The purpose of this study will therefore be different: I will try to see to what extent the fall of Constantinople was seen by contemporaries in an apocalyptic light. For surely, the fall of Constantinople, and with it the Roman Empire, had been prophesied since ancient times to be one of the signs of the approaching end. It must therefore be expected that those who witnessed the catastrophic event and finally entrusted their experiences to paper, if they were in any way familiar with or influenced by the long apocalyptic tradition that had developed around the prophesied fall of the city, must have left traces of these beliefs and expectations in their writings.
The debate about the apocalyptic significance of the fall of Constantinople has been discussed by a few scholars so far, of which we shall mention here the most important ones. By far the largest field of research has been that of Greek traditions surrounding the eschatological role of their empire in general. Jane Baun argued in 2000 that, as of yet, no standard work has been written on eschatology in the medieval east. The nearest author to come close to such a work, she says, must have been Paul J. Alexander, who sadly passed away before completing it. Still, we have a posthumously published collection of his notes and essays, called The Byzantine Apocalyptic Tradition (1985), which serves as a basis for further research. Furthermore, Alexander was among the first scholars to point to the very significant Byzantine influence upon western apocalypticism. Having thus reconstructed the development of the apocalyptic genre in the Byzantine east, his discussions of early eastern apocalyptic texts are crucial to understanding later medieval apocalypticism in the east.
In 1972 Gerhard Podskalsky defended his thesis Byzantinische Reichseschatologie, which was to become an authority on the subject of Byzantine commentaries on the Book of Daniel and the Revelation of John. His thesis already included a paragraph on the fall of Constantinople, but he further elaborated on this topic in an article in 1975. In it he establishes the close connection between the fate of the Byzantine empire and the fate of the world, and introduces the important concept of Reichseschatologie. Paul Magdalino later bases his own interesting theory of an optimistic, imperial official eschatology versus a pessimistic, popular eschatology upon this notion of a Reichseschatologie. This article is especially helpful in giving an impression of how Byzantines created their expectations of the future based upon a developing conceptualization of the empire and of its people's place within divine providence. A further interesting work on the foundations of imperial eschatology and ideology of Byzantium is that of Paul J. Alexander, The Strength of Empire and Capital as Seen through Byzantine Eyes.
As stated before, much of what has been written concerning the apocalyptic traditions surrounding the fall of Constantinople has been on the Greek tradition. This field can be divided best into two areas: those who focus on the historical sources, and those who focus on the oracular and apocalyptic studies. Ihor Sevcenko has studied how intellectuals of the late Byzantine empire perceived their empire's decline in the face of foreign intrusion, thereby discerning between relativists and eschatologists. In this useful theory is asserted that after the fall of the city the relativists finally gain the upper hand, claiming that the empire is merely one empire in a cyclical historical pattern of empires rising and falling. Turner also focuses on this area and makes a very similar distinction between relativists and eschatologists, but adds into the mix his theory of different late Byzantine philosophical models of history.
Secondly, there is the scholarship focusing more on the oracular and apocalyptic sources. Charles Diehl is perhaps responsible for disclosing this fascinating field of research. Cyril Mango and Gilbert Dagron have followed suit, studying the intricately connected phenomena of oracles, folklore and prophecies surrounding the topography and history of Constantinople. Dagron has done so by focusing on the unique source of the Patria, a corpus of texts collected and written down in the tenth century, reflecting the popular stories and memories grown out of the rich monumental and historical culture of the imperial capital.40 Many of these folkloric tales are derived from various oracles, such as those attributed to the legendary Leo the Wise. It is this oracular tradition that Mango has studied, proving along the way that any student of Byzantine eschatology should take into consideration the importance of this strand of the Byzantine apocalyptic tradition.
Some other notable works that cannot be ignored, include the work of Asterios Argyriou on the Greek exegetical tradition of the Apocalypse under Ottoman rule, in which he establishes clearly that the Apocalypse of John never gained very wide acceptance in the East until 1453 A.D., when suddenly there appeared numerous commentaries on the text, whereas only three important commentaries had been produced in Greek before that time. Another very insightful article giving a unique, literary interpretation of Constantinople and its experience of the passage of time was written by David Lawton. Finally, considering the Greek popular literary tradition after the fall of Constantinople, including the popular laments and abundant prophecies based on the city's final demise, we have the article by Mayer Y. Abu-Munshar.
All these studies together, reconstructing various strands of the Byzantine eschatological tradition, inevitably led to attempts at synthesis. This proved a very daunting task, given the immense size and variety of relevant material. Agostino Pertusi, who also published his collection of sources on the fall of Constantinople, came with perhaps one of the most significant contributions so far, posthumously published in 1988, a work on the apocalyptic significance of the end of Byzantium, giving an overview of Christian (both eastern and western) and Islamic prophecies concerning the catastrophic event. In 1996, Lellouch and Yerasimos also made a good attempt by collecting several interesting essays on the topic, with a very good introductory essay written by Marie-Hélène Congourdieau. Given the nature of this work as a collection of essays, it is still hard to speak of a true synthesis, but taken together, the collection does encompass material from all the various strands of the tradition.
So far, we have been speaking only of the Greek apocalyptic tradition. This reflects the actual
historiographical condition at the moment accurately, as little has been written about Islamic or Latin apocalyptic expectations surrounding the fall of Constantinople. The Greek sources have been studied meticulously, and there are some scarce works that contribute to a reconstruction of the
Islamic point of view.
However, it is to the Latin tradition that I will turn in the present study. A vast amount of literature has appeared both on Western views of and relations with Byzantium, as well as on the history of Western apocalypticism. An ever expanding literature constitutes western views of the rise of Islam and the Turkish threat from the fifteenth century onwards. But it is interesting to see that few attempts have been made to link these different branches of scholarship and see whether the West viewed the fall of Constantinople in an apocalyptic light at all. It seems that the fact that in the West Jerusalem and Rome fulfilled the role that Constantinople occupied in the East, automatically implies that what happened in 1453 A.D. could not be regarded as an apocalyptic event in the Latin world. This, of course, is an assumption that must be verified by a thorough investigation of the relevant sources. The central question of this thesis, therefore, is the following:
How did the apocalyptic traditions concerning Constantinople influence the Latin eye-witness accounts of the fall of the city in 1453 A.D., and did the Latin West regard the event as apocalyptic?
This research question inherently calls for an approach which reads the Latin sources on the fall of Constantinople in the light of the apocalyptic traditions as these had developed up to the fifteenth century. To this end, the whole of the study will be divided into four chapters. In the first chapter, I will construct a conceptual framework of apocalyptic, which will then be further developed into a method through which I mean to measure the pervasiveness of apocalyptic content in the sources to be studied. Chapter two will briefly discuss the history of the fall of Constantinople and describe the general impression the event left upon survivors and contemporaries, especially upon those from the Latin West. Chapter three will present an overview of the apocalyptic traditions concerning Constantinople and its end, placing special emphasis upon the divergences and convergences between the Western and Eastern traditions. In chapter four I will present and analyse three Latin eye-witness accounts and attempt to place them within a broader context. I will limit myself to the earliest Latin reports of the event, meaning eyewitness accounts and letters of survivors and contemporaries.
