1 00:00:11,340 --> 00:00:14,020 I'm on the edge of Anatolia. 2 00:00:14,020 --> 00:00:18,900 It's a Greek word. Greeks had lived here for thousands of years. 3 00:00:18,900 --> 00:00:23,020 In Greek, it just means "the land where the sun rises". 4 00:00:23,020 --> 00:00:26,860 But a thousand years ago, another people arrived here. 5 00:00:26,860 --> 00:00:30,860 When they met people on the road, they'd say, "Where are you going?" 6 00:00:30,860 --> 00:00:34,900 They would normally answer in Greek, "eis tin poli" - "to the city", 7 00:00:34,900 --> 00:00:38,140 and that's how this city got its new name. 8 00:00:38,140 --> 00:00:41,100 "Eis tin poli" - Istanbul. 9 00:00:47,220 --> 00:00:50,100 Those people were the Turks. 10 00:00:51,500 --> 00:00:57,860 And this is the story of how Greek Constantinople became Turkish Istanbul. 11 00:01:03,140 --> 00:01:09,460 How the ancient capital of Christianity became the imperial city of Islam. 12 00:01:10,740 --> 00:01:13,460 CALL TO PRAYER 13 00:01:13,460 --> 00:01:16,660 I've come here as both historian and traveller... 14 00:01:18,060 --> 00:01:24,300 ..to find that story written into the fabric of the living city. 15 00:01:28,100 --> 00:01:34,300 So far, I have uncovered its transformation from a small, pagan fishing village 16 00:01:34,300 --> 00:01:38,300 to the Christian capital of the Roman Empire. 17 00:01:42,020 --> 00:01:45,900 But that set it on a collision course with Rome itself 18 00:01:45,900 --> 00:01:49,020 and with new forces to the east. 19 00:01:51,940 --> 00:01:54,300 After 700 years, 20 00:01:54,300 --> 00:01:57,180 this place had come on an incredible journey. 21 00:02:02,100 --> 00:02:09,140 What happened over the next 400 years would define not just this city, but the world. 22 00:02:11,740 --> 00:02:15,900 Now I want to get to the heart of that moment 23 00:02:15,900 --> 00:02:19,020 when global history seemed to pivot 24 00:02:19,020 --> 00:02:24,580 on the fight to possess and identify this one fickle city. 25 00:02:24,580 --> 00:02:28,580 Byzantium, Constantinople, Istanbul - 26 00:02:28,580 --> 00:02:33,300 three names for one totally extraordinary city. 27 00:02:33,300 --> 00:02:39,940 It's been occupied by the Greeks, the Romans, the Byzantines, the Venetians and the Turks. 28 00:02:39,940 --> 00:02:45,140 It's been a world city, a cosmopolitan city, a capital of empires. 29 00:02:45,140 --> 00:02:50,300 It owes its place to its unique position astride Europe and Asia, 30 00:02:50,300 --> 00:02:53,580 but also to its history 31 00:02:53,580 --> 00:02:57,020 as a holy city and an imperial capital. 32 00:03:17,300 --> 00:03:21,380 Constantinople in AD 1000 - 33 00:03:21,380 --> 00:03:24,020 the new Rome. 34 00:03:25,020 --> 00:03:28,620 For 700 years, this city had been the capital 35 00:03:28,620 --> 00:03:32,900 not just of an empire, but of a religion, 36 00:03:32,900 --> 00:03:36,340 a different kind of holy city. 37 00:03:38,580 --> 00:03:43,060 Holy cities are places where men encounter the divine, 38 00:03:43,060 --> 00:03:47,700 but Constantinople was always different from Jerusalem or Mecca, 39 00:03:47,700 --> 00:03:51,940 the settings of the great dramas of the monotheistic religions. 40 00:03:51,940 --> 00:03:55,780 When Constantine the Great converted to Christianity, 41 00:03:55,780 --> 00:04:01,580 he made Constantinople the capital of his unified Christian empire - 42 00:04:01,580 --> 00:04:05,540 one faith, one empire, one emperor. 43 00:04:07,660 --> 00:04:10,140 A fusion of power and sanctity. 44 00:04:13,620 --> 00:04:17,460 This was a new idea. Jesus had been a carpenter's son 45 00:04:17,460 --> 00:04:21,460 and now this was a city of sacred emperors. 46 00:04:21,460 --> 00:04:23,660 And it defined one thing. 47 00:04:23,660 --> 00:04:29,580 The possession of Constantinople gave you God's authority to rule the world. 48 00:04:34,140 --> 00:04:38,340 Constantinople was about religion and power. 49 00:04:41,380 --> 00:04:46,340 It was a heady cocktail coveted by every empire that came after it. 50 00:04:47,380 --> 00:04:52,100 And over the centuries, two great rivals emerged 51 00:04:52,100 --> 00:04:56,340 with their own ambitions to rule the world for God - 52 00:04:56,340 --> 00:05:01,140 the Caliphs of Islam and the Popes of Rome. 53 00:05:04,900 --> 00:05:11,500 The fall of Constantinople to Islam is one of the great stories of world history, 54 00:05:11,500 --> 00:05:14,500 but what is less well known 55 00:05:14,500 --> 00:05:21,300 is that the real story of the death of Byzantium began 400 years earlier in AD 1054. 56 00:05:22,300 --> 00:05:25,620 Not with a conflict between Christians and Muslims, 57 00:05:25,620 --> 00:05:31,060 but a war of words between Christians and other Christians. 58 00:05:36,860 --> 00:05:41,380 The story unfolded in the sacred heart of this city - 59 00:05:41,380 --> 00:05:45,340 its awesome cathedral, Hagia Sophia. 60 00:05:52,740 --> 00:05:57,300 It was more than 500 years old at the turn of the millennium. 61 00:05:58,660 --> 00:06:00,860 And even today, 62 00:06:00,860 --> 00:06:06,140 it's still one of the most awe-inspiring buildings on Earth. 63 00:06:15,820 --> 00:06:20,020 This was the holy of holies of Byzantine Christianity, 64 00:06:20,020 --> 00:06:24,220 the place where, ever since the fall of Rome, 65 00:06:24,220 --> 00:06:26,660 emperors had been crowned 66 00:06:26,660 --> 00:06:31,980 who claimed rightful sovereignty over every soul in Christendom. 67 00:06:34,580 --> 00:06:42,340 But in 1054, the peace of this building and that universal vision were shattered... 68 00:06:43,580 --> 00:06:48,860 ..by the agents of Byzantium's resurgent, ancient rival - 69 00:06:48,860 --> 00:06:51,020 Rome. 70 00:06:53,860 --> 00:06:59,060 On July the 16th, papal legates burst into the service here in Saint Sophia 71 00:06:59,060 --> 00:07:03,060 and laid a sentence of excommunication right on the altar. 72 00:07:04,180 --> 00:07:06,220 Four days later, 73 00:07:06,220 --> 00:07:11,140 the Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople excommunicated the papal legates. 74 00:07:11,140 --> 00:07:17,540 It seemed like just the latest skirmish in centuries of ecclesiastical bickering, 75 00:07:17,540 --> 00:07:22,780 but in fact, this time, it would bring total catastrophe to the city. 76 00:07:30,940 --> 00:07:33,380 They called it the Great Schism, 77 00:07:33,380 --> 00:07:38,220 the moment Christianity split into two rival camps. 78 00:07:40,540 --> 00:07:45,260 On one side were the Byzantines, Greek-speaking, Orthodox, 79 00:07:45,260 --> 00:07:48,140 and on the other, the Latins, 80 00:07:48,140 --> 00:07:52,820 so called because they held services in Latin, not Greek. 81 00:07:52,820 --> 00:07:56,780 But their differences went far deeper than language. 82 00:07:56,780 --> 00:08:01,020 They disagreed on the fundamental nature of God. 83 00:08:02,060 --> 00:08:06,460 But that was nothing compared to the cultural differences. 84 00:08:14,020 --> 00:08:19,860 You can meet the Byzantine Emperors, appropriately enough, up in the gods. 85 00:08:28,060 --> 00:08:33,580 In this high-up part of the church, you can almost feel the air becoming a bit more rarefied. 86 00:08:33,580 --> 00:08:38,420 This is the Marble Gate and up here the Empresses would sit on their throne 87 00:08:38,420 --> 00:08:41,260 and watch the services going on down below, 88 00:08:41,260 --> 00:08:44,820 while over here, the Emperor and his entourage would arrive 89 00:08:44,820 --> 00:08:47,820 via a secret passageway from the Great Palace. 90 00:08:51,460 --> 00:08:57,460 There's no better place to get into the heads of the Byzantine side of the quarrel 91 00:08:57,460 --> 00:09:02,980 because here you can come face to face with the person who was in charge 92 00:09:02,980 --> 00:09:05,340 in the run-up to the Great Schism. 93 00:09:08,380 --> 00:09:10,420 Here's Zoe. 94 00:09:10,420 --> 00:09:13,140 Princess Zoe was a plain old spinster 95 00:09:13,140 --> 00:09:18,340 who, crowned Empress in the autumn of her life, discovered the joys of sex 96 00:09:18,340 --> 00:09:23,020 which she embraced with unabashed and brazen enthusiasm. 97 00:09:24,020 --> 00:09:28,940 She married three times and each husband became Emperor. 98 00:09:28,940 --> 00:09:31,980 You can see here that every time she remarried, 99 00:09:31,980 --> 00:09:36,380 they had to rub out the head and rub out the name and put a new one in. 100 00:09:37,460 --> 00:09:43,740 Now, the first husband exhausted himself taking aphrodisiacs to keep up with her, 101 00:09:43,740 --> 00:09:49,820 but her minister, the sinister John the Eunuch, set her up with his teenage brother Michael. 102 00:09:49,820 --> 00:09:53,580 Zoe fell passionately and head over heels in love. 103 00:09:54,620 --> 00:09:57,860 She had her first husband murdered in her bath 104 00:09:57,860 --> 00:10:02,460 and he was still lying there when she married her teenage lover Michael 105 00:10:02,460 --> 00:10:05,700 who turned out to be actually a very good emperor. 106 00:10:06,740 --> 00:10:08,740 But he died of exhaustion 107 00:10:08,740 --> 00:10:11,820 and so she married for the third time - 108 00:10:11,820 --> 00:10:14,460 Constantine, who we see up here. 109 00:10:16,140 --> 00:10:20,740 But he had a problem. He was in love with his mistress Skleraina. 110 00:10:20,740 --> 00:10:23,180 This didn't put off Zoe at all. 111 00:10:23,180 --> 00:10:27,460 The three of them set up home happily in the Imperial Palace 112 00:10:27,460 --> 00:10:32,420 where they lived together in a very Byzantine menage a trois. 113 00:10:34,740 --> 00:10:39,860 It's a juicy story and it gets you into the heads of the Byzantine elite. 114 00:10:42,820 --> 00:10:45,260 They were refined, elegant. 115 00:10:45,260 --> 00:10:49,260 They loved strong women and they despised petty morality. 116 00:10:53,340 --> 00:11:00,460 Down the hall, you can get a sense of what they thought of their upstart western rivals. 117 00:11:04,860 --> 00:11:08,140 The Great Schism had divided Christendom 118 00:11:08,140 --> 00:11:10,140 into two warring sects - 119 00:11:10,140 --> 00:11:13,340 Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodox. 120 00:11:13,340 --> 00:11:17,700 But the hatred wasn't just religious. It was also cultural. 121 00:11:17,700 --> 00:11:21,780 And this graffiti here tells some of the story. 122 00:11:23,420 --> 00:11:27,260 The Byzantines had really got to know westerners 123 00:11:27,260 --> 00:11:30,300 through the arrival of the Varangian Guard, 124 00:11:30,300 --> 00:11:34,980 the new Emperor's bodyguard made up of Norsemen and Vikings 125 00:11:34,980 --> 00:11:38,180 and Anglo-Saxon mercenaries. 126 00:11:38,180 --> 00:11:41,700 This is probably some of their graffiti. 127 00:11:44,340 --> 00:11:50,060 Byzantines regarded themselves as the greatest civilisation history had ever known, 128 00:11:50,060 --> 00:11:55,580 the Roman Empire and their Emperor as Christ's own vicegerents on Earth. 129 00:11:55,580 --> 00:11:59,780 To them, the westerners were the sort of shaggy-haired axemen 130 00:11:59,780 --> 00:12:03,020 who left graffiti in their favourite church. 131 00:12:08,860 --> 00:12:12,740 Christianity was divided into two camps - 132 00:12:12,740 --> 00:12:16,780 the Greek-speaking, effete, elegant Byzantines 133 00:12:16,780 --> 00:12:22,380 and the hardy warrior culture of the Latin-speaking west. 134 00:12:24,460 --> 00:12:27,460 But an amazing twist in the tale was coming. 135 00:12:27,460 --> 00:12:34,140 Byzantium was going to need the west's hairy axemen more than ever before 136 00:12:34,140 --> 00:12:38,340 because it was now facing a war on two fronts. 137 00:12:39,460 --> 00:12:42,740 Just 17 years after the schism with Rome, 138 00:12:42,740 --> 00:12:48,740 Christianity and Byzantium faced the greatest ever threat to their existence. 139 00:12:58,220 --> 00:13:03,700 To the east, the Turks were sweeping into the Empire. 140 00:13:05,900 --> 00:13:10,860 And in 1071, they destroyed the Byzantine Army. 141 00:13:13,780 --> 00:13:16,500 It was the start of a new chapter 142 00:13:16,500 --> 00:13:19,300 in Byzantium's history, 143 00:13:19,300 --> 00:13:24,380 one in which the city would face enemies to both east and west. 144 00:13:29,860 --> 00:13:32,340 No-one knew what was going to happen. 145 00:13:32,340 --> 00:13:35,580 Islam had been on the march for 400 years 146 00:13:35,580 --> 00:13:40,900 and the big question now was would Christendom, would Constantinople survive. 147 00:13:40,900 --> 00:13:44,500 This was the beginning of a 400-year struggle 148 00:13:44,500 --> 00:13:48,140 in which there were not two sides, but three 149 00:13:48,140 --> 00:13:52,780 in the coming struggle that pitted the invading Turkish Muslims 150 00:13:52,780 --> 00:13:58,740 against the two feuding sects of Christendom, east and west. 151 00:13:58,740 --> 00:14:05,020 The big question now would be could they put aside their differences and unite to face the common enemy. 152 00:14:09,660 --> 00:14:14,420 This was the last chance for Christian Constantinople 153 00:14:14,420 --> 00:14:17,020 to use one enemy to fight off the other. 154 00:14:18,060 --> 00:14:20,860 Of their two possible allies, 155 00:14:20,860 --> 00:14:24,460 they chose the ones who were at least Christian. 156 00:14:29,140 --> 00:14:35,500 The new Emperor, Alexios Komnenos, held his nose and sent an appeal to the Pope 157 00:14:35,500 --> 00:14:40,300 for armed forces to counter the threat of the infidel. 158 00:14:42,300 --> 00:14:46,580 He had hoped for a battalion or two of well-trained knights. 159 00:14:48,620 --> 00:14:51,180 What he got was the Crusades. 160 00:14:55,060 --> 00:15:01,140 It was as if the entire world of the west, from the Adriatic to the Straits of Gibraltar, 161 00:15:01,140 --> 00:15:03,660 had come here to Constantinople 162 00:15:03,660 --> 00:15:08,940 and the Crusades really were an extraordinary and enormous movement of people, 163 00:15:08,940 --> 00:15:15,180 80,000 of them, some in unruly mobs and some in organised, princely armies, 164 00:15:15,180 --> 00:15:17,900 but they all came here. 165 00:15:17,900 --> 00:15:21,340 It was actually the last thing the Emperor wanted. 166 00:15:26,380 --> 00:15:29,180 It was a moment of enormous potential 167 00:15:29,180 --> 00:15:32,300 and latent threat to Byzantium. 168 00:15:33,300 --> 00:15:37,220 Could they harness the power of these western hordes 169 00:15:37,220 --> 00:15:40,140 or would they be overrun by them? 170 00:15:51,220 --> 00:15:53,460 St Mary of the Mongols 171 00:15:53,460 --> 00:15:57,940 is the only Byzantine church still operational in the city. 172 00:15:59,300 --> 00:16:04,220 Historian Peter Frankopan took me there to understand what happened 173 00:16:04,220 --> 00:16:10,140 when the westerners found themselves in the capital of eastern Christianity. 174 00:16:12,900 --> 00:16:18,740 So when the first Crusaders arrive, how did it go, their first visit to Byzantium? 175 00:16:18,740 --> 00:16:22,780 The first wave that arrives here behave like football hooligans 176 00:16:22,780 --> 00:16:25,460 on tour who have had too much to drink, 177 00:16:25,460 --> 00:16:30,460 so they steal lead off the roofs of the churches, they go berserk through the city 178 00:16:30,460 --> 00:16:35,300 and riot police methods are put in place to make sure that the city stays safe. 179 00:16:35,300 --> 00:16:40,340 They're quickly shunted off across the Bosphorus to keep them out of harm's way, 180 00:16:40,340 --> 00:16:45,340 but even when they get there, they are said to impale children, to kill men, women 181 00:16:45,340 --> 00:16:49,060 without asking whether they're Muslim or Greek or Christian 182 00:16:49,060 --> 00:16:54,100 and they behave in a way that polite society in Constantinople just thinks is horrific. 183 00:16:54,100 --> 00:16:58,540 Alexios, the Emperor at that time, who is the architect of the Crusades, 184 00:16:58,540 --> 00:17:02,340 has real concerns that he's let a genie out of the bottle. 185 00:17:04,420 --> 00:17:08,660 They are like country boys visiting a big, big city. 186 00:17:08,660 --> 00:17:14,500 A traveller walks into Saint Sophia and he says, "I don't even know if I'm in Heaven or I'm on Earth." 187 00:17:14,500 --> 00:17:18,540 There is a sense that the Orthodox are closer to early Christianity. 188 00:17:18,540 --> 00:17:24,580 All the great relics of Christianity are here. All of the churches are older than anywhere else in Europe. 189 00:17:24,580 --> 00:17:28,100 So this is what real Christianity looks and feels like. 190 00:17:28,100 --> 00:17:33,180 That is a source of great admiration on the one hand, but also enormous envy on the other. 191 00:17:33,180 --> 00:17:39,900 How did the relationship go from amazement and a bit of envy to wild hatred? 192 00:17:39,900 --> 00:17:45,620 I think what happens is that the Crusaders and the Latin West get their claws into the Holy Land 193 00:17:45,620 --> 00:17:51,460 and that requires a narrative that explains that they are the true heirs and defenders of Christianity. 194 00:17:51,460 --> 00:17:56,660 At that point, all the animosities start to rise against the Greeks 195 00:17:56,660 --> 00:18:01,180 and against the Orthodox clergy and against the Orthodox theology. 196 00:18:01,180 --> 00:18:06,100 Small, little problems are suddenly blown up into major sticking points 197 00:18:06,100 --> 00:18:11,460 and that poison starts to drip through into the west and it drips through very effectively, 198 00:18:11,460 --> 00:18:15,460 so that the word "Byzantine" still today has very negative connotations. 199 00:18:15,460 --> 00:18:19,580 Politicians are Byzantine, taxes and things that are bad are Byzantine, 200 00:18:19,580 --> 00:18:25,260 so the Crusaders start as being Byzantium's allies at the moment of great weakness 201 00:18:25,260 --> 00:18:28,340 and become their rivals and their nemesis. 202 00:18:31,940 --> 00:18:35,460 History was taking an unexpected turn. 203 00:18:35,460 --> 00:18:41,780 The fate of this city would finally be determined not by the battle with the Turks, 204 00:18:41,780 --> 00:18:45,300 but by the battle with its own Christian allies. 205 00:18:47,020 --> 00:18:49,900 Over the coming centuries, 206 00:18:49,900 --> 00:18:55,780 wave after wave of crusading Latins stampeded through here 207 00:18:55,780 --> 00:18:58,900 on their way to the Holy Land. 208 00:19:00,460 --> 00:19:05,420 And more ominously still, others were coming to stay. 209 00:19:15,660 --> 00:19:20,460 Parts of Constantinople were turning into a city within a city. 210 00:19:22,540 --> 00:19:26,580 This area is called Galata and by the mid-12th century, 211 00:19:26,580 --> 00:19:28,900 it was filled with new arrivals. 212 00:19:28,900 --> 00:19:34,060 Not Crusaders, but merchants from Amalfi, Genoa and Venice. 213 00:19:37,980 --> 00:19:41,180 It still has a distinctly Italian feel. 214 00:19:42,940 --> 00:19:45,500 People here looked different. 215 00:19:45,500 --> 00:19:49,780 They spoke different. They went to different churches. 216 00:19:49,780 --> 00:19:54,620 The Latins were the new force in Constantinople. 217 00:19:57,340 --> 00:20:04,020 But for the Byzantines, this was their world being turned upside down. 218 00:20:07,020 --> 00:20:10,700 The Latins had once just been hairy axemen. 219 00:20:10,700 --> 00:20:13,740 Now they were taking Byzantine jobs 220 00:20:13,740 --> 00:20:18,820 and worming their way into its highest echelons - 221 00:20:18,820 --> 00:20:22,020 the army, the government, the imperial family. 222 00:20:24,660 --> 00:20:28,220 Something, they said, simply had to be done. 223 00:20:34,700 --> 00:20:38,580 The people longed to be rid of the hated Latins 224 00:20:38,580 --> 00:20:42,900 and for that, they needed a real Byzantine prince. 225 00:20:42,900 --> 00:20:45,580 His name was Andronikos Komnenos. 226 00:20:48,700 --> 00:20:55,180 And he was well known as the most glamorous and best-looking man in the entire Empire. 227 00:20:58,100 --> 00:21:00,140 He was now 65, 228 00:21:00,140 --> 00:21:06,100 but this silver fox had the looks, the energies and the appetites of a much younger man. 229 00:21:06,100 --> 00:21:11,020 He was delighted to be crowned Emperor of Byzantium. 230 00:21:16,900 --> 00:21:21,020 Xenophobic feeling was boiling against the Latins. 231 00:21:23,460 --> 00:21:29,620 And in Andronikos, they had found just the kind of unscrupulous demagogue ready to use it 232 00:21:29,620 --> 00:21:31,660 to his own advantage. 233 00:21:35,420 --> 00:21:39,460 Andronikos unleashed the mob against the Latins 234 00:21:39,460 --> 00:21:42,980 who were massacred to a man, their churches burned 235 00:21:42,980 --> 00:21:48,020 and the Emperor's popularity surged on a tide of Latin blood. 236 00:21:56,500 --> 00:21:59,220 As so often in history, 237 00:21:59,220 --> 00:22:04,780 sectarian tensions had brought to power a self-serving autocrat 238 00:22:04,780 --> 00:22:06,940 and ended in terrible violence. 239 00:22:09,460 --> 00:22:16,460 Unfortunately for the Byzantines, they couldn't control the dark force they had unleashed. 240 00:22:18,060 --> 00:22:21,540 Andronikos wasn't as charming as he looked. 241 00:22:21,540 --> 00:22:27,100 The old swinger turned out to be a sadistic monster who launched a reign of terror. 242 00:22:27,100 --> 00:22:30,060 He murdered his 13-year-old Co-Emperor 243 00:22:30,060 --> 00:22:33,140 and then married his 12-year-old widow. 244 00:22:33,140 --> 00:22:35,780 Even the Byzantines were appalled. 245 00:22:35,780 --> 00:22:38,940 When the mob turned against him, he tried to run, 246 00:22:38,940 --> 00:22:43,340 but he was captured and subjected to the most appalling torments. 247 00:22:43,340 --> 00:22:46,420 First, his teeth were pulled out one by one, 248 00:22:46,420 --> 00:22:51,020 then his hands were cut off and then he was skinned with boiling water. 249 00:22:51,020 --> 00:22:54,460 Now they jeered, "You've really lost your looks." 250 00:22:59,300 --> 00:23:03,940 The rise and fall of the tyrant Andronikos had scarred for ever 251 00:23:03,940 --> 00:23:06,460 the holy streets of Byzantium. 252 00:23:07,500 --> 00:23:13,100 Now murder and bloodshed was how this city solved its problems. 253 00:23:15,020 --> 00:23:18,980 The ingredients for disaster were all coming together. 254 00:23:18,980 --> 00:23:24,340 Byzantium was embroiled in an endless, internal power struggle. 255 00:23:27,340 --> 00:23:31,740 The Latins and the Greeks were locked in a pitiless blood feud. 256 00:23:33,900 --> 00:23:38,460 And the west had got a taste for the wealth of Constantinople. 257 00:23:41,060 --> 00:23:46,740 It was a matter of time before all this resulted in cataclysm. 258 00:23:49,140 --> 00:23:52,740 And that is the story of the Fourth Crusade. 259 00:23:58,540 --> 00:24:01,900 It all had an unlikely start. 260 00:24:09,140 --> 00:24:15,420 The Crusade's leader was one of the most extraordinary and sinister characters in this entire story. 261 00:24:15,420 --> 00:24:18,900 He was the Doge of Venice, Enrico Dandolo, 262 00:24:18,900 --> 00:24:23,780 and he was as forceful and ruthless as he was wily and avaricious. 263 00:24:24,820 --> 00:24:28,380 Bald as a billiard ball and as blind as a bat, 264 00:24:28,380 --> 00:24:31,100 he was already 80 years old, 265 00:24:31,100 --> 00:24:34,340 yet still as sharp and predatory as an eagle. 266 00:24:34,340 --> 00:24:38,900 And he had hated Constantinople for a very long time. 267 00:24:42,780 --> 00:24:46,220 His hatred dated back to 1172. 268 00:24:46,220 --> 00:24:49,420 The Byzantines took the side of Genoa 269 00:24:49,420 --> 00:24:51,620 in its vendetta with Venice 270 00:24:51,620 --> 00:24:56,500 and arrested every Venetian trader in the Empire. 271 00:24:56,500 --> 00:24:59,900 Enrico Dandolo never forgave them. 272 00:25:00,940 --> 00:25:03,980 The Crusading Army gathered in Venice. 273 00:25:03,980 --> 00:25:10,300 They had the knights, but they needed ships to get to the Holy Land and only Dandolo had a fleet. 274 00:25:10,300 --> 00:25:12,740 For that, he had a price 275 00:25:12,740 --> 00:25:16,340 and the price was Constantinople. 276 00:25:19,380 --> 00:25:23,380 The final ingredient was Alexius Angelus, 277 00:25:23,380 --> 00:25:25,420 a Byzantine Pretender, 278 00:25:25,420 --> 00:25:29,260 who offered the Crusaders the riches of Constantinople 279 00:25:29,260 --> 00:25:32,820 in return for restoring him to his rightful throne. 280 00:25:38,260 --> 00:25:40,300 In July 1203, 281 00:25:40,300 --> 00:25:45,380 210 ships arrived outside Constantinople. 282 00:25:46,420 --> 00:25:51,220 The Venetian fleet broke into the Golden Horn 283 00:25:51,220 --> 00:25:56,300 and their sailors clambered up beams attached to the masts and on to the walls. 284 00:25:56,300 --> 00:26:01,940 Dandolo directed operations from the prow of his ship, waving a banner, 285 00:26:01,940 --> 00:26:06,460 and the blind, octogenarian Doge was one of the first ashore. 286 00:26:09,620 --> 00:26:13,500 It was a moment of triumph for Dandolo, 287 00:26:13,500 --> 00:26:18,780 but the beginning of the greatest disaster to befall Constantinople. 288 00:26:26,300 --> 00:26:32,780 Behind these gates was once one of Byzantium's oldest and most venerated monasteries. 289 00:26:33,820 --> 00:26:37,900 But I've had to get special permission to venture inside, 290 00:26:37,900 --> 00:26:41,820 such is its dangerously dilapidated condition. 291 00:26:49,860 --> 00:26:53,660 This is all that remains of St John Stoudios, 292 00:26:53,660 --> 00:26:57,900 a monastery that was one of the holiest sites in Constantinople. 293 00:26:57,900 --> 00:27:03,340 Its philosophers, its artists, its scholars were some of the greatest in Christendom 294 00:27:03,340 --> 00:27:07,340 and it had a peerless collection of icons and manuscripts. 295 00:27:08,380 --> 00:27:10,900 But by the end of 1204, 296 00:27:10,900 --> 00:27:14,660 all of this was rubble and ashes. 297 00:27:23,220 --> 00:27:28,340 The desecration of Byzantine Christianity took two years to unfold. 298 00:27:29,460 --> 00:27:35,900 Golden, sacred icons, mosaics and candlesticks were ripped from their moorings, 299 00:27:35,900 --> 00:27:39,580 first by the new Emperor's own agents, 300 00:27:39,580 --> 00:27:45,620 and then when the Byzantines revolted, by the Crusaders themselves 301 00:27:45,620 --> 00:27:47,860 in an all-out sack. 302 00:27:49,260 --> 00:27:53,980 800 years of prayer by thousands of monks 303 00:27:53,980 --> 00:27:59,020 was not enough to prevent sacrilege, murder and exile. 304 00:27:59,020 --> 00:28:02,140 It was, some felt, as if God had abandoned them. 305 00:28:08,060 --> 00:28:12,460 It's not only grand buildings that tell the story of this city. 306 00:28:12,460 --> 00:28:16,180 This place is indelibly marked by that moment. 307 00:28:17,900 --> 00:28:21,140 But nowhere escaped the rampage. 308 00:28:23,500 --> 00:28:26,980 The Crusaders burst into the Church of San Sophia, 309 00:28:26,980 --> 00:28:30,340 killing everybody they encountered, except the women. 310 00:28:30,340 --> 00:28:33,820 These, they raped, especially the young virgins and the nuns. 311 00:28:33,820 --> 00:28:39,260 They brought packhorses into the church and loaded them with treasures. 312 00:28:39,260 --> 00:28:44,100 When the animals fell and broke their legs on the slippery human blood, 313 00:28:44,100 --> 00:28:48,340 they disembowelled them right there and then, just for the hell of it. 314 00:28:48,340 --> 00:28:54,180 Then the drunken knights held a homicidal orgy, inviting all the whores at the camp. 315 00:28:54,180 --> 00:28:58,420 They crowned one lascivious strumpet on the Patriarch's throne 316 00:28:58,420 --> 00:29:01,300 and there she danced half-naked 317 00:29:01,300 --> 00:29:03,300 and sang bawdy songs. 318 00:29:07,340 --> 00:29:12,100 These men had joined up to save Christendom from the Muslims. 319 00:29:13,140 --> 00:29:20,100 Instead, they spent 50 years dividing up the spoils of Christianity's greatest city. 320 00:29:24,380 --> 00:29:29,340 Like the pirates they were, the Crusaders took what they could from the city 321 00:29:29,340 --> 00:29:31,500 and then began to look elsewhere. 322 00:29:32,540 --> 00:29:37,580 They were away on a raiding party when Michael, the Greek Emperor in exile, 323 00:29:37,580 --> 00:29:40,020 snuck back into the city. 324 00:29:43,060 --> 00:29:47,820 The Crusaders didn't bother to fight over the ruin they had left behind. 325 00:29:49,620 --> 00:29:55,180 Constantinople was once again the capital of the Roman Empire, 326 00:29:55,180 --> 00:30:01,140 but that fatally wounded Empire was now little more than the battered city itself. 327 00:30:09,220 --> 00:30:13,740 Constantinople in the 14th century AD, 328 00:30:13,740 --> 00:30:17,620 a great world empire only in name, 329 00:30:17,620 --> 00:30:22,660 its eastern territories in the hands of the Turks 330 00:30:22,660 --> 00:30:25,340 and its lands in the west 331 00:30:25,340 --> 00:30:27,820 overrun by the Latins, 332 00:30:27,820 --> 00:30:33,500 and even its own port now outsourced to Italians from Genoa 333 00:30:33,500 --> 00:30:36,780 who now overlooked Constantinople 334 00:30:36,780 --> 00:30:39,420 from their tower in Galata. 335 00:30:41,980 --> 00:30:46,460 Byzantium, once a city of half a million people, 336 00:30:46,460 --> 00:30:49,900 was now a community of less than 50,000. 337 00:30:50,940 --> 00:30:54,780 But still, they set about rebuilding the city 338 00:30:54,780 --> 00:31:01,340 and against all odds, produced one last, extraordinary cultural flowering. 339 00:31:03,180 --> 00:31:06,900 In the back streets of the Christian district Phanar, 340 00:31:06,900 --> 00:31:11,540 one lonely church contains the last poignant remnants 341 00:31:11,540 --> 00:31:14,580 of that defiant renaissance. 342 00:31:23,340 --> 00:31:25,700 It's really exciting to be here. 343 00:31:25,700 --> 00:31:28,500 These mosaics are simply awesome. 344 00:31:30,580 --> 00:31:34,900 This is really like coming to the Sistine Chapel of Constantinople. 345 00:31:36,820 --> 00:31:41,460 For 400 years, this was the Kariye Mosque 346 00:31:41,460 --> 00:31:46,900 until, in the 1950s, they removed the whitewash and found this. 347 00:31:49,220 --> 00:31:51,620 The Byzantine Church 348 00:31:51,620 --> 00:31:54,340 of Saint Saviour in Chora. 349 00:31:59,340 --> 00:32:04,220 These mosaics are part of its glorious 14th century restoration. 350 00:32:10,940 --> 00:32:12,980 Here, for a moment, 351 00:32:12,980 --> 00:32:16,620 God seemed to have returned to Byzantium. 352 00:32:22,060 --> 00:32:26,660 What really strikes you about this masterpiece of Byzantine art 353 00:32:26,660 --> 00:32:29,540 is the sheer beauty of the images. 354 00:32:29,540 --> 00:32:33,140 The faces are very delicate, exquisite. 355 00:32:34,260 --> 00:32:38,260 The reds, the blues, the greens are all still absolutely vivid 356 00:32:38,260 --> 00:32:42,340 and, of course, the glory is the Byzantine gold. 357 00:32:47,340 --> 00:32:51,220 This is often called the Byzantine Renaissance 358 00:32:51,220 --> 00:32:56,260 because the Renaissance was just beginning to blossom in Italy at this time, 359 00:32:56,260 --> 00:32:58,980 but actually, they're very different. 360 00:32:58,980 --> 00:33:02,060 The Italian Renaissance was all about realism, 361 00:33:02,060 --> 00:33:06,620 the celebration of the beautiful sensuality of the human body 362 00:33:06,620 --> 00:33:08,980 that expressed God's perfection. 363 00:33:08,980 --> 00:33:12,060 But the Byzantines didn't like that at all. 364 00:33:12,060 --> 00:33:15,220 They regarded all that nudity as pornographic, 365 00:33:15,220 --> 00:33:17,220 vulgar, disgusting. 366 00:33:17,220 --> 00:33:21,540 For them, and you can see that when you look at these amazing images, 367 00:33:21,540 --> 00:33:25,860 it was all about the celestial symbolism and the inner meaning, 368 00:33:25,860 --> 00:33:29,020 the inner truth of their sanctity. 369 00:33:30,500 --> 00:33:35,260 Each one of these pictures tells a story on a series of levels - 370 00:33:35,260 --> 00:33:39,540 Biblical scenes laced with symbols of barely penetrable, 371 00:33:39,540 --> 00:33:43,900 philosophical, mystical and political significance. 372 00:33:45,620 --> 00:33:48,140 And in true Byzantine fashion, 373 00:33:48,140 --> 00:33:53,460 the man behind all this reserved pride of place for himself. 374 00:33:54,460 --> 00:33:58,860 This is one of the most famous images in Byzantine art 375 00:33:58,860 --> 00:34:02,860 and it shows the founder of this church, Theodore Metochites, 376 00:34:02,860 --> 00:34:05,220 presenting it to Jesus Christ. 377 00:34:06,260 --> 00:34:10,860 Theodore was the Grand Logothete, the Imperial Prime Minister, 378 00:34:10,860 --> 00:34:15,100 and the richest man in the Empire after the Emperor himself, 379 00:34:15,100 --> 00:34:17,300 but he had a lot to live down. 380 00:34:17,300 --> 00:34:21,620 His father had been a notorious collaborator with the Latins 381 00:34:21,620 --> 00:34:24,460 and so, when he started on this project, 382 00:34:24,460 --> 00:34:31,220 Theodore was saying, "Look at me, I'm not my father. I'm a real, true Byzantine." 383 00:34:31,220 --> 00:34:35,900 And this is the quintessential Byzantine church. 384 00:34:38,860 --> 00:34:45,620 All that mattered to Theodore was to be seen in the light of great Byzantines before him, 385 00:34:45,620 --> 00:34:50,900 even though greatness now resided elsewhere. 386 00:34:50,900 --> 00:34:57,780 This church stands testament to the Indian summer of a glorious culture, 387 00:34:57,780 --> 00:35:01,620 turning its back on the changing world outside, 388 00:35:01,620 --> 00:35:08,460 talking to itself in its own language of arcane and mystical symbols. 389 00:35:10,500 --> 00:35:14,900 Even as the state was reduced to just the city itself, 390 00:35:14,900 --> 00:35:19,380 even as enemy forces closed in from east and west, 391 00:35:19,380 --> 00:35:24,380 Byzantium remained stubbornly and defiantly obsessed 392 00:35:24,380 --> 00:35:27,100 with its own glorious past, 393 00:35:27,100 --> 00:35:31,460 a doomed empire lost in introspection. 394 00:35:41,940 --> 00:35:47,820 Constantinople was writing the last tragic chapter of its history. 395 00:35:49,220 --> 00:35:54,260 The story that had begun a thousand years before with Constantine the Great, 396 00:35:54,260 --> 00:35:58,140 the dream of a great Christian empire 397 00:35:58,140 --> 00:36:02,780 and a great Christian city spanning Asia and Europe 398 00:36:02,780 --> 00:36:05,180 was now at an end. 399 00:36:07,340 --> 00:36:10,820 But the story of Istanbul was just beginning. 400 00:36:10,820 --> 00:36:13,340 This is, after all, 401 00:36:13,340 --> 00:36:15,940 a tale of THREE cities. 402 00:36:29,980 --> 00:36:33,900 The history of this place looks completely different 403 00:36:33,900 --> 00:36:36,780 from the Muslim perspective. 404 00:36:44,860 --> 00:36:48,660 This is the heart of Muslim Istanbul, 405 00:36:48,660 --> 00:36:53,380 the oldest mosque in the city, Eyup Sultan Camii. 406 00:36:54,820 --> 00:36:59,460 It's named after one of the companions of Muhammad himself, 407 00:36:59,460 --> 00:37:01,580 Ayyub al-Ansari, 408 00:37:01,580 --> 00:37:04,060 who died and was buried here 409 00:37:04,060 --> 00:37:08,420 when the first Muslims tried to conquer Constantinople 410 00:37:08,420 --> 00:37:11,100 way back in the 7th century AD. 411 00:37:13,500 --> 00:37:15,660 CHANTING OF PRAYER 412 00:37:16,820 --> 00:37:20,740 This place isn't very well known in the west, 413 00:37:20,740 --> 00:37:23,860 but here, it's enormously important 414 00:37:23,860 --> 00:37:29,060 because it's the link between Islamic Istanbul and the prophet Muhammad himself. 415 00:37:29,060 --> 00:37:31,900 The mosque is built around the tomb of Ayyub 416 00:37:31,900 --> 00:37:36,820 and Ayyub was the prophet's companion in arms and standard-bearer. 417 00:37:36,820 --> 00:37:42,700 And he died here in one of the first Arab Islamic sieges of Constantinople. 418 00:37:47,020 --> 00:37:52,660 Twice, the followers of Muhammad besieged this city, for four years each time, 419 00:37:52,660 --> 00:37:55,620 and for one reason above all. 420 00:37:57,940 --> 00:38:03,180 The prophet himself had always predicted the Islamic conquest of Constantinople. 421 00:38:03,180 --> 00:38:08,900 He said it would be a beautiful conquest by beautiful armies, by a beautiful conqueror. 422 00:38:10,540 --> 00:38:14,580 And so this mosque has one central message to Muslims 423 00:38:14,580 --> 00:38:18,780 that this city was always destined to fall to Islam. 424 00:38:22,100 --> 00:38:28,100 But they would have to wait 700 years for that beautiful army and that beautiful conqueror. 425 00:38:31,380 --> 00:38:35,420 They came in the end from a completely unexpected place 426 00:38:35,420 --> 00:38:40,940 and that's the foundation myth of Turkish history. 427 00:38:43,540 --> 00:38:45,540 IN TURKISH: 428 00:38:54,340 --> 00:38:58,780 Yusuf Duru is one of the last meddah in Turkey, 429 00:38:58,780 --> 00:39:05,780 storytellers who have passed on history, folklore and morality tales for generations. 430 00:39:20,340 --> 00:39:25,260 Since the 1500s, men in this city have gathered during Ramadan 431 00:39:25,260 --> 00:39:28,500 to hear about the great journey of their ancestors 432 00:39:28,500 --> 00:39:31,060 into the lands we now call Turkey. 433 00:39:50,500 --> 00:39:57,060 The foundation myth of modern Turkey rests on the shoulders of one man above all. 434 00:40:11,140 --> 00:40:15,820 This is one of the great epic poems of Turkish history. 435 00:40:15,820 --> 00:40:21,660 It tells the story of a 13th century Turkish chieftain named Osman 436 00:40:21,660 --> 00:40:24,660 who ruled just a little bit of Anatolia. 437 00:40:30,740 --> 00:40:35,580 Osman goes to see a holy man named Edebali 438 00:40:35,580 --> 00:40:39,460 to ask for his daughter's hand in marriage. 439 00:40:39,460 --> 00:40:45,620 Edebali says "no", but at this very moment, the moon emanates from Edebali's chest 440 00:40:45,620 --> 00:40:48,940 and merges into Osman's chest. 441 00:40:50,540 --> 00:40:52,540 And out of this fusion 442 00:40:52,540 --> 00:40:54,620 grows a giant tree 443 00:40:54,620 --> 00:41:00,660 whose branches overshadowed the great mountain ranges of the world, the Caucasus and the Balkans, 444 00:41:00,660 --> 00:41:05,020 the great rivers, the Tigris, the Euphrates, the Danube, the Nile, 445 00:41:05,020 --> 00:41:10,020 and these branches overshadow one great city - 446 00:41:10,020 --> 00:41:12,100 Constantinople. 447 00:41:21,660 --> 00:41:29,540 Osman and Edebali's daughter spawned a dynasty that ruled this city until 1922, the Ottomans. 448 00:41:37,940 --> 00:41:41,460 Out of a small Anatolian principality, 449 00:41:41,460 --> 00:41:45,780 Osman created an expansionist, warrior dynasty 450 00:41:45,780 --> 00:41:49,820 and under his sons, grandsons and great-grandsons, 451 00:41:49,820 --> 00:41:53,100 his domain grew into an empire. 452 00:42:00,100 --> 00:42:02,540 By the mid-15th century, 453 00:42:02,540 --> 00:42:07,300 the transcontinental Ottoman Empire dwarfed the Byzantine. 454 00:42:08,340 --> 00:42:13,500 And it was closing in on Byzantium from every direction. 455 00:42:24,820 --> 00:42:29,580 This is Anadoluhisari, the Anatolian Castle. 456 00:42:29,580 --> 00:42:34,100 The Ottomans already possessed all of this - Anatolia 457 00:42:34,100 --> 00:42:38,140 and far to the west in Europe, they had conquered the Balkans, 458 00:42:38,140 --> 00:42:44,340 but this castle right here on the Bosphorus was as close as they'd got to Constantinople 459 00:42:44,340 --> 00:42:48,060 when the throne was inherited by Sultan Mehmed II. 460 00:42:48,060 --> 00:42:55,260 But he was just 19 years old and even his own ministers thought he wasn't up to the job. 461 00:42:58,020 --> 00:43:04,700 But that teenager was none other than the man they call today Fatih the Conqueror, 462 00:43:04,700 --> 00:43:09,340 the man who would put an end to Constantinople. 463 00:43:10,380 --> 00:43:13,500 Mehmed was no mere callow teenager. 464 00:43:13,500 --> 00:43:15,540 He was a supreme manipulator, 465 00:43:15,540 --> 00:43:21,260 schooled in the cut-throat world of the Ottoman court and a brilliant military strategist. 466 00:43:21,260 --> 00:43:26,300 He was also a sophisticated and cosmopolitan aesthete 467 00:43:26,300 --> 00:43:29,820 who could read philosophy in Greek, Latin and Hebrew 468 00:43:29,820 --> 00:43:34,940 and write passionate love poems to his concubine mistresses in courtly Persian. 469 00:43:34,940 --> 00:43:37,780 When he was painted by the Italian Bellini, 470 00:43:37,780 --> 00:43:41,620 the portrait shows his ferocious, delicate intelligence 471 00:43:41,620 --> 00:43:43,700 and his boundless ambition. 472 00:43:43,700 --> 00:43:46,820 He wanted to be the new Alexander the Great. 473 00:43:47,860 --> 00:43:51,900 For Mehmed, there could only be one empire, the Ottoman, 474 00:43:51,900 --> 00:43:54,140 one religion, Islam, 475 00:43:54,140 --> 00:43:56,380 one emperor, himself, 476 00:43:56,380 --> 00:43:59,500 and one capital, Constantinople. 477 00:44:03,420 --> 00:44:08,020 Mehmed II was a greater figure than anyone suspected 478 00:44:08,020 --> 00:44:12,900 and he set about the conquest of the world's greatest city 479 00:44:12,900 --> 00:44:15,540 not with the recklessness of youth, 480 00:44:15,540 --> 00:44:19,740 but with devastating and ruthless efficiency. 481 00:44:23,820 --> 00:44:27,260 The Bosphorus is only 700 yards across here 482 00:44:27,260 --> 00:44:34,300 and Mehmed's first bold move was to build a castle right on Byzantine territory. 483 00:44:34,300 --> 00:44:39,620 And there it is - Rumelihisari, the castle on the Roman side. 484 00:44:40,820 --> 00:44:44,860 But Mehmed had another name for it. The Throat Cutter. 485 00:44:44,860 --> 00:44:47,220 It soon lived up to its name. 486 00:44:48,580 --> 00:44:55,300 When an Italian Venetian ship, commanded by a Captain Rizzo, sailed along here, 487 00:44:55,300 --> 00:44:57,980 Mehmed's castle told him to stop. 488 00:45:00,420 --> 00:45:04,460 He defied it and ignored the warning. 489 00:45:04,460 --> 00:45:08,700 They were blasted out of the water by Mehmed's cannons. 490 00:45:08,700 --> 00:45:13,540 The entire crew were beheaded, except for poor Captain Rizzo, 491 00:45:13,540 --> 00:45:17,700 who was impaled with a stake up his rectum 492 00:45:17,700 --> 00:45:25,500 and left out here as a human scarecrow to warn Europe Mehmed II meant business. 493 00:45:29,820 --> 00:45:37,220 The great confrontation that had been brewing for 400 years was finally at hand. 494 00:45:38,820 --> 00:45:43,300 And the odds were stacked heavily in the Ottomans' favour. 495 00:45:44,820 --> 00:45:50,780 Their ancestors had once been a gnat on the side of the Byzantine elephant. 496 00:45:50,780 --> 00:45:55,620 Now Constantinople was just an enclave within the Ottoman Empire. 497 00:45:58,420 --> 00:46:02,260 The last Byzantine emperor was named, fittingly, 498 00:46:02,260 --> 00:46:04,260 Constantine. 499 00:46:06,100 --> 00:46:12,300 As Mehmed II approached, Constantine asked for a summary of the city's defences. 500 00:46:12,300 --> 00:46:16,860 When he heard the answer, he is said to have wept. 501 00:46:17,860 --> 00:46:21,900 The Theodosian walls were still formidable, 502 00:46:21,900 --> 00:46:28,940 but there weren't enough defenders to man them. They were a motley crew - adventurers, mavericks, 503 00:46:28,940 --> 00:46:36,020 monks with crossbows, Venetian sailors, quixotic knights and an eccentric, John the German, 504 00:46:36,020 --> 00:46:42,260 who was really from Scotland. The sort of desperadoes who fight in desperate wars. 505 00:46:42,260 --> 00:46:48,860 There were only 5,000 of them against 200,000 Turks and the biggest cannons in Europe. 506 00:46:51,220 --> 00:46:57,620 The Byzantines had no choice but to put their trust in the city's ancient physical defences, 507 00:46:57,620 --> 00:47:01,660 which had seen off so many invaders before. 508 00:47:02,700 --> 00:47:07,140 Constantinople's chief protection had always been the sea 509 00:47:07,140 --> 00:47:13,580 and its most formidable maritime barrier still survives in the naval museum. 510 00:47:19,420 --> 00:47:26,020 It's really amazing to actually see this famous piece of Constantinople's defence right here. 511 00:47:26,020 --> 00:47:28,060 I'm quite excited. 512 00:47:28,060 --> 00:47:33,100 When the city was in danger, this huge chain was winched up 513 00:47:33,100 --> 00:47:37,340 from two towers on either side of the Golden Horn. 514 00:47:37,340 --> 00:47:43,340 While it was up, no one could break through and besiege Constantinople on all four sides. 515 00:47:43,340 --> 00:47:50,020 Now, in 1453, Mehmed II had to get past this in order to take the city 516 00:47:50,020 --> 00:47:54,100 and he came up with a rather amazing solution. 517 00:48:02,620 --> 00:48:07,220 What happened is the stuff of Istanbul legend. 518 00:48:10,100 --> 00:48:14,300 A ghost that still haunts the contemporary city. 519 00:48:15,420 --> 00:48:19,860 The site where Mehmed executed his most daring manoeuvre 520 00:48:19,860 --> 00:48:23,820 is now the bustling heart of Istanbul. 521 00:48:33,940 --> 00:48:40,420 This penthouse restaurant in Taksim Square is the best place to see what really happened 522 00:48:40,420 --> 00:48:44,060 in the great Turkish siege of 1453. 523 00:48:44,060 --> 00:48:49,180 Now if you look out here, you can see the city of Constantinople. 524 00:48:49,180 --> 00:48:53,780 Mehmed had brought up his huge Turkish army to besiege the city, 525 00:48:53,780 --> 00:48:57,860 but he could only besiege it from the land side. 526 00:48:57,860 --> 00:49:03,900 Then he brought up his fleet, but he couldn't use it to enter that little channel over there. 527 00:49:03,900 --> 00:49:09,740 That's the Golden Horn. He couldn't get in because the Byzantines had put the huge chain 528 00:49:09,740 --> 00:49:13,180 right across this narrow channel there. 529 00:49:13,180 --> 00:49:18,220 Mehmed was infuriated. He launched constant attacks. All of them failed. 530 00:49:18,220 --> 00:49:22,060 He was so angry, he rode his horse into the sea in frustration 531 00:49:22,060 --> 00:49:25,660 and threatened to execute his own admiral. 532 00:49:25,660 --> 00:49:30,100 But then he came up with a great idea. He waited for nightfall 533 00:49:30,100 --> 00:49:36,540 and when it came they laid rollers right across this piece of land here. 534 00:49:36,540 --> 00:49:41,180 And thousands of slave and oxen, in an amazing feat of engineering, 535 00:49:41,180 --> 00:49:45,580 moved his entire fleet from the Bosphorus there 536 00:49:45,580 --> 00:49:50,220 all the way over here to the Golden Horn over there. 537 00:49:50,220 --> 00:49:54,260 When the Byzantines awoke the next morning, 538 00:49:54,260 --> 00:49:57,900 their most terrible nightmare had come true. 539 00:49:57,900 --> 00:50:05,140 The entire Ottoman fleet was in the Golden Horn and they were surrounded on every side. 540 00:50:06,100 --> 00:50:10,940 The last nights of Constantinople saw fervent prayer 541 00:50:10,940 --> 00:50:13,180 and terrible omens. 542 00:50:14,220 --> 00:50:18,140 God, they feared, was finally leaving His city. 543 00:50:18,140 --> 00:50:22,980 The Ottoman guns pulverised the city for over a month. 544 00:50:23,980 --> 00:50:29,140 And yet still the tenacious defence of the walls continued. 545 00:50:29,140 --> 00:50:33,260 By dawn on the 29th of May, 1453, 546 00:50:33,260 --> 00:50:40,660 the city walls had been under sustained bombardment by the Ottoman cannons for over a month. 547 00:50:40,660 --> 00:50:46,860 Whenever they smashed a hole, the people of Constantinople worked night and day to repair the damage, 548 00:50:46,860 --> 00:50:53,580 but now the Ottoman war cries of the huge army outside the walls told them one thing - 549 00:50:53,580 --> 00:50:56,180 the final storm was coming. 550 00:50:57,220 --> 00:51:03,020 The dying moments of the Byzantine city played out just near where I am standing. 551 00:51:04,060 --> 00:51:10,500 One of Mehmed's big cannons finally brought down an entire section of wall. 552 00:51:10,500 --> 00:51:15,940 He sent in assault after assault, first his irregulars, then his Bashi-Bazouks, 553 00:51:15,940 --> 00:51:18,460 and, finally, the elite Janissaries. 554 00:51:18,460 --> 00:51:24,780 After more than a millennium, the great walls of Byzantium had finally come tumbling down. 555 00:51:24,780 --> 00:51:30,780 Without the protection of the walls, the outcome of the battle was a foregone conclusion. 556 00:51:30,780 --> 00:51:35,860 The last bastion of classical antiquity had fallen. 557 00:51:35,860 --> 00:51:41,140 Constantine XI, the namesake of the city's founder, 558 00:51:41,140 --> 00:51:47,260 turned to his companions and said, "Come, men, let us fight the barbarians." 559 00:51:47,260 --> 00:51:51,380 Then he threw himself into where the fighting was thickest. 560 00:51:51,380 --> 00:51:55,780 The last of the Roman emperors was never seen again. 561 00:52:04,420 --> 00:52:08,500 In this one place, on this one day, 562 00:52:08,500 --> 00:52:14,300 the grinding tectonic plates of history seemed suddenly to shift. 563 00:52:15,260 --> 00:52:20,300 The descendants of nomadic Steppe horsemen were now in possession 564 00:52:20,300 --> 00:52:24,340 of the ancient capital of civilisation. 565 00:52:28,220 --> 00:52:33,220 For Greeks, this is still the defining tragedy of their history. 566 00:52:34,220 --> 00:52:39,380 Greek legend says that as the Turkish troops burst in to the church of San Sophia, 567 00:52:39,380 --> 00:52:43,940 swords drawn, the priests conducting the last service 568 00:52:43,940 --> 00:52:48,380 calmly turned and disappeared into the walls. 569 00:52:48,380 --> 00:52:54,980 They will return when Constantinople is Christian again to continue the service. 570 00:53:00,820 --> 00:53:06,860 The rest of the congregation were marched away to death or slavery. 571 00:53:06,860 --> 00:53:11,180 But this was not to be the end for Hagia Sophia. 572 00:53:13,820 --> 00:53:17,660 When Mehmed arrived to inspect the church of San Sophia, 573 00:53:17,660 --> 00:53:21,980 he found one of his Turkish soldiers trying to prise marble off the floor. 574 00:53:21,980 --> 00:53:27,020 He hit him with his sword, saying, "I gave you the treasure and the people, 575 00:53:27,020 --> 00:53:33,100 "but the buildings are mine. From now on, the church of San Sophia will be the Great Mosque 576 00:53:33,100 --> 00:53:35,460 "of Aya Sofya." 577 00:53:38,420 --> 00:53:43,780 The 800-year-old prophecy of Muhammad had come true. 578 00:53:44,860 --> 00:53:48,540 "Verily, you shall conquer Constantinople. 579 00:53:48,540 --> 00:53:52,540 "What a beautiful leader will that leader be." 580 00:53:54,580 --> 00:53:58,980 Mehmed II was now that promised leader. 581 00:54:00,260 --> 00:54:03,980 The Crusaders had come here to pillage and destroy. 582 00:54:03,980 --> 00:54:10,780 The Ottomans were here to fulfil the destiny of God's capital city. 583 00:54:11,740 --> 00:54:15,660 To make it the capital of Islam. 584 00:54:15,660 --> 00:54:17,660 CALL TO PRAYER 585 00:54:28,260 --> 00:54:33,380 A new city was about to be born out of the ashes of Constantinople, 586 00:54:38,780 --> 00:54:44,780 with the skyline and the soundtrack for which it is famed throughout the world. 587 00:54:48,020 --> 00:54:53,660 The Ottomans brought with them the minarets that define Islamic architecture. 588 00:54:55,420 --> 00:55:00,180 But the great domes were inspired by Hagia Sophia. 589 00:55:02,820 --> 00:55:06,860 Because this is what the Muslims had come here for, 590 00:55:06,860 --> 00:55:10,220 the thing that all this architecture stood for, 591 00:55:10,220 --> 00:55:16,660 the Byzantine vision of a universal empire, blessed by God. 592 00:55:18,820 --> 00:55:23,700 But their approach to Holy Empire was subtly different. 593 00:55:23,700 --> 00:55:28,420 They replaced Byzantium's stifling orthodoxy 594 00:55:28,420 --> 00:55:32,940 with a bewildering diversity of religious belief. 595 00:55:34,420 --> 00:55:38,100 Ottoman Islam was infused with mysticism, 596 00:55:38,100 --> 00:55:41,140 poetry, ancient spirituality. 597 00:55:42,420 --> 00:55:46,420 This was the religion of the whirling dervish, 598 00:55:46,420 --> 00:55:54,140 followers of the great poet of love, Rumi, who danced themselves into a trance of divine love. 599 00:55:58,460 --> 00:56:03,140 Mehmed II was so open to un-Islamic ideas 600 00:56:03,140 --> 00:56:06,980 that he sometimes shocked his own adherents. 601 00:56:06,980 --> 00:56:10,820 He was seen once or twice in Istanbul's churches, 602 00:56:10,820 --> 00:56:15,660 prompting outlandish rumours that he was about to convert to Christianity. 603 00:56:22,820 --> 00:56:26,860 Mehmed II learned from the fate of Byzantium. 604 00:56:26,860 --> 00:56:31,580 His empire would not shut itself off from outside influences. 605 00:56:35,220 --> 00:56:42,500 He set about rebuilding this city on lines that were international and surprisingly inclusive. 606 00:56:45,540 --> 00:56:48,540 After two centuries of war, 607 00:56:48,540 --> 00:56:51,860 blockade and depopulation, 608 00:56:51,860 --> 00:56:55,900 Istanbul's markets were once again thriving. 609 00:56:55,900 --> 00:56:59,740 Sultan Mehmed followed a deliberate policy 610 00:56:59,740 --> 00:57:05,900 of attracting to Istanbul and settling here peoples from all over the world, 611 00:57:05,900 --> 00:57:10,140 regardless of their creed or nationality. 612 00:57:10,140 --> 00:57:14,380 So from the east he attracted Christian Armenians, 613 00:57:14,380 --> 00:57:17,220 Muslim Arabs, Kurds, 614 00:57:17,220 --> 00:57:21,820 and from Western Europe he attracted Jews and Arabs 615 00:57:21,820 --> 00:57:25,860 fleeing from the repressions of the intolerant Christians. 616 00:57:25,860 --> 00:57:30,820 Not only that, but from the Balkans, Albanians, Greeks, Serbs, Bosnians. 617 00:57:30,820 --> 00:57:38,340 And he succeeded, he and his successors, in making Istanbul the refuge of the world. 618 00:57:42,420 --> 00:57:46,900 It's the culmination of a story heavy with irony. 619 00:57:46,900 --> 00:57:52,580 The Emperor Constantine's great Christian capital had been brought to its knees 620 00:57:52,580 --> 00:57:55,220 by the actions of Christians 621 00:57:55,220 --> 00:57:59,340 and brought back to life by the vision of Muslims. 622 00:57:59,340 --> 00:58:04,220 Thousands upon thousands had given their lives in the struggle, 623 00:58:04,220 --> 00:58:09,380 but one character had emerged gloriously intact. 624 00:58:09,380 --> 00:58:16,580 The city had suffered two centuries of disasters, culminating in total cataclysm. 625 00:58:16,580 --> 00:58:22,860 But it wasn't the end. True, the Byzantine civilisation was all but destroyed, 626 00:58:22,860 --> 00:58:27,100 but the city managed to beguile its new conquerors. 627 00:58:27,100 --> 00:58:32,180 And their embellishments restored it to what it was always meant to have been - 628 00:58:32,180 --> 00:58:38,060 the sacred, imperial capital of a faith and an empire. 629 00:58:38,060 --> 00:58:40,980 The city of the world's desire. 630 00:58:43,140 --> 00:58:46,900 Next time, I'm going to explore that Ottoman capital, 631 00:58:46,900 --> 00:58:49,540 the creation of a legendary city, 632 00:58:49,540 --> 00:58:54,540 from which larger-than-life emperors ruled as caliphs of Islam 633 00:58:54,540 --> 00:58:58,420 until the end of the First World War.