ISTANBUL

Old Name
• Byzantium- was an ancient Greek city
• The name Byzantium is a Latinization
of the original name Byzantion.
• The city became the center of the
Byzantine Empire, (the Greek-speaking
Roman Empire of late Antiquity and the
Middle Ages), but at that time it was
already called Constantinople.
 Constantinople
• Constantine the Great
renamed it for himself
and made it his capital.
• Constantine I (27
February 272 – 22 May
337 AD) was a powerful
general who reigned
over the Roman Empire
as emperor until his
death.
• He made the previously named
city Byzantium (now Istanbul,
Turkey) capital of the whole
Roman Empire. As emperor, he
named the city Constantinople,
which means "City of
Constantine" in Greek.
• Before Constantine became Emperor,
he was fighting for the throne at the
Battle of Milvian Bridge over the Tiber
River. When he saw a cross in the sky
with the words in hoc signo vinces
(Latin for "in this sign you shall
conquer"), he changed his deity from
Apollo to Jesus and won the battle.
• In pagan Rome before this, it had been
against the law to believe in
Christianity, and Christians had often
been tortured or killed. Constantine
protected them. He went on to organize
the whole Catholic Church at the First
Council of Nicea, even though he
himself did not get baptized until near
the end of his life.
• Constantine was also a big part of the
beginning of the Eastern Orthodox
religion, after changing the point from
which he ruled from Rome to
Byzantium.
• Constantine is perhaps best known for
being the first Christian Roman
emperor.
 The Fall of Constantinople
• The capture of the capital city of the
Byzantine Empire by an invading
Ottoman army on the Sunday of
Pentecost, 29 May 1453.
• The attackers were commanded by the
21-year-old Sultan Mehmed II, who
defeated an army commanded by
Emperor Constantine XI
 Crusades
• The Crusades were a group of wars over
religious views between the Christian and
Muslim populations of Europe.
• It started mainly due to a fight for areas thought
to be holy land.
• Both Muslims and Christians considered the
same lands holy for reasons like Jesus'
resurrections and Muhammad visiting there.
• The eight big crusade expeditions occurred
during 1096 to 1291
• The Holy Land was still in a place that is
very important for the three major
monotheistic religions: Islam, Judaism,
and Christianity.
• There are many important religious sites
in the Holy Land.
• This is the land now called Israel.
Jerusalem, Nazareth, Bethlehem and
other religious sites fell under the control
of Muslims during the Caliphate of Omar.
• There were many different crusades. The most
important and biggest Crusades took place from
the 11th century to the 13th century.
• There were 9 large crusades during this time.
• They are numbered 1 through 9.
• There were also many smaller Crusades. Some
crusades were even within Europe (for example, in
Germany, Austria and Scandinavia).
• The smaller Crusades continued to the 16th
century, until the Renaissance and Reformation.
• The word "Crusade" is related to the
word "Cross", and means a Christian
holy war.
• There is also the Arabic word "Jihad",
which means to strive and struggle by
Muslims.
• All sides (Christians, Muslims, and
Jews) believed very much in their
religions.
• They also had political reasons for
war.
• King Richard I of England
• The Lionheart
 Impact on the Renaissance

• Main article: Greek scholars in the

Renaissance
• The migration waves of Byzantine
scholars and émigrés in the period
following the sacking of Constantinople
and the fall of Constantinople in 1453 is
considered by many scholars key to the
revival of Greek and Roman studies that
led to the development of the
Renaissance humanismand science.
• These émigrés were grammarians,
humanists, poets, writers, printers,
lecturers, musicians, astronomers,
architects, academics, artists, scribes,
philosophers, scientists, politicians and
theologians.

• They brought to Western Europe the far

greater preserved and accumulated
knowledge of their own (Greek)
civilization.
• The name of Istanbul is thought to be derived
from the Greek phrase īs tīmbolī(n) (Greek:
εἰς τὴν πόλιν, translit. eis tēn pólin, "to the
City"), and it is claimed that it had already
spread among the Turkish populace of the
Ottoman Empire before the conquest.
However, Istanbul only became the official
name of the city in 1930 by the revised
Turkish Postal Law as part of Atatürk's
reforms