Hello everyone and welcome to the history of Byzantium, episode 341, Memet and Constantinople.

Let's continue our post-narrative narrative.

Today we focus on Mehmet and his relationship with the city of Constantinople.

Many history books will tell you that the Turks had long-lusted after New Rome,

and that it became their capital as soon as the siege was over.

But neither statement is accurate.

As you know, the Ottomans hadn't been overly concerned with

Constantinople for the century before its capture. Biazit had tried to take it, but even he was happy to set up a decade-long

blockade rather than force the issue. The reality was that the Ottomans didn't need the city.

They were doing fine without it, laying waste to the Balkans as their various marcher lords

spent each spring and summer hunting for slaves. It was the fact that Crusades kept forming

to march to its aid that made the reduction of Constantinople a pressing

concern, and since Sultan Murad had effectively shut those down for the time being, an opportunity

was presented to Mehmet to take the city.

The Sultan was attracted to the idea because of the prestige and legitimacy it offered him,

not because he desperately needed a new capital.

As we saw, his own Grand Vizier did not want to take the city and advised him against it right up to the final assault.

Why was that?

In part, because the Vizier was benefiting financially from bribes and investments in the city,

but also because Chandali represented the traditional Anatolian perspective, which was to see the

Ottoman enterprise as a network of tribal warlords who all owed loyalty to the House of

Osman, but also shared in the glory of the state. The old Anatolian families who'd conquered

...