Tag Archives: Emperor

“Better Turks than Latins!” – The Aftermath and the New City

Mehmet had now achieved the goal that for centuries had been the sacred duty of the faithful to capture the Christian capital. Born during a plague that had killed two of his brothers, he was the third son of a … Continue reading

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The Fall of Constantinople 29 May 1453

Having said his farewells and taken the sacrament I would like to think that Constantine was at peace. He had done all he could and fought bravely with this soldiers and allies. He must have realised on that warm May … Continue reading

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The Final Hours and Last Eucharist

The fifth … We come now to the last hours of Byzantium. The defenders were weary after defending the city since April 5th. The Emperor’s hope lay with a relief fleet from Venice, but this had failed to appear. On … Continue reading

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Move the Navy by Road!

Number four … As you know I have been away in Albania and Macedonia trying to walk (part) of the way to Byzantium. I have felt very bad about not posting but there was little time and even less internet … Continue reading

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The Siege of Constantinople – An Update

The Sultan decided to concentrate his fire to achieve a greater effect. Remember some of his cannon were so large they they could only fire a round every few hours. He needed what modern commanders would call ‘concentration of effort’. When all cannon were in place the bombardment then continued unabated until the night before the Fall, that is for another forty eight days. Just think what it would have been like to live with the threat of cannon firing at your home all the time. Given that the citizens of Constantinople had never experience this before, you have to recognise how amazing the human spirit is to adapt so quickly in a fight for survival. Continue reading

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If Only Constantine Had Employed Urban

The Byzantines called this Rumeli Hisar, or “The castle of Romeland”, which was a pretty good name as it was the medieval equivalent of the Sultan parking his tank on the Emperor’s lawn. Mehmet could do as he pleased and respected no treaties. Continue reading

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The Siege of Constantinople Begins

On this day, 5 April in 1453, the Ottoman Turkish Sultan, Mehmet I (1402-1421) arrived to join his army establishing its siege of Constantinople. Continue reading

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History of Byzantium by John Scylitzes

Full of beautiful Greek handwritten text, and lively, colourful images, this famous work by John Scylitzes is available to view digitally on the World Digital Library. If you are very brave you can download the full 138 Mb pdf. This … Continue reading

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Historical novels from Marie Heese and Ross Laidlaw

I have just returned from walking Hadrian’s Wall – which I highly recommend – during which I decided to read some Roman historical fiction, and I thought I would share these books with you. by Tom Sawford I came across … Continue reading

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Recent wordscene posts about Mystras

We have recently featured some of Peter Webscott’s posts from his blog ‘wordscene‘. He mailed me a few days ago to highlight a couple more about Mystras. I hope you enjoy them. They include some good original photographs. Mystras: last … Continue reading

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Byzantine Women – The Princess Theophano and Introducing the fork into Europe

By Laura Diaz-Arnesto, a fan of Byzantium With the arrival of the Macedonian dynasty to the imperial throne (ruled from 867 to 1056), the Byzantine Empire reached its height both on political and cultural grounds. The cities of the Empire … Continue reading

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A Byzantine emperor visits England

My blog is not like some which appear to be daily collections of thoughts or experiences from life. Preparing a new blog post can take quite some time, and my backlog goes back to about November of 2009! However, I … Continue reading

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The Final Hours and Last Eucharist

A very busy time at work of late has mean that I have not been able to keep up with the blog as well as I would have liked. To cap it all I go away just as the siege … Continue reading

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The Siege of Constantinople One Month On

The siege of Constantinople has now been in place for just over one month. We left the story when we discussed the development of the Sultan’s artillery under the Hungarian, Urban (which would prove crucial to the final Fall of … Continue reading

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The CryForByzantium Project

Recently I had been thinking about how I could use twitter to enhance this blog as well as my new blog about the life, times and friends of Patrick Leigh Fermor, when I came across Sean Munger’s amazing twitter site … Continue reading

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