe and took much of the Balkans. After a setback at the hands of Timur in 1402, they recovered and continued to expand.

In 1453 Sultan Mehmed II captured Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire, ending a state that traced itself to ancient Rome. The city became the Ottoman capital, later called Istanbul. The conquest is often used to mark the close of the Middle Ages in the eastern Mediterranean. It also made the Ottomans a leading power in Europe, Asia and Africa for the next four centuries.

Things happened, and the rest is history

  1. The Byzantine collapse after Manzikert and 1204

    Event

    What happened

    In 1071 the Seljuk Turks defeat the Byzantine army at Manzikert, and Turkish groups settle across much of Anatolia over the following decades. In 1204 the Fourth Crusade sacks Constantinople and divides Byzantine lands among Latin rulers. The Byzantines retake the city in 1261, but only as a much smaller and poorer state.

    The rest is history

    This weakened Byzantium left Anatolia's western frontier lightly defended. Many small Turkish emirates, called beyliks, arose there as Seljuk and later Mongol power faded. Historians broadly agree that the Ottomans emerged in this fragmented frontier world. By the early fourteenth century the Byzantines could no longer hold most of Anatolia, and the later Ottoman advance met a state already much reduced.

    Sources

    1. BookOstrogorsky, George. History of the Byzantine State. Oxford: Blackwell, 1956.
    2. BookTreadgold, Warren. A History of the Byzantine State and Society. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997.

  2. Osman and the beylik on the Byzantine frontier

    Event

    What happened

    Around 1300 Osman leads a Turkish band at Söğüt and Eskişehir in north-western Anatolia, near the Byzantine border. He is recorded as winning against Byzantine forces at Bapheus near Nicomedia in 1302. His son Orhan takes Bursa in 1326 and makes it his capital, then takes Nicaea in 1331.

    The rest is history

    These gains turned a frontier band into a state with a capital and a growing army. Contemporary sources for Osman are very thin, and the main Ottoman chronicles were written over a century later, so details of his life are debated. What is clear is that by Orhan's death in about 1362 the Ottomans held much of north-western Anatolia and had reached the Dardanelles.

    Sources

    1. BookKafadar, Cemal. Between Two Worlds: The Construction of the Ottoman State. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995.
    2. BookImber, Colin. The Ottoman Empire, 1300-1650: The Structure of Power. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002.

  3. Crossing into Europe

    Event

    What happened

    In the 1350s the Ottomans cross the Dardanelles and take Gallipoli, helped by the Byzantine civil wars in which rival claimants hired Turkish troops. They take Adrianople (Edirne) in the 1360s. In 1389 an Ottoman army fights Serbian-led forces at Kosovo Polje, and in 1396 it defeats a Crusader army at Nicopolis.

    The rest is history

    The exact dates for Gallipoli and Adrianople are debated among historians. Whatever the dates, the Ottomans gained a base in Thrace that gradually surrounded Constantinople. The Byzantine emperors and several Balkan rulers became Ottoman vassals. From the 1360s Edirne served as a capital, and Constantinople became an isolated island within Ottoman territory.

    Sources

    1. BookImber, Colin. The Ottoman Empire, 1300-1650: The Structure of Power. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002.
    2. BookInalcik, Halil. The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age, 1300-1600. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1973.

  4. Defeat by Timur and the Ottoman interregnum

    Event

    What happened

    In 1402 Sultan Bayezid I is defeated and captured by Timur at the Battle of Ankara. Bayezid's sons then fight one another for about a decade. Mehmed I wins and reunites the realm by 1413.

    The rest is history

    The defeat gave Constantinople a respite of about half a century, since the siege Bayezid had been pressing was lifted. Yet the Ottoman state survived, which shows how far its institutions had developed. Under Murad II, who reigned in two periods from 1421 to 1451, the Ottomans regained their strength and defeated Crusader armies at Varna in 1444.

    Sources

    1. BookImber, Colin. The Ottoman Empire, 1300-1650: The Structure of Power. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002.
    2. BookFinkel, Caroline. Osman's Dream: The Story of the Ottoman Empire, 1300-1923. New York: Basic Books, 2005.

  5. Murad II and the victory at Varna

    Event

    What happened

    In 1444 a Crusader army led by Władysław III of Poland and Hungary, with John Hunyadi, advances into the Balkans after a short-lived truce with the Ottomans. Murad II defeats it at Varna on 10 November 1444, and Władysław is killed. In 1448 the Ottomans win again at the second battle of Kosovo.

    The rest is history

    These victories ended the last large Western Crusade against the Ottomans in the Balkans. Byzantium could no longer expect effective help from the West, despite the union of the Greek and Latin churches proclaimed at Florence in 1439. The way was open for Murad's son Mehmed II, who became sultan for the second time in 1451, to turn on Constantinople.

    Sources

    1. BookImber, Colin. The Crusade of Varna, 1443-45. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006.
    2. BookInalcik, Halil. The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age, 1300-1600. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1973.

  6. The siege and fall of Constantinople

    Event

    What happened

    In 1452 Mehmed II builds the fortress Rumeli Hisarı on the Bosphorus to control the strait. His army begins the siege of Constantinople on 6 April 1453, using large cannon and a fleet. Emperor Constantine XI commands a defending force of only a few thousand men, helped by Genoese and Venetian volunteers. After weeks of bombardment, the Ottomans storm the walls on 29 May 1453, and Constantine dies in the fighting.

    The rest is history

    The city fell and was sacked, and Mehmed made it his capital. The Byzantine state, which had lasted in some form since antiquity, came to an end, though the Greek states of Mistra and Trebizond lasted a few more years. Mehmed turned Hagia Sophia into a mosque and encouraged resettlement of the city. The Ottoman capture is one of the best-documented events of the period, in Greek, Latin, Italian and Turkish accounts.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryDoukas. Historia Turco-Byzantina. Greek chronicle, c. 1460s. English translation: Magoulias, Harry J., Decline and Fall of Byzantium to the Ottoman Turks. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1975.
    2. BookRunciman, Steven. The Fall of Constantinople 1453. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965.
    3. BookCrowley, Roger. 1453: The Holy War for Constantinople and the Clash of Islam and the West. New York: Hyperion, 2005.

  7. Mehmed II rebuilds the Ottoman capital

    Event

    What happened

    After 1453 Mehmed II moves the Ottoman court to Constantinople and brings in settlers from across his lands to repopulate it. He founds the Fatih mosque complex and builds the Topkapı Palace from the 1460s. He keeps the Greek Orthodox Church in place under Patriarch Gennadios Scholarios, and he recognises Jewish and Armenian communities.

    The rest is history

    This made Constantinople, later called Istanbul, a large and varied capital again. Mehmed went on to conquer Serbia, Bosnia, the Morea, Trebizond and parts of Albania before his death in 1481. The arrangement for religious communities developed into what later came to be called the millet system, though historians debate how early and how formally it was organised.

    Sources

    1. BookInalcik, Halil. The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age, 1300-1600. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1973.
    2. BookNecipoğlu, Gülru. Architecture, Ceremonial, and Power: The Topkapı Palace in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1991.

  8. Osman's dream

    Origin story

    The legend

    Osman sleeps in the house of the holy man Sheikh Edebali and dreams that a moon rises from the sheikh's chest and sinks into his own. A tree then grows from his belly, its branches covering the world, with rivers and mountains beneath its shade. Edebali tells him the dream means that his line will rule a great empire. Osman then marries Edebali's daughter.

    The rest is history

    The story is told in Ottoman chronicles written well over a century after Osman's time, such as that of Aşıkpaşazade in the late fifteenth century. No source from Osman's own lifetime mentions it. Scholars see it as a way for later Ottoman writers to give the dynasty divine approval and a link with religious figures. It was widely repeated and became part of the Ottoman image of its own beginnings. Little else is firmly known about Osman beyond the battle of Bapheus in 1302.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryAşıkpaşazade. Tevarih-i Al-i Osman. Ottoman Turkish chronicle, late 15th century.
    2. BookKafadar, Cemal. Between Two Worlds: The Construction of the Ottoman State. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995.
    3. BookLowry, Heath W. The Nature of the Early Ottoman State. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003.

  9. The last emperor and the marble king

    Folk tale

    The legend

    As the Ottomans enter Constantinople, an angel rescues the last emperor, Constantine XI, and turns him to marble. He lies sleeping in a cave beneath the Golden Gate. One day he will awake, take back his sword and drive the Turks out of the city.

    The rest is history

    Constantine XI really did die in the final assault on 29 May 1453, but his body was never reliably identified, which helped such tales to grow. The legend of the 'marble emperor' (marmaromenos vasilias) circulated among Greeks under Ottoman rule and appears in later folk tradition. It formed part of a wider body of prophecy about the city's recovery. Greek songs about its fall, such as laments for the city, also survive from the following centuries.

    Sources

    1. BookNicol, Donald M. The Immortal Emperor: The Life and Legend of Constantine Palaiologos. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
    2. BookRunciman, Steven. The Fall of Constantinople 1453. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965.

  10. Theological debate and the fall of the city

    Popular belief

    The legend

    It is often said that, while the Ottomans broke through the walls, the Byzantines were busy arguing over how many angels could dance on the head of a pin. The city, so the saying goes, fell because its leaders cared only for pointless theology.

    The rest is history

    No source from the time says anything of the kind. The angels-on-a-pin joke appears in much later European writing, as a mockery of scholastic debate, and was only later attached to Constantinople. Real divisions did exist, including fierce opposition among the Greeks to the church union agreed at Florence in 1439. But the city fell because of the Ottoman army, cannon, fleet and much larger numbers. Eyewitness accounts such as that of Nicolò Barbaro describe the defenders manning the walls day and night.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryBarbaro, Nicolò. Giornale dell'assedio di Costantinopoli 1453. Venetian eyewitness diary, 1453. English translation: Jones, J. R. Melville, Nicolò Barbaro: Diary of the Siege of Constantinople 1453. New York: Exposition Press, 1969.
    2. BookRunciman, Steven. The Fall of Constantinople 1453. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965.

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