Constantinople: The Last Great Siege, 1453

by Roger Crowley

  The resulting Council of Florence was a protracted, bitter affair that was not concluded until June 1439. When it finally proclaimed that the union of the two churches had been achieved, church bells rang out across Europe all the way to England. Only one of the Orthodox delegates had refused to sign the document, which had been phrased in a wording designed to fudge some of the key issues: papal claims to supremacy were recognized along with the concept of the filioque, though the Orthodox were not actually required to insert it into their creed. But for the Greeks acceptance began to unravel almost before the ink was dry. Back in the city the Orthodox faithful greeted the returning delegation with hostility; many of those who signed immediately revoked their signatures. The Eastern patriarchs refused to accept the decision of their delegates; the next Patriarch of Constantinople, Gregory Mammas, who supported the union, was widely unpopular and it became impossible to celebrate the union in St Sophia. The issue split the city in two: Constantine and most of his immediate circle of nobles, officers and civil servants supported the union; only a fraction of the clergy and people did – they believed that union had been forced on them by the treacherous Franks and that their immortal souls had been imperilled for base and materialistic motives. The people were profoundly anti-papist: they were accustomed to equate the Pope with the Antichrist, ‘the wolf, the destroyer’; ‘Rum Papa’ – the Roman Pope – was a popular choice of name for city dogs. The citizens formed a volatile proletariat: impoverished, superstitious, easily swayed to riot and disorder.

  The sea of religious trouble that Constantine inherited with the title of Emperor was not untypical of the whole long history of Byzantium: Constantine the Great had been similarly vexed by doctrinal disputes eleven hundred years earlier. Constantine XI was a soldier rather than a theologian and his view of the union was strictly pragmatic. He was obsessed by only one thing – saving the city whose ancient past had been put in his care. If union presented the only chance of doing this, then so be it, but this did not endear him to his citizens. His constitutional position was also precarious: he had never been formally crowned in Mistra. The ceremony should have taken place in St Sophia but there was a strong feeling that the coronation of a unionist emperor by a unionist patriarch would risk grave public disorder. It was quietly shelved. Many in the city refused to remember their new emperor in their prayers, and one of the chief doubters at the council, George Scholarios, took to a monastery under the monastic name of Gennadios and started to orchestrate resistance in the form of a synod of anti-unionist clergy. In 1451 the Patriarch Gregory tired of this unremitting hostility and departed for Rome, where he kept Pope Nicholas fully informed of the activities of the anti-unionists. No suitable candidate could be found to replace him. Constantinople henceforth had neither a fully legitimate emperor nor a patriarch.

  As the threat of war with Mehmet grew, Constantine addressed a series of increasingly desperate pleas to the Pope; unwisely perhaps he also included a statement from the anti-unionists proposing a new synod. Gregory’s briefings about the state of the union in Constantinople had hardened Nicholas’s heart and he was in no mood for further prevarication from the backsliding Greeks. The response was frosty: ‘If you, with your nobles and the people of Constantinople accept the decree of union, you will find Us and Our venerable brothers, the cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, ever eager to support your honour and your empire. But if you and your people refuse to accept the decree, you will force Us to take such measures as are necessary for your salvation and Our honour.’ The threat only stiffened the resolve of the anti-unionists who continued to work to undermine Constantine’s position in the city. In September 1452 one of their number wrote: ‘Constantine Palaiologos … remains uncrowned because the church has no leader and is indeed in disarray as a result of the turmoil and confusion brought upon it by the falsely named union … This union was evil and displeasing to God and has instead split the church and scattered its children and destroyed us utterly. Truth to tell, this is the source of all our other misfortunes.’

  Back in Rome Pope Nicholas resolved on steps to enforce the decisions taken in Florence. He decided to send a papal legate to Constantinople to ensure that the union was celebrated in St Sophia. The man he chose was Cardinal Isidore, formerly Bishop of Kiev. Isidore was a Byzantine who understood the delicacies of the problem at first hand. He had accepted union at Florence. On his return to Kiev his Orthodox flock had rejected and imprisoned him. He set out for Constantinople in May 1452 with a body of 200 archers, funded by the Pope, as a gesture of military support for his principally theological mission. On route he was joined by Leonard of Chios, the Genoese Archbishop of Lesbos, a man who was to be an engaged and partisan commentator on everything that ensued. Advance warning had reached the anti-unionists of their coming and whipped the city into deeper turmoil. Gennadios delivered a virulent public harangue against union that lasted from midday until evening. He begged the people to hold fast to their faith rather than hope for material assistance that would be of little value. However when Cardinal Isidore stepped ashore at Constantinople on 26 October 1452, the sight of his small body of archers made a favourable impression on the populace. This small troop of men might only be the advance guard of a substantial force: there was a visible shift in favour of union. For a while opinion see-sawed back and forth in the volatile city. The anti-unionists were held to be unpatriotic, but when no further ships arrived, the people again swung back to Gennadios and there were outbreaks of anti-unionist rioting. Leonard demanded in shrill tones that Constantine should imprison the ringleaders. He complained bitterly that ‘apart from … a certain few monks and laymen, pride had possessed nearly all the Greeks, so that there was no one who, moved by zeal for the true Faith or for his own salvation, would be seen to be the first to be contemptuous of his obstinate opinions’. Constantine refused to act on this advice; he feared the city might descend into chaos. Instead he called the anti-unionist synod to the palace to explain their objections.

  Ten days later, the sound of gunfire at the Throat Cutter could be heard in the city. As the fate of Rizzo and his crew became known, a new spasm of fear gripped the population. Support returned to the unionists once more. Gennadios issued another blast against the waverers: that help from the West would lead to the loss of their faith, that its value would be doubtful and that he at least would have nothing to do with it. Gennadios had deeper worries than the loss of the city: he sincerely believed that the end of the world was nigh. He was concerned that the Orthodox should face the apocalypse with spotless souls. There was further disorder in the streets. Monks, nuns and lay people ranged about shouting: ‘We don’t want Latin help or Latin union; let us be rid of the worship of the unleavened.’ Despite Gennadios, it seems that a begrudging decision was taken by the frightened populace to accept the Council of Florence, at least temporarily. (With true sophistry, the Byzantines had a time-honoured let-out clause for such an action: the Doctrine of Economy, which permitted the temporary acceptance of an unorthodox theological position to ensure survival – it was an approach to spiritual matters that had repeatedly infuriated the Catholic Church.) Cardinal Isidore for his part judged that the moment was ripe to enforce the act of union – and to save the imperilled souls of the Greeks.

  In this supercharged atmosphere of fear and religious hysteria, a liturgy to celebrate the union was performed on 12 December 1452 in the dead days of winter. It took place in St Sophia ‘with the greatest solemnity on the part of the clergy, and also the reverend cardinal of Russia was there, who was sent by the Pope, and also the most serene Emperor with all his lords and the whole population of Constantinople’. The decrees of the union were read out and the Pope was commemorated in the prayers, along with the absent patriarch Gregory, but the details of the service were alien to many of the watching Greeks: the language and ritual of the service were Catholic rather than Orthodox, the consecrated Host consisted of unleavened bread, a heresy to the Orthodox, and cold water was pou
red into the cup and mixed with the wine. Isidore wrote to the Pope announcing the success of his mission:

  the whole of the city of Constantinople was united with the Catholic church; your Holiness was remembered in the liturgy, and the most reverend patriarch Gregory, who during his stay in Constantinople was not remembered in any church, not even his own monastery, after the union was remembered in the whole city. They were all from the least to the greatest, together with the emperor, thanks be to God, united and catholic.

  Only Gennadios and eight other monks had refused to participate, according to Isidore. It was probably wishful thinking. One Italian eyewitness recorded that the day was marked by great lamentations in the city. There was evidently no rioting during the service. More likely the Orthodox faithful participated through clenched teeth, then marched off to the monastery of the Pantocrator to consult Gennadios, who had become de facto the spiritual father of Orthodoxy and the patriarch in waiting. He however had retreated to his cell in silence and would not come out.

  Henceforth the Orthodox shunned St Sophia as ‘nothing better than a Jewish synagogue or a heathen temple’; they worshipped only in the securely Orthodox churches of the city. Without patriarch or congregation, the great church fell dark and silent. The continuous round of prayer died away, and the thousands of oil lamps that illuminated its dome, ‘like the whole heaven, scattered with glittering stars’, sputtered and went out. The sparsely attended services of the unionists huddled before the sanctuary. Birds fluttered mournfully round the nave. The Orthodox felt that the fulminations of Gennadios had proved justified: no mighty fleet sailed up the Marmara in defence of Christendom. From now on the split between unionist and Orthodox, between Greek and Latin was deeper than ever and it was reflected, henceforward, in all the Christian accounts of the siege. Schism was to cast a long shadow over Constantine’s attempts to defend the city.

  On 1 November 1452, shortly before he retreated into self-imposed isolation, Gennadios had posted a manifesto on the monastery door of the Pantocrator. It read like the blast of prophecy, full of apocalyptic doom and self-justification:

  Wretched Romans, how you have been led astray! You have departed from hope, which rests in God, by trusting in the power of the Franks. As well as the City itself, which will soon be destroyed, you have lost the true religion. O Lord, be merciful to me. I give witness in Your presence that I am pure and innocent from blame in this matter. Be aware, miserable citizens, what you are doing today. With slavery, which is hanging over your heads, you have denied the true faith handed down to you by your forefathers. You have confessed your impiety. Woe to you when you are judged!

  A hundred and fifty miles away in Edirne Mehmet followed these developments with more than passing interest. Fear of Christian unity had always been one of the guiding principles of Ottoman foreign policy; to Halil Pasha it justified the continuation of a peace policy: any attempt on the city might finally unite Christendom and turn Constantinople into the cause of a new crusade. However to Mehmet the intelligence from the city seemed promising. It encouraged him to be bold.

  The sultan spent the short winter days and long nights brooding over his dreams of conquest. He was obsessed but uncertain. He tried on the trappings of imperial power in his new palace at Edirne, continuing to reform his household troops and tampering with the silver content of the currency to pay for it all. Mehmet gathered about him a group of Italian advisers, from whom he gleaned intelligence about the events in the West and military technology. He spent his days poring over illustrated treatises on fortifications and siege warfare. He was restless, febrile, irresolute. He consulted astrologers and turned over in his mind a method for unlocking the city’s defences, struggling with the conservative wisdom of the old viziers who declared that it could not be done. At the same time he studied Ottoman history and the accounts of previous sieges of the city, forensically examining the causes for their failure. Unable to sleep, his nights were spent drawing sketches of the fortifications that he had scrutinized in the summer and designing strategies for storming them.

  The chronicler Doukas has left a vivid account of these dark obsessive days. The picture he paints of the secretive, mistrustful sultan, eaten up by ambition, has a ring of truth about it, though probably intensified for his Christian audience. According to Doukas, Mehmet took to wandering about the streets at dusk disguised as a common soldier, listening to the gossip about him in the markets and caravanserais. If anyone were unwise enough to recognize and hail their sultan with the customary acclamation, Mehmet would stab the man to death. It was the kind of story, repeated with endless variants, that fully satisfied the Western image of the bloodthirsty tyrant. One night, towards the small hours, he sent his palace guards to fetch Halil, whom he perhaps saw as the main hindrance to his plans. The old vizier trembled at the summons; to be called to appear before ‘God’s shadow on earth’ at such an hour did not bode well. He embraced his wife and children as if for the last time, and followed the soldiers, carrying a golden salver loaded with coins. Doukas suggests that his fear was justified: that he had taken many bribes from the Greeks to dissuade Mehmet from war, though the truth of this remains forever unclear – Halil had been rich enough in his own right to lend money to the old sultan, Mehmet’s father. When Halil reached the royal bedchamber, he found Mehmet up and dressed. The old man prostrated himself on the ground and proffered the dish. ‘What is this?’ Mehmet asked. ‘Lord,’ Halil replied, ‘it is customary when a noble is summoned before his master at an unusual hour not to appear empty handed.’ ‘I do not need gifts,’ Mehmet said, ‘just give me the City.’ Thoroughly frightened, as he was intended to be, at the strangeness of the summons and the feverish demeanour of the sultan, Halil gave his wholehearted support to the project. Mehmet concluded: ‘by placing our trust in the assent of God and in the prayer of the Prophet, we will take the city’, and dismissed the chastened vizier back into the night.

  Whatever the exact truth of this episode, some time around January 1453 Mehmet called his ministers together and made the case for war in a speech recorded by the Greek chronicler Kritovoulos. It set the matter of Constantinople within the whole story of the rise of the Ottomans. Mehmet clearly understood the damage that the city had inflicted on the fledgling state during the ruinous civil war fifty years earlier, how it ‘has not stopped marching against us, constantly arming our people against each other, promoting disorder and civil war and damaging our realm’. He feared its potential to furnish a cause for endless war with Christian powers in the future. Captured, it would provide the centrepiece of the empire, ‘without it, or while it is as at present, nothing we have is safe, and we can hope for nothing additional’. Constantine’s recent initiative to exploit Orhan must have been clearly in the mind of his listeners. He also attempted to overturn a deep-seated belief in the Islamic mindset dating all the way back to the Arab sieges: that the city was simply not conquerable. He was well informed on recent events in the city; he knew that as he spoke the inhabitants ‘are fighting as enemies over their differing religious beliefs, and their internal organisation is full of sedition and disturbance on this very account’, and that, unlike in the past, the Christians no longer controlled the sea lanes. There was also an appeal to the gazi tradition – like their forefathers, it was the duty of Muslims to wage holy war. Mehmet was particularly keen to emphasize the need for speed; all available resources must be concentrated to deliver a knockout blow: ‘We must spare nothing for the war, neither human resources nor money nor weapons nor anything else, nor must we consider anything else as important until we take or destroy it.’ It was the rallying cry for a massive strike and it seemed to have carried the day. Preparations for war started to gather pace.

  Winters on the Bosphorus can be surprisingly severe, as the Arabs had discovered during the siege of 717. The site of the city, jutting out into the straits, leaves it exposed to fierce squalls hurtling down from the Black Sea on the north wind. A particularly dank and sub-zer
o cold penetrates to the marrow of the bones; weeks of cheerless rain can churn the streets into mud and prompt flash floods down the steep lanes; sudden snowstorms arise as if from nowhere to obliterate the Asian shore half a mile away then vanish as quickly as they have come; there are long still days of muffling fog when an eerie silence seems to hold the city in an iron grasp, choking the clappers in church bells and deadening the sound of hooves in the public squares, as if the horses were shod in boots of felt. The winter of 1452–53 seems to have afflicted the citizens with particularly desolate and unstable weather. People observed ‘unusual and strange earthquakes and shakings of the earth, and from the heavens thunder and lightning and awful thunderbolts and flashing in the sky, mighty winds, floods, pelting rain and torrential downpours’. It did not improve the overall mood. No flotillas of Christian ships came to fulfil the promises of union. The city gates remained firmly closed and the supply of food from the Black Sea dried up under the sultan’s throttle. The common people spent their days listening to the words of their Orthodox priests, drinking unwatered wine in the taverns and praying to the icon of the Virgin to protect the city, as it had in the Arab sieges. A hysterical concern for the purity of their souls seized the people, doubtless influenced by the fulminations of Gennadios. It was considered sinful to have attended a liturgy celebrated by a unionist or to have received communion from a priest who was present at the service of union, even if he were simply a bystander to the rites. Constantine was jeered as he rode in the streets.

  Seal depicting the protecting Virgin

  Despite this unpromising atmosphere, the emperor made what plans he could for the city’s defence. He dispatched envoys to buy food from the Aegean islands and beyond: ‘wheat, wine, olive oil, dried figs, chick peas, barley and other pulses’. Work was put in hand to repair neglected sections of the defences – both the land and sea walls. There was a shortage of good stone and no possibility of obtaining more from quarries outside the city. Materials were scrounged from ruined buildings and abandoned churches; even old tombstones were pressed into service. The ditch was cleared out in front of the land wall and it appears that despite their reservations, Constantine was successful in persuading the populace to participate in this work. Money was raised by public collection from individuals and from the churches and monasteries to pay for food and arms. All the available weapons in the city – of which there were far too few – were called in and redistributed. Armed garrisons were dispatched to the few fortified strongholds still held by Byzantium beyond its own walls: at Selymbria and Epibatos on the north shore of the Marmara, Therapia on the Bosphorus beyond the Throat Cutter, and to the largest of the Princes’ Islands. In a final gesture of impotent defiance, Constantine sent galleys to raid Ottoman coastal villages on the Sea of Marmara. Captives were taken and sold in the city as slaves. ‘And from this the Turks were roused to great anger against the Greeks, and swore that they would bring misfortune on them.’