The Ottoman Conquest of Constantinople and the End of the Middle Ages

Episode 23 Medieval Empires Fall as Islam Revives

The Middle Ages Around the World

Dr Joyce E Salisbury

Film Review

In this final lecture Salisbury describes the new empires replacing the Mongol empire after plague, famine and violence shut down the Silk Road, namely the Ottoman, Mughal, Russian and short-lived Timurid empire:

In 1321-47 Osmian, an Ottoman Turk, captured Byzantine territory depopulated by the plague to found a small Ottoman kingdom on the Anatolian peninsula. Despite his Muslim faith, his religious  earned him the allegiance of the Jews and Orthodox Christians he ruled.
In 1381-45, Timur (aka Tamerlane)* led an army of 100,000 to establish an empire (between 1381-1405 extending from northern India to Kazakhstan). Although his empire was short lived, his defeat of the Golden Horde facilitated the founding of the Russian nation by the prince of Moscow.
In 1483, Tamerlane’s descendant Babur fulfilled Tamur’s dream of invading India and created the Mughal Empire, lasting until until the British arrived in India in the 18th century. This ended the Middle Ages in India.

The decline and instability of the Tamurid Empire opened the way for the Ottoman Empire, the longest ruling dynasty (600 years) in Islamic history.  Unlike prior Muslim rulers, the Ottomans tolerated all religions, including Sufi mystics like the Bektashi, as well as Christians and Jews hounded by the Inquisition.

Unable to breach its heavily fortified walls, it would take the Ottomans nearly a hundred years to conquer the Byzantine capitol, Constantinople (in 1453). Mehmed II, who became sultan at 18, who hired a Hungarian gunsmith to build him a 26 foot long 1000 pound canon (requiring 60-100 oxen to move and 700 men to operate). His army demolished the wall after firing massive boulders at it seven times a day for 53 days.

Mehmed renamed the city Istanbul.

Following the collapse of Constantinople, Ivan III married the the niece of the former Byzantine empire, declared Moscow the new Rome and began calling himself “Tsar” (meaning emperor).

The Turkish disruption of the Silk Road trade would lead European merchants and traders to finance a new Age of Exploration, seeking a sea route to Asia.

Film can be viewed free with a library card on Kanopy.

*Tamerlane was of mixed Turkic/Mongol ancestry.

https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/watch/video/13172786/13172836

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