Mehmed II was the Ottoman sultan who captured Constantinople in 1453, ending the thousand year old Byzantine Empire and securing his own epithet, Fatih, meaning the Conqueror. He first came to the throne as a boy of twelve in 1444, when his father Murad II abdicated, but Murad was recalled to power after a crusader army threatened the empire and a subsequent janissary revolt, and Mehmed did not become sultan again in his own right until Murad's death in 1451. He prepared the siege of Constantinople with immense care, including the casting of enormous bronze cannon by the Hungarian engineer Orban and the construction of the fortress of Rumeli Hisari on the Bosphorus to cut the city off from Black Sea reinforcement, and the city fell after a siege of less than two months in May 1453. He went on to complete the Ottoman conquest of Byzantine successor states in Greece and the Balkans, absorb the remaining Serbian and Bosnian kingdoms, and extend Ottoman power into the Crimea, while ruling Constantinople, which he made his new capital, as a genuinely multi-religious imperial city. His reign is conventionally treated by many historians as marking the end of the medieval period in the eastern Mediterranean and the opening of the early modern one.
Facts
RoleOttoman Sultan, first reign as a minor under his father's regency arrangements (1444 to 1446), then Sultan in his own right from his father's death until his own (1451 to 1481). 3 BirthplaceEdirne, then the Ottoman capital 1 Death PlaceNear Gebze, at Hunkarcayiri (Tekfur Cayiri), while marching with his army 1 Role
Role (category)Classified from the Wikidata occupation statement (P106). Role (category)Classified from the Wikidata occupation statement (P106). FAQs
How did people at the time react to Mehmed II's capture of Constantinople?
Westerners saw it as a catastrophe for Christendom, though the empire it ended was already a small remnant.
Western contemporaries saw the fall of the city in 1453 as an unprecedented disaster. The future Pope Pius II called the loss one of the two eyes of the church, and Latin writers spoke of a lost center of learning, destroyed relics and desecrated churches. Some feared that Mehmed would ride into Rome itself. Modern scholarship adds a qualification: the conquest was more symbolic than actual, because the Ottomans had already absorbed most Byzantine territory and the empire had shrunk to a small strip of land around the city. Trade with Genoa and other Latin states also resumed soon afterward rather than collapsing.
Connections
In Era
Participant In
Mehmed II led the Ottoman siege and conquest of the city as sultan, not a rank participant.
Source Wikipedia
Related To
Source The Cambridge Medieval History
Ruled
Source The Cambridge Medieval History
In the Other Atlases
Originated In
Also in Geography Atlas: where this subject originated.
Source Wikidata: Mehmed II
Sources
1. Wikipedia
WikipediaMehmed the Conqueror
Mehmed the Conqueror (Ottoman Turkish: Ebu'l-fetih, lit. "the Father of Conquest"; Turkish: Fatih Sultan Mehmed), was the sultan of the Ottoman Empire.
Mehmed II
Mehmed II was the sultan of the Ottoman Empire twice, from August 1444 to September 1446 and again from February 1451 to May 1481.
Mehmed II: Conquest of Constantinople, 1453
In 1453, Mehmed commenced the siege of Constantinople with an army between 80,000 and 200,000 troops, an artillery train of over seventy large field pieces, and a navy of 320 vessels, the bulk of them transports and storeships.
Mehmed II: Gender
Mehmed II was the Ottoman sultan who captured Constantinople in 1453, ending the thousand year old Byzantine Empire and securing his own epithet, Fatih, meaning the Conqueror.
Participant In: The Fall of Constantinople, Article body, Reign section
In 1453, Mehmed commenced the siege of Constantinople with an army between 80,000 and 200,000 troops, an artillery train of over seventy large field pieces, and a navy of 320 vessels, the bulk of them transports and storeships.
View the Source 2. Wikidata: Mehmed II
3. The Cambridge Medieval History
Cambridge University Press- Ruled: The Ottoman Empire
- Related To: The Fall of Constantinople
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