Welcome to The New Leaf Journal Guestbook. N.A. It was likely, as historian Sean Munger suggested in a blog post in 2014, that Constantine likely removed removed royal regalia before he entering the fray (as some accounts reported), leaving the Ottomans with no way of recognizing him among the thousands of dead. Had he surrendered the city or not volunteered to stand with his men at the very end, he would be remembered, if at all, as a sort of curiosity – similar to Romulus Augustulus, the child who nominally served as the last Emperor of the Western Roman Empire in 476. At the time, Mistra, a fortified town also called Sparta or Lacedaemon due to its proximity to the ancient city,was a center of arts and culture rivalling Constantinople. Rather than give an order to the men who remained with him, Constantine offered a choice: “Whoever wishes to escape, let him save himself if he can; and whoever is ready to face death, let him follow me!”. “If the Emperor had not arrived with fresh assistance, that same night would have been our final destruction.”   According to the same account, he had to be discouraged from going to the front lines himself. Constantine XI’s reign was brief, and his dominion, even before the fall of Constantinople, was small. When his city was invaded, he was offered safety if he gave up his empire over and over again. The alternative, of course, would be the sack of Constantinople. Renamed by historians as the Byzantine Empire, it would survive for a thousand years longer than its Western counterpart. Wounded, but still ambulatory, Constantine fought until he was struck down by an Ottoman soldier. Benjamin Harrison’s Memorable July 4, 1888, Irene Triplett, last Civil War Pensioner, Dies. The borders would continuously expand and contract according to the pressure of its teeming enemies, however, and by 1453, the Byzantine Empire was little more than just the city state of Constantinople. I turn now and look above to God. He was not, he had no need to be, ashamed of his tears, as he was resolved bravely to do his duty to the last.”. After speaking to his men, he visited the Hagia Sophia. He noted that the pleas for him to escape were motivated by concerns for his personal safety rather than prospects for bettering the fate of the city (“inasmuch as all that you foresee might really happen”). The Hagia Sophia, one of Christendom’s most hallowed churches, was converted into a mosque before being turned into a museum. They were joined in the Hagia Sophia by their Emperor, Constantine XI, who went to church for the final time to pray and ask his subjects for their pardon. Emperor Constantine XI Palaiologos is not only remembered for being the last Byzantine Emperor who put up a brave last stand against the Ottomans, but also for his last speech to his officers and allies before the Fall of Constantinople on May 29, 1453 by Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II. But it still had an Emperor: Constantine XI. Constantinople would not only be sacked and absorbed into the Ottoman Empire, but also renamed “Istanbul,” which it remains today as part of modern Turkey. After concluding his prayers, Constantine XI then proceeded in a manner suggesting that he did not expect to return to the cathedral again: “Having passed some time in prayer, he approached every prelate present in the church, asked them to pardon him if he had ever offended any of them, embraced each of them, and then went to the altar and received the Holy Communion.”. The Emperor addressed his troops for the last time before the final Turkish assault during the day on the 28th. While the Sultan could not settle on terms that did not included   his taking Constantinople, Constantine could not make peace on terms that would involve his abandoning it. When the Emperor came to, he was again faced with pleas for him to flee. That possibility didn’t exist for the Emperor and he knew it. I have also provided links to the books and pages that I am using as references, so you will be able to follow along. With 567 years having passed since Constantine and the Eastern half of the Roman Empire breathed their last, I thought that it would be fitting, with the aid of some older books and other resources, to make a toast to the last Emperor. First, Hutton made reference to the significance of this final night of prayers at the Hagia Sophia beyond it being Constantine’s final visit:  “For the last time the Holy Sacrifice was offered in S. Sophia…”  Then, in a line that was the focus of my earlier article on Constantine, Hutton made reference to Constantine XI’s place in the lineage of Roman Emperors, as tenuous as the links to Caesar Augustus may have been by 1453:  “[T]hen the last of the Cæsars and his nobles went forth to die.”. According to this account, about two hundred men chose to join Constantine for his last stand. Despite the fact that he was both kind and competent, his empire was beyond the point of no return. Similarly to the Greeks, who made the final Byzantine Emperor a symbol of national resilience during their ultimately successful push for independence in the early nineteenth century, I find the story of Constantine XI’s last stand quite moving. The legend of Constantine, as I noted earlier, was a rallying cry for the Greeks in their war for independence against the Ottomans in the nineteenth century (Munger, supra). Its history since then has been a complicated one, including the great schism, a brief period as a Catholic cathedral in the aftermath of the Fourth Crusade and the Latin sack of Constantinople, its final years as the center of Eastern Orthodoxy as the remnants of the Byzantine Empire waned, and its time as a mosque under Ottoman and Turkish rule. Because no Greeks who survived were with the Emperor in his final moments, the exact circumstances of his end are lost to the tides of time. Instead, the council provided for some to flee while it made plans for the final defense of the capital. All content published on the New Leaf Journal is property of the New Leaf Journal and its editors, unless otherwise expressly stated. Shall I be the one to flee from it? Meanwhile Constantine XI manages to overthrow the Ottomans in Europe with the help of a general uprising of their Orthodox subjects and thus revitalizes the empire. If God gives us grace and valour, and the Holy Trinity help us, in Whom alone we trust, we will do such deeds that the foe shall fall back with shame before our arms.”. At a council including the Emperor on May 3, his military commanders, and other dignitaries of state and church, several senators, prelates, and the Patriarch of the church pled with Emperor Constantine to flee – hoping that by surviving he would attract volunteers to force the Sultan to withdraw. For the last time the Holy Sacrifice was offered in S. Sophia, and then the last of the Cæsars and his nobles went forth to die.”, Although the account is fleshed out in more detail in our next selection, there are two striking notes from Hutton’s telling of the Emperor’s last visit to the cathedral. The Sultan also pledged to allow the people of Constantinople who wanted to depart to do so, and he would guarantee the safety and possessions of those who stayed. Copyright © 2021 The New Leaf Journal All Rights Reserved. Emperor Constantine XI cast off his purple cloak and made a last stand with his remaining soldiers. For all we can know, in the din, dust and fury of his battle Custer may have thought he was winning until the moment he was killed. He was killed in the melee. Many reckon the end of the medieval world by the fall of this last vestige of the Roman Empire. Remember that grasping the possessions of others, thou mayest thyself become the prey of others!”. Our first account comes from “Constantinople:  The Story of the Old Capital of the Empire,” by William Holden Hutton. Constantine’s death, however, would spark many legends – likely owing to his courage, the inability to find his body, and the sense of loss of the Greek people. Saved by Alex Aja. The city, however, was surrounded b… In Constantine XI’s view, it was his duty to God and to his station to defend Constantinople with his life. The Sultan would permit the Emperor, his court, and his noblemen to withdraw from Constantinople and go wherever they wished. Like he had weeks before, he again asserted his resolve to defend Constantinople to the end: “My friends, if it is God’s will that our city shall fall, can we escape His wrath? This, we are told, elicited tears from both the Emperor and his council. A chronicler tells us that those gathered were moved by the Emperor’s remarks: “The defenders of the city embraced each other, and through tears kissed one another, asking and giving mutual pardon; no one thought more of wife, child, or property, but only of the glorious death which all were ready to meet for the sake of the Fatherland.”. The Hagia Sophia was built nearly 1,500 years ago as a Christian cathedral during the reign of Greece’s last Latin-speaking Emperor. Combined with exposure to Islamic and far eastern (India and China) learning and wisdom, the Byzantium Empire was at one point, the height of knowledge on Earth. I pray you, my friends, in the future do not say to me anything else but, ‘Nay, sire, do not leave us.’ Never, never, will I leave you. Regardless of the sincerity of all of the Sultan’s promises, the historian and diplomat Cedomilj Mijatovic noted that the Ottoman’s assessment of the Emperor’s military position consisted of “undeniable facts.”  He noted that “[t]he walls on the land side [of Constantinople] were broken through in several places, four towers were quite destroyed, the small garrison could not be otherwise than exhausted, and there was no prospect of a speedy arrival of help from without.”  Nevertheless, Mr. Mijatovic observed that “Constantine had a more lofty conception of his own duty and dignity,” one that could not survive by accepting the Sultan’s terms. 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