The Grand Turk: Sultan Mehmet II - Conqueror of Constantinople and Master of an Empire (10 page)

When Mehmet returned from Edirne to Istanbul, his first concern was to repopulate the city. According to Kritoboulos, ‘He sent an order in the form of an imperial command to every part of his realm, that as many inhabitants as possible be transferred to the City, not only Christians but also his own people and many of the Hebrews… He gathered them there from all parts of Asia and Europe, and he transferred them with all possible care and speed, people of all nations, but more especially Christians.’

Mehmet also resettled in the city all the Greek prisoners who had been part of his share of the spoils. Kritoboulos writes that he gave them land and houses ‘along the shores of the city harbor’, and ‘freed them from taxes for a specified time’. He notes further that Mehmet ‘commanded also that the Roman prisoners should work, and should receive a daily wage of six aspers or more’, which was about the same as the enlisted men of the janissaries were paid. He goes on to say: ‘This was in a way a piece of wise foresight on the part of the Sultan, for it fed the prisoners and enabled them to provide for their own ransom by earning enough to pay their masters thus. Also, when they should become free, they might dwell in the City.’

The non-Muslims among the new settlers were grouped into
millets
, or ‘nations’, according to their religion. Thus the Greek
millet
was headed by the Orthodox patriarch, the Armenian by the Gregorian patriarch and the Jewish by the chief rabbi. The authority granted to the head of each
millet
extended not only to religious matters but also to most legal questions other than criminal cases, which were always tried before the sultan’s judges. The
millet
system instituted by Mehmet was continued by his successors right down to the end of the Ottoman Empire, forming the core of its multi-ethnic character.

The first Armenian patriarch after the Conquest was Havakim, whose patriarchate was at the church of the Virgin Peribleptos on the Seventh Hill. The first chief rabbi was Moses Kapsali, whose headquarters were in Balat, on the shore of the Golden Horn below the Fifth Hill, an area that had been the principal Jewish quarter since late Byzantine times.

There was no Greek Orthodox patriarch of Constantinople at the time of the Conquest, for the last to hold that position before the siege, Gregory III Mammas, abandoned the city in August 1451 and fled to Rome, never to return.

Thus it was that Mehmet decided to choose a new patriarch to head the Greek
millet
, as Melissourgos writes: ‘He issued orders for the election of a patriarch, according to custom and protocol… The high clerics who happened to be present, and the very few members of the church and the lay population designated the scholar George Scholarios, and elected him patriarch under the name Gennadios.’

Gennadios took office on 6 January 1454, when he was consecrated by the metropolitan of Heracleia on the Black Sea. Before the ceremony Mehmet received Gennadios and invited him to share his meal, after which he presented him with a silver sceptre and a palfrey from the royal stables. Mehmet then personally escorted Gennadios in the first stage of his procession to the church of the Holy Apostles on the Fourth Hill, which had been assigned to the new patriarch as his headquarters. The sultan later issued a
firman
that guaranteed to Gennadios ‘that no one should vex or disturb him; that unmolested, untaxed, and unoppressed by an adversary, he should, with all the bishops under him, be exempted from taxes for all time’.

Gennadios found that the church of the Holy Apostles was not a suitable location for the patriarchate, and so he received permission from Mehmet to move to the church of the Virgin Pammakaristos on the Fifth Hill. Mehmet made three visits to the Pammakaristos to call on Gennadios, and in their conversations, through an interpreter, they ranged widely over questions of Christian theology. Gennadios wrote a summary of his theological beliefs and had it translated into Turkish for Mehmet’s private study.

The sultan’s contacts with Gennadios give rise to rumours that he was inclined towards Christian beliefs. Mehmet had always been interested in Christianity, perhaps because of his mother, who may have been Greek, but would have converted to Islam when she entered the harem of Murat II. Mehmet’s favourite wife, Gülbahar, mother of the future Beyazit II, was probably also Greek, and tradition has it that she never converted to Islam.

Teodoro Spandugnino, an Italian who lived in Galata, claims that Mehmet took to worshipping Christian relics and always kept candles burning in front of them. Another story about Mehmet’s attraction towards Christianity is reported by Brother George of Mühlenbach, who spent the years 1438-58 as a Turkish prisoner. As he writes in his
Treatise on the customs, conditions and inequity of the Turks
: ‘The Franciscan brothers living in Pera have assured me that he [Mehmet] came to their church and sat down in the choir to attend the ceremonies and the sacrifice of the Mass. To satisfy his curiosity, they ordered him an unconsecrated wafer at the elevation of the host, for pearls must not be cast before swine.’

Mehmet’s interest in Christianity appears to have been superficial, for he seems to have been basically irreligious, and in his observance of Islam he merely observed the forms of the Muslim faith, as was necessary for him as head of state. Giovanni-Maria Angiolello, an Italian captive in the Ottoman service, writes that Prince Beyazit was heard to say that ‘his father was domineering and did not believe in the Prophet Mohammed’.

The Ottomans were orthodox Muslims, as opposed to what they condemned as the heterodox doctrine of the Persian Shiites. Mehmet had shown a leaning towards Shiite beliefs since his first brief sultanate in Edirne, when the Persian dervish he tried to protect was burned at the stake. Mehmet was also very interested in Persian literature, particularly the poetry of the Sufi mystics. This was taken as further evidence of his heterodoxy, since an old Ottoman proverb says: ‘A man who reads Persian loses half his religion.’

The Ottoman court in Mehmet’s time was still simple in its customs, free of the ostentation and elaborate ceremonies surrounding the sultan that would develop in later times, as Brother George of Mühlenbach observes.

I saw the ruler, followed only by two young men, on his way to the mosque far away from his palace. I saw him going to the baths in the same way. When he returned from the mosque to his palace, no one would have dared to join his followers, no one would have made bold to approach him and to cheer him as is done in our country, to burst into the cry ‘Long live the king,’ or other such applause as is customary with us. I have seen the sultan at prayer in the mosque. He sat neither in a chair or on a throne, but like the others had taken his place on a carpet spread out on the floor. Around him no decoration had been placed, hung, or spread out. On his clothing or on his horse the sultan had no special mark to distinguish him. I watched him at his mother’s funeral, and if he had not been pointed out to me, I would not have recognized him. It is strictly forbidden to accompany him or to approach him without having received express permission. I pass over many particulars that have been related to me about his affability in conversation. In his judgments he shows maturity and indulgence. He is generous in giving alms and benevolent in all his actions.

Mehmet began the reconstruction of his new capital in the summer of 1453, when he issued orders for the repair of the Theodosian walls and the other fortifications damaged in the siege. Since both the Great Palace of Byzantium and the Blachernae Palace were in ruins, Mehmet began construction of a new imperial residence on the Third Hill, on a site described by Kritoboulos as ‘the finest and best location in the centre of the City’. This came to be known as Eski Saray, the Old Palace, because a few years later Mehmet decided to build a new palace on the First Hill, the famous Topkapı Sarayı.

Kritoboulos, in writing of Eski Saray, also notes that Mehmet at the same time ‘ordered the construction of a strong fortress near the Golden Gate’ in the south-western corner of the city, a monument that came to be called Yedikule, the Castle of the Seven Towers. Then, at the beginning of his chronicle for the year 1456, Kritoboulos reports the sultan’s satisfaction at the completion of Eski Saray and Yedikule, as well as his initiation of new construction projects, most notably the great marketplace known as Kapalı Çarşı, or the Covered Bazaar.

Five years after the Conquest, Mehmet built a large mosque complex outside the city walls on the upper reaches of the Golden Horn. The mosque was dedicated to Eba Eyüp Ensari, friend and standard-bearer of the Prophet Mohammed. Eyüp is said to have been among the leaders of the first Arab siege of Constantinople in 674-8, during which, according to Islamic tradition, he was killed and buried outside the walls of Constantinople. During the siege of the city in 1453 Mehmet launched a search for Eyüp’s grave, which was miraculously discovered by Akşemsettin, his
seyhülislam
, or chief cleric, a fabulous story told by Evliya Çelebi.

Mehmet II having laid siege to Constantinople was, with seventy saintly companions, seven whole days searching for Eyüp’s tomb. At last Akşemsettin exclaimed, ‘Good news, my prince, of Eyüp’s tomb’; thus saying he began to pray and then fell asleep. Some interpreted this sleep as a veil cast by shame over his ignorance of the tomb, but after some time he raised his head, his eyes became bloodshot, the sweat ran from his forehead, and he said to the Sultan, ‘Eyüp’s tomb is on the very spot where I spread the carpet for prayer.’ Upon this three of his attendants together with the Şeyh and the Sultan began to dig up the ground, when at a depth of three yards they found a square stone of verd antique on which was written in Cufic letters: ‘This is the tomb of Eba Eyüp.’ They lifted the stone and found below it the body of Eyüp wrapt up in a saffron-coloured shroud, with a brazen play-ball in his hand, fresh and well preserved. They replaced the stone, formed a little mound of the earth they had dug up, and laid the foundation of the mausoleum amidst the prayers of the whole army. The tomb, the mosque, the
medrese
, the caravansarai, the public bath, the refectory, and the market were built by Mehmet II, and his successors added some improvements to its splendour, so that Eyüp’s funeral monument now resembles a kiosk of Paradise.

That following year, according to Kritoboulos, Sultan Mehmet issued a ‘command…to all able persons to build splendid and costly buildings inside the City’, Kritoboulos goes on to say that Mehmet ‘also commanded them to build baths and inns and marketplaces, and very many and beautiful workshops, to erect places of worship, and to adorn and embellish the City with many other such buildings, sparing no expense, as each man had the means and ability’.

Mehmet himself led the way by selecting a site on the Fourth Hill, where a decade after the Conquest he began building an enormous complex known as Fatih Camii, the Mosque of the Conqueror. The ancient church of the Holy Apostles occupied a large part of the site, and so Mehmet had it demolished to make way for his new mosque complex. Kritoboulos also notes Mehmet’s orders to build a new palace on the First Hill, the pleasure dome that would come to be known as Topkapı Sarayı.

Kritoboulos goes on to write that Mehmet also ordered his notables ‘to construct many very fine arsenals to shelter the ships and their furnishings, and to build very strong, large buildings for the storing of arms, cannon, and other such supplies’. The naval arsenal, known as the Tersane, was on the Golden Horn, while the armoury, called Tophane, was on the Bosphorus, both of them just outside the walls of Galata on those sides.

A number of Mehmet’s vezirs also erected mosque complexes in Istanbul. The earliest of these is Mahmut Pasha Camii. This mosque complex was built on the Second Hill in 1462 by Mahmut Pasha, who succeeded Zaganos Pasha as grand vezir three years after the Conquest. Kritoboulos writes in praise of Mahmut Pasha, who by all accounts was the greatest of all of the Conqueror’s grand vezirs and one of the best who ever held that post in the Ottoman Empire. ‘This man had so fine a nature that he outshone not only all his contemporaries but also his predecessors in wisdom, bravery, virtue, and other good qualities. He was…a man of better character than them all, as shown by his accomplishments.’

The mosques and other structures built by Mehmet and his vezirs marked the first phase of the transition in which Greek Constantinople, capital of the Byzantine Empire, became Turkish Istanbul, capital of the Ottoman Empire. One can see this transition in the famous Buondelmonti maps, the earliest of which is dated 1420 and the latest 1480. The city looks essentially the same in these two maps, but in the later one we can see the castles of Rumeli Hisarı and Yedikule, the Mosques of the Conqueror and Mahmut Pasha, the palaces of Eski Saray and Topkapı Sarayı, the Covered Bazaar, the naval arsenal on the Golden Horn, the cannon foundry on the Bosphorus, and even the minaret on what was now the Great Mosque of Haghia Sophia, which in itself symbolises the transition from Byzantine Constantinople to Ottoman Istanbul.

5

Europe in Terror

When news of the fall of Constantinople reached western Europe there was general consternation, and it was reported that Mehmet was assembling a huge army and fleet to attack Sicily and Italy. Cardinal Bessarion’s letter to the Doge of Venice after the fall of Constantinople catches the sense of terror in Europe caused by the Turkish onslaught: ‘A city which was so flourishing…the splendour and glory of the East…the refuge of all good things, has been captured, despoiled, ravaged and completely sacked by the most inhuman barbarians…by the fiercest of wild beasts… Much danger threatens Italy, not to mention other lands, if the violent assaults of the most ferocious barbarians are not checked.’

Frederick III, the Holy Roman Emperor, broke down in tears when he heard the news and shut himself away in his quarters to pray and meditate. His adviser, Bishop Aeneas Silvio Piccolomini, the future Pope Pius II, convinced him that he should take direct action and lead a holy war against the Turks. Aeneas wrote to Pope Nicholas V with this same proposal on 12 July 1453, pointing out the terrible threat posed by the Grand Turk, and urging him to call for a crusade: