Constantinople

This article details the history of Constantinople before the Fall of Constantinople. For other uses see Constantinople (disambiguation)

Constantinople (Greek: Κωνσταντινούπολη, Konstantinoúpoli, or Πόλη, Póli, Constantinoupolis) was the capital of the Roman Empire (330-395), the Byzantine Empire (395-1204 and 1261-1453), the Latin Empire (1204-1261), and the Ottoman Empire (1453-1922). It was officially renamed to its modern Turkish name Istanbul in 1930^[1]^[2]^[3] as part of Atatürk's Turkish national reforms. Strategically located between the Golden Horn and the Sea of Marmara at the point where Europe meets Asia, Constantinople was extremely important as the successor to ancient Rome and the largest and wealthiest city in Europe throughout the Middle Ages; it was known as the Queen of Cities (Vasileousa Polis).

The city had many names throughout history. Depending on the background of its rulers, it often had several different names at any given time; among the most common were Byzantium, New Rome (Nova Roma), although this was an ecclesiastical rather than an official name, Constantinople and Stamboul (see etymology).

Introduction

The city was originally founded as Byzantium (Greek: Βυζάντιον) in the early days of Greek colonial expansion. Constantine later refounded a new city on this site. After a history of over 1,100 years as the principal city of the eastern Empire, and then the capital after the fall of the western Empire of the Roman Empire, Constantinople fell to the Ottomans on Tuesday May 29, 1453 (see Fall of Constantinople).

History

There are several distinct periods in the history of the city.

Byzantium

Constantine refounded an existing city. The site has been strategically and commercially important from the earliest times, lying as it does astride both the land route from Europe to Asia and the seaway from the Black or Euxine Sea to the Mediterranean, and being possessed of an excellent and spacious harbour in the Golden Horn. Thus a city was first founded on the site in the early days of Greek colonial expansion. Herodotus (4.144) describes the founding as 17 years after the founding of Chalcedon or about 668 BC (and tells the story of Byzas calling the Chalcedonians blind for having overlooked it); Eusebius much later dated the founding to 659 BC.

Constantine I (306-337)

Constantine had altogether more ambitious plans. Having restored the unity of the empire, he was overseeing the progress of major governmental reforms and sponsoring the consolidation of the Christian church, and became well aware that Rome had become an unsatisfactory capital for several reasons. Rome lay too far from the eastern imperial frontiers, and hence also from the armies and the Imperial courts; it offered an undesirable playground for disaffected politicians; it suffered regularly from flooding and from malaria. Yet it had been the capital of the state for over a thousand years, and it will have seemed unthinkable to suggest that that capital be moved.

Nevertheless, Constantine identified the site of Byzantium as the correct place: a city where an emperor could sit, readily defended, with easy access to the Danube or the Euphrates frontiers, his court supplied from the rich gardens and sophisticated workshops of Roman Asia, his treasuries filled by the wealthiest provinces of the empire.

The location of Byzantium attracted Constantine the Great in 324 after a prophetic dream was said to have identified the location of the city; but the true reason behind this prophecy was probably Constantine's final victory over Licinius at the Battle of Chrysopolis (Üsküdar) on the Bosphorus, on September 18, 324, which ended the civil war between the Roman Co-Emperors, and brought an end to the final vestiges of the Tetrarchy system, during which Nicomedia (present-day İzmit, 100 km east of Istanbul) was the most senior Roman capital city. Byzantium (now renamed as Nova Roma which eventually became Constantinopolis, i.e. The City of Constantine) was officially proclaimed as the new capital of the Roman Empire six years later, in 330.

Constantine laid out the expanded city, dividing it into 14 regions, and ornamenting it with great public works worthy of a great imperial metropolis. Yet initially Constantinople did not have all the dignities of Rome. It possessed a proconsul, rather than a prefect of the city. It had no praetors, tribunes or quaestors. Although it did have senators, they held the title clarus, not clarissimus, like those of Rome. Constantinople also lacked the panoply of other administrative offices regulating the food supply, police, statues, temples, sewers, aqueducts or other public works. The new programme of building was carried out in great haste: columns, marbles, doors and tiles were taken wholesale from the temples of the empire and moved to the new city. Similarly, many of the greatest works of Greek and Roman art were soon to be seen in its squares and streets. The emperor stimulated private building by promising householders gifts of land from the imperial estates in Asiana and Pontica, and on 18 May 332 he announced that, as in Rome, free distributions of food would be made to citizens. At the time the amount is said to have been 80,000 rations a day, doled out from 117 distribution points around the city.

File:Constantinople medieval.jpg

Medieval Constantinople

Constantine laid out anew the square at the middle of old Byzantium, naming it the Augusteum. The new senate-house (or Curia) was housed in a basilica on the east side. On the south side of the great square was erected the Great Palace of the emperor with its imposing entrance, the Chalke, and its ceremonial suite known as the Palace of Daphne. Located immediately nearby was the vast Hippodrome for chariot-races, seating over 80,000 spectators, and the Baths of Zeuxippus (both originally built in the time of Septimius Severus). At the entrance at the western end of the Augusteum was the Milion, a vaulted monument from which distances were measured across the Eastern Empire.

From the Augusteum led a great street, the Mese, lined with colonnades. As it descended the First Hill of the city and climbed the Second Hill, it passed on the left the Praetorium or law-court. Then it passed through the oval Forum of Constantine where there was a second senate-house, then on and through the Forum of Taurus and then the Forum of Bous, and finally up the Sixth Hill and through to the Golden Gate on the Propontis. The Mese would be seven Roman miles long to the Golden Gate of the Walls of Theodosius.

Constantine erected a high column in the middle of the Forum, on the Second Hill, with a statue of himself at the top, crowned with a halo of seven rays and looking towards the rising sun.

Divided empire, 395-527

Theodosius I was the last Roman emperor who ruled over an undivided empire

The first known Prefect of the City of Constantinople was Honoratus, who took office on 11 December 359 and held it until 361. The emperor Valens built the Palace of Hebdomon on the shore of the Propontis near the Porta Aurea (Golden Gate), probably for use when reviewing troops. All the emperors up to Zeno and Basiliscus were crowned and acclaimed at the Hebdomon. Theodosius I founded the Church of John the Baptist to house the skull of the saint (today preserved at the Topkapı Palace), put up a memorial pillar to himself in the Forum of Taurus, and turned the ruined temple of Aphrodite into a coach house for the Praetorian Prefect; Arcadius built a new forum named after himself on the Mese, near the walls of Constantine.

Gradually the importance of Constantinople increased. After the shock of the Battle of Adrianople in 378, in which the emperor Valens with the flower of the Roman armies was destroyed by the Goths within a few days' march of the city, Constantinople looked to its defences, and Theodosius II built in 413-414 the 60-foot tall triple-wall fortifications which were never to be breached until the coming of gunpowder. Theodosius also founded a University near the Forum of Taurus, on 27 February 425.

In the 5th century, the Huns, led by Attila, demanded tribute from Constantinople. The city refused to pay, and Attila was about to assault the city when a message from Honoria, a sister of the western Emperor Valentinian III, was interpreted by Attila as a marriage proposal. Turning away from the siege, Attila marched on the Western Empire instead.

Some years later the barbarians overran the Western Empire, its emperors retreated to Ravenna, and at last it met its final ruin. Thereafter, Constantinople became in truth the largest city of the Empire and of the world. Emperors were no longer peripatetic between various court capitals and palaces. They remained in their palace in the Great City, and sent generals to command their armies. The wealth of the Eastern Mediterranean and Western Asia flowed into Constantinople.

Justinian 527-565

The emperor Justinian I (527-565) was known for his successes in war, for his legal reforms and for his public works. It was from Constantinople that his expedition for the reconquest of Africa set sail on or about 21 June 533. Before their departure the ship of the commander, Belisarius, anchored in front of the Imperial palace, and the Patriarch offered prayers for the success of the enterprise.

Chariot-racing had been important in Rome for centuries. In Constantinople, the hippodrome became over time increasingly a place of political significance. It was where (as a shadow of the popular elections of old Rome) the people by acclamation showed their approval of a new emperor; and also where they openly criticized the government, or clamoured for the removal of unpopular ministers. In the time of Justinian, public order in Constantinople became a critical political issue. The entire late Roman and early Byzantine period was one where Christianity was resolving fundamental questions of identity, and the dispute between the orthodox and the monophysites became the cause of serious disorder, expressed through allegiance to the horse-racing parties of the Blues and the Greens, and in the form of a major rebellion of 532, known as the "Nika" riots (from the battle-cry of "Victory!" of those involved).

Fires started by the Nika rioters consumed the basilica of Hagia Sophia, the city's principal church. Justinian commissioned Anthemius of Tralles and Isidore of Miletus to replace it with the incomparable Hagia Sophia, located at the north side of the Augusteum. It was the great cathedral of the Orthodox Church, whose dome was said to be held aloft by God alone, and which was directly connected to the palace so that the imperial family could attend services without passing through the streets.^[4] The dedication took place on December 26 537 in the presence of the emperor, who exclaimed, "O Solomon, I have outdone thee!"^[5]

Justinian also had Anthemius and Isidore demolish and replace the original Church of the Holy Apostles, built by Constantine, with a new church under the same dedication. This was designed in the form of an equally-armed cross with five domes, and ornamented with beautiful mosaics. This church was to remain the burial place of the emperors from Constantine himself until the eleventh century. When the city fell to the Turks in 1453, the church was demolished to make room for the tomb of Mehmet II the Conqueror.

Survival, 565-717

Justinian was succeeded in turn by Justin II, Tiberius II and Maurice, able emperors who had to deal with a deteriorating military situation, especially on the eastern frontier. Maurice reorganized the remaining Byzantine possessions in the west into two Exarchates, the Ravenna and the Carthage. Maurice increased the Exarchates' self-defense capabilities and delegated them to civil authorities. Subsequently there was a period of near-anarchy, which was exploited by the enemies of the Empire.

In the early 7th century the Avars and later the Bulgars overwhelmed much of the Balkans, threatening Constantinople from the west. Simultaneously Persians from the East, the Sassanids invaded and conquered Egypt, Palestine, Syria and Armenia. Heraclius, the exarch of Africa, set sail for the city and assumed the purple. Heraclius accepted the Hellenization of Constantinople and the Eastern Empire by replacing Latin with Greek as its language of government. However, he found the military situation so dire that at first he contemplated moving the imperial capital to Carthage, but the people of Constantinople begged him to stay. He relented, and while Constantinople withstood a siege by 80,000 Avars and the Persian fleet, Heraclius launched a spectacular campaign into the heart of the Persian empire. The Persians were defeated outside Nineveh, and their capital at Ctesiphon was surrounded by the Byzantines. Persian resistance collapsed, and all the lost territories were recovered in 627.

However, the unexpected appearance of the newly-converted and united Muslim Arabs took the territories by surprise from an empire exhausted from fighting against Persia, and the southern provinces were overrun. Byzantine Mesopotamia, Syria, Egypt, and Africa were permanently incorporated into the Muslim Empire in the 7th century. Meanwhile, at much the same time Lombard invaders began an invasion of Italy which was in due course to lead to the peninsula being substantially lost once again to the Empire.

Constantinople was besieged twice by the Arabs, once in a long blockade between 674 and 678, and once again in 717. The second Arab siege was laid both by land and sea. The Arab ground forces, led by Maslama, were annihilated by the city's impregnable walls, the stout resistance of the defenders, freezing winter temperatures, chronic outbreaks of disease, starvation, and ferocious Bulgarian attacks on their camp. Meanwhile, their naval fleet was decimated by the Greek Fire of the Byzantine navy, and the remnants of it were subsequently utterly destroyed in a storm on the return home. The crushing victory of the Byzantines was a severe blow to Caliph Umar II, and the expansion of the Umayyad Caliphate was severely stunted during his reign.

Recovery, 717-1025

For the Byzantines, the victory at Constantinople was an epic triumph. A long period of Byzantine retraction and stagnation came to an end, and the imperial frontier in the east became fixed on the Taurus - Anti-Taurus mountain range in eastern Asia Minor, where it would remain unchanged for the next two hundred years.

Asia Minor became the heartland of the empire, and from this time onwards the Byzantines began a recovery that resulted to the recovery of parts of Greece, Macedonia and Thrace by the year 814. By the early years of the eleventh century, the Bulgarians had been utterly destroyed and annexed to the empire, the Slavs and the Rus' had converted to Orthodoxy. In Italy, the emperor Basil I (867-886) reconquered the whole of the south, restoring Byzantine power to a position stronger than at any time since the seventh century.

In the east, the imperial armies began a major advance during the tenth and eleventh centuries, resulting in the recovery of Crete, Cyprus, Cilicia, Armenia, eastern Anatolia and northern Syria, and the reconquest of the holy city of Antioch.

The Iconoclast controversy, 730-787, 814-842

In the eighth and ninth centuries the iconoclast movement caused serious political unrest throughout the Empire. The emperor Leo III issued a decree in 726 against images, and ordered the destruction of a statue of Christ over one of the doors of the Chalke, an act which was fiercely resisted by the citizens. Constantine V convoked a church council in 754 which condemned the worship of images, after which many treasures were broken, burned, or painted over. Following the death of his son Leo IV in 780, the empress Irene restored the veneration of images through the agency of the Second Council of Nicaea in 787.

The Vikings, from 860

The Vikings (who knew the city as Miklagard - the great city) couldn't resist the city's riches. In 860 they plundered Constantinople for the first time, setting fire to churches and houses, plundering and looting. The emperor was forced to offer gold for peace and later had to pay the Vikings annual tribute to avoid further plundering. There was little trust of the Vikings, if they wanted to trade in the city they had to go through a certain gate followed by the emperor's men, and they had to leave their weapons outside the city walls and couldn't enter with more than 50 at a time.

In 980 emperor Basil II received an unusual gift from Prince Vladimir I(Valdemar) of Kiev. He received an army of 6,000 Scandinavian-Russian Vikings which Basil incorporated into his own army as a single unit, which became known as the "The Axe-Wielding Guard" - after the huge double-edged axes they used in battle. Posterity knows this unit as the Varangians - the sworn. They were the best paid troops in the empire, they were allowed to keep any booty they managed to obtain from the battlefield and towns they conquered. They also had a right to "polutasvarv" (palace plundering) whenever the emperor died, in which they went through the palaces in the capital and grabbed all the treasures and valuables they could carry. The Varangians served the emperor for over 300 years.

Prelude to the Komnenian period 1025 - 1081

In the late eleventh century, catastrophe struck the Byzantine empire. With the imperial armies weakened by years of insufficient funding and civil warfare, Emperor Romanos IV Diogenes suffered a surprise defeat at the hands of Alp Arslan (sultan of the Seljuk Turks) at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071. Romanus was captured, and although the Sultan's peace terms were not excessive, the battle was catastrophic for the Byzantine Empire.

On his release, Romanus found that his enemies had conspired against him to place their own candidate on the throne in his absence. Romanus surrendered and suffered death by torture. The new ruler, Michael VII Ducas, refused to honour the treaty that had been signed by Romanus. In response, the Turks began to move into Anatolia in 1073, while the collapse of the old defensive system meant that they met no opposition. To make matters worse, chaos reigned as the empire's remaining resources were squandered in a series of disastrous civil wars. Thousands of Turkoman tribesmen crossed the unguarded frontier and moved into Anatolia. By 1080, an area of 30,000 square miles had been lost to the empire, and the Turks were within striking distance of Constantinople.

The Komnenoi 1081-1185

The Byzantine Empire under Manuel I, c. 1180.

Under the Komnenian dynasty (1081 - 1185), Byzantium staged a remarkable military, financial and territorial recovery. This is sometimes called the Komnenian restoration, and is closely linked to the establishment of the new military system of this period.

In response to a call for aid from Alexios I Komnenos, the First Crusade assembled at Constantinople in 1096 and set out for Jerusalem. Much of this is documented by the writer and historian Anna Komnene in her work The Alexiad. The Crusaders agreed to return any Byzantine territory they captured during their advance. In this way Alexios gained territory in the north and west of Asia Minor. During the twelfth century Byzantine armies continued to advance, reconquering much of the lost territory in Asia Minor. The recovered provinces included the fertile coastal regions, along with many of the most important cities. By 1180, the Empire had gone a long way to reversing the damage caused by the Battle of Manzikert. Under Manuel Komnenos, the emperor had attained the right to appoint the King of Hungary, and Antioch had become a vassal of the empire.

With the restoration of firm central government, the empire became fabulously wealthy. The population was rising (estimates for Constantinople in the twelfth century vary from approximately 100,000 to 500,000), and towns and cities across the empire flourished. Meanwhile, the volume of money in circulation dramatically increased. This was reflected in Constantinople by the construction of the Blachernae palace, the creation of brilliant new works of art, and the general prosperity of the city at this time. It is possible that an increase in trade, made possible by the growth of the Italian city-states, may have helped the growth of the economy at this time. Certainly, the Venetians and others were active traders in Constantinople, making a living out of shipping goods between the Crusader Kingdoms of Outremer and the West while also trading extensively with Byzantium and Egypt. The Venetians had factories on the north side of the Golden Horn, and large numbers of westerners were present in the city throughout the twelfth century.

In artistic terms, the twelfth century was a very productive period in Byzantium. There was a revival in the mosaic art, for example. Mosaics became more realistic and vivid, with an increased emphasis on depicting three-dimensional forms. There was an increased demand for art, with more people having access to the necessary wealth to commission and pay for such work. According to N.H.Baynes (Byzantium, An Introduction to East Roman Civilization):

"With its love of luxury and passion for colour, the art of this age delighted in the production of masterpieces that spread the fame of Byzantium throughout the whole of the Christian world. Beautiful silks from the work-shops of Constantinople also portrayed in dazzling colour animals - lions, elephants, eagles, and griffins - confronting each other, or represented Emperors gorgeously arrayed on horseback or engaged in the chase."

"From the tenth to the twelfth century Byzantium was the main source of inspiration for the West. By their style, arrangement, and iconography the mosaics of St. Mark's at Venice and of the cathedral at Torcello clearly reveal their Byzantine origin. Similarly those of the Palatine Chapel, the Martorana at Palermo, and the cathedral of Cefalu, together with the vast decoration of the cathedral at Monreale, demonstrate the influence of Byzantium on the Norman Court of Sicily in the twelfth century. Hispano-Moorish art was unquestionably derived from the Byzantine. Romanesque art owes much to the East, from which it borrowed not only its decorative forms but the plan of some of its buildings, as is proved, for instance, by the domed churches of south-western France. Princes of Kiev, Venetian doges, abbots of Monte Cassino, merchants of Amalfi, and the Norman kings of Sicily all looked to Byzantium for artists or works of art. Such was the influence of Byzantine art in the twelfth century, that Russia, Venice, southern Italy and Sicily all virtually became provincial centres dedicated to its production."

The Palaeologi, 1204-1453

However, after the demise of the Comnenian dynasty at the close of the twelfth century, the Byzantine Empire declined steeply. Disastrous misrule by the Angelid dynasty (1185-1204) resulted in the collapse of the empire and the disastrous capture and sack of Constantinople by soldiers of the Fourth Crusade on April 13 1204. For the subsequent half-century or more, Constantinople remained the focal point of the so-called Latin Empire. During this time, the Byzantine emperors made their capital at nearby Nicaea, which acted as the temporary capital and as a resort for refugees from the sacked Constantinople. From this base, Constantinople was eventually recaptured from its last Latin ruler, Baldwin II, by Byzantine forces under Michael VIII Palaeologus in 1261. After the reconquest by the Palaeologi, the imperial palace of Blachernae in the north-west of the city became the main imperial residence, the old Great Palace upon the shores of the Bosporus going into decline.

Importance

There are a number of dimensions to the historical significance of Constantinople.

Culture

Constantinople was the largest and richest urban centre in the Eastern Mediterranean during the late Roman Empire, mostly due to its strategic position commanding the trade routes between the Aegean and the Black Sea. After the fourth century, when Emperor Constantine I relocated his eastern capital to Byzantium, it would remain the capital of the eastern, Greek speaking empire for over a thousand years. As the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire (now commonly known as the Byzantine Empire), the Greeks called Constantinople simply "the City", while throughout Europe it was known as the "Queen of Cities." In its heyday, roughly corresponding to what are now known as the Middle Ages, it was the richest and largest European city, exerting a powerful cultural pull and dominating economic life in the Mediterranean. Visitors and merchants were especially struck by the beautiful monasteries and churches of the city, particularly Hagia Sophia, or the Church of Holy Wisdom. A Russian 14th-century traveller, Stephen of Novgorod, wrote, "As for St Sophia, the human mind can neither tell it nor make description of it". The cumulative influence of the city on the west, over the many centuries of its existence, is incalculable. In terms of technology, art and culture, as well as sheer size, Constantinople was without parallel anywhere in Europe for a thousand years.

Politics

The city provided a defence for the eastern provinces of the old Roman Empire against the barbarian invasions of the 5th century. The 60-foot tall walls built by Theodosius II (413-414) were essentially invincible to the barbarians who, coming from the Lower Danube, found easier targets to the west than the richer provinces to the east in Asia. Many scholars argue that this allowed the east to develop relatively unmolested, while Rome and the west collapsed. With the emergence of Christianity and the rise of Islam, Constantinople became the veritable gates to Christian Europe that stood at the fore of Islamic expansion. As the Byzantine Empire was situated in-between the Islamic world and the Christian west, so did Constantinople act as Europe’s first line-of-defense against Arab advances in the 7th and 8th centuries. The city, and the empire, would ultimately fall to the Ottomans by 1453, but its enduring legacy had provided Europe centuries of resurgence following the collapse of Rome.

Architecture

The influence of Byzantine architecture and art can be seen in the copies taken from it throughout Europe. Particular examples include St. Mark's in Venice, the basilicas of Ravenna, and many churches throughout the Slavic East. Also, alone in Europe until the 13th century Italian florin, the Empire continued to produce sound gold coinage, the solidus of Diocletian becoming the bezant prized throughout the Middle Ages. Its city walls (the Theodosian Walls) were much imitated (for example, see Caernarfon Castle) and its urban infrastructure was moreover a marvel throughout the Middle Ages, keeping alive the art, skill and technical expertise of the Roman Empire.

Religious

Constantine's foundation gave prestige to the Bishop of Constantinople, who eventually came to be known as the Ecumenical Patriarch, vying for honour with the Pope.^[6] They were often regarded as "first among equals", a situation which contributed to the Great Schism that divided Christianity into Western Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy from 1054 onwards (although the anathemas that each religious leader pronounced against the other have been withdrawn in recent times). The Patriarch of Constantinople is still today considered outstanding in the Orthodox Church, along with the Patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, Moscow and the later Slavic Patriarchs. This position is largely ceremonial but still today carries great weight, particularly since by tradition Constantinople carries the administrative burden of the orthodox churches in 'barbarian lands'.

Constantinople appears as a city of wondrous majesty, beauty, remoteness and nostalgia in William Butler Yeats' 1926 poem Sailing to Byzantium.
Robert Graves, author of I, Claudius, also wrote Count Belisarius, a historical novel about Belisarius, much of which is set in Constantinople under Justinian I.
Constantinople's change of name was the theme for a song made famous by The Four Lads and later covered by They Might Be Giants and many others entitled "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)". "Constantinople" was also the title of the opening track of The Residents' EP Duck Stab!, released in 1978.
Constantinople under Justinian is the scene of "A Flame in Byzantium" by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro released in 1987.
"Constantinople" is the title of a song by The Decemberists.
Stephen Lawhead's novel "Byzantium" (1996) is set in 9th Century Constantinople.
Filmmaker Peter Jackson said he wanted images of Minas Tirith in his The Lord of the Rings trilogy to look like "Constantinople in the morning."
"Constantinople 1453 (On the Eve of the Fall)" is a song by American heavy metal band Phoenix Reign.
"Constantinople" is a song by The Residents.

Notes

^ BBC - Timeline: Turkey
^ Britannica, Istanbul
^ Lexicorient, Istanbul
^ St Sophia was converted into a mosque after the Ottoman conquest of the city, and is now a museum
^ Source for quote: Scriptores originum Constantinopolitanarum, ed T Preger I 105 (see A A Vasiliev, History of the Byzantine Empire, 1952, vol I p 188).
^ The Fourth Canon of the First Council of Constantinople: http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/NPNF2-14/Npnf2-14-61.htm#P3914_689786

External links

Istanbul pictures
Monuments of Byzantium - Pantokrator Monastery of Constantinople
Mosaics of Hagia Sophia - The Deesis Mosaic from Hagia Sophia
Constantinoupolis on the web Select internet resources on the history and culture of Constantinople
Info on the name change from the Foundation for the Advancement of Sephardic Studies and Culture
Welcome to Constantinople, documenting the monuments of Byzantine Constantinople, compiled by Robert Ousterhout, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Constantinople, from History of the Later Roman Empire, by J.B. Bury
History of Constantinople from the "New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia."
Byzantium 1200, A project aimed at creating computer reconstructions of the Byzantine Monuments located in Constantinople as of year 1200.
Istanbul - Constantinople - Byzantium 67 pictures of Constantinople or Istanbul
Interactive map with points of interest

[1] BBC - Timeline: Turkey

[2] Britannica, Istanbul

[3] Lexicorient, Istanbul

[4] St Sophia was converted into a mosque after the Ottoman conquest of the city, and is now a museum

[5] Source for quote: Scriptores originum Constantinopolitanarum, ed T Preger I 105 (see A A Vasiliev, History of the Byzantine Empire, 1952, vol I p 188).

[6] The Fourth Canon of the First Council of Constantinople: http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/NPNF2-14/Npnf2-14-61.htm#P3914_689786

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