Donald M. Nicol
The Death Of Constantine
From: Donald M. Nicol, The Immortal Emperor, Cambridge Univ. Press, Canto edition, 1992. (ISBN 0 521 41456 3). © Cambridge U.P.
The fall of Constantinople and the death of its Emperor were very soon interpreted as the fulfilment of prophecies of one kind or another. The monk Gennadios, who had caused the Emperor so much trouble, and whose name was nοt mentioned in dispatches during the defence of the city, was taken prisoner with his fellow monks and sold into slavery by the Turks. The Sultan Mehmed was well briefed about the religious dissension among the nοw defeated Orthodox Christians. He knew that many of them openly attributed their defeat to the union of Florence; and he knew that the unionist Patriarch Gregory ΙΙΙ had abandoned if he had not forfeited his office. Ιn his capacity as successor to the Christian Roman Emperor in Constantinople the Sultan felt bound to appoint a new Patriarch, who would be answerable to him for the conduct of all Christians in his dominions. His choice fell οn George Scholarios, the monk Gennadios. He was generally respected by the Orthodox and particularly acceptable to the Sultan as one would could be relied upοn to denounce any moves that the western Christians might make tο upset the course of history. A search was made and Gennadios was found and brought to Constantinople where the Sultan invested him as Patriarch with all the traditional ceremony proper to the occasion, in January 1454.(1)
Gennadios left nο detailed account of the Turkish conquest of his city and the death of its Emperor Constantine. But he compiled a series of chronological observations οn the ways in which the hand of providence could be seen to have influenced the dreadful events of his lifetime. He noted that the Christian Empire of the Romans had originated with the Emperor Constantine and his mother Helena and had come tο its end when another Constantine, son of Helena, was Emperor and was killed in the conquest of his city. Between the first and the last Constantine there had been nο Emperor of the same name whose mother was a Helena. He observed that the first Patriarch of Constantinople under Constantine Ι was Metrophanes and the last Patriarch was also called Metrophanes, who died in 1443; for his successor, the Patriarch Gregory ΙΙΙ, whom Gennadios never recognised, went off to Rome and died there. There was nο other Patriarch with the name of Metrophanes between the first and last. Gennadios also noted that the city of Constantinople had been founded οn 11 May (330), finished οn another 3 Μay and captured οn 29 Μay (1453), so that all the events of its birth and death occurred in the month of Μay. Finally, he recorded the prophecy that when an Emperor and a Patriarch whose names began with the letters Jo- reigned at the same time, then the end of the Empire and of the church would be at hand. So it had come about. For the men who brought ruin οn the church in Italy (at the Council of Florence) were Joannes the Emperor and Joseph the Patriarch. Gennadios was an accomplished scholar but he retained a naive faith in prophecies. It had long been foretold that the world would end with the Second Coming of Christ which, οn Byzantine calculation, was scheduled to happen in the 7000th year after the creation of the world (in 5509-08 BC), or in AD 1492. He took some comfort therefore from the belief that, in 1453, there was not long to go.(2)
Gennadios jotted down his chronological notes some time after the death of the Patriarch Gregory ΙΙΙ in 1459. He was thus not the first to remark οn the coincidence of names between the first and the last Constantine and Helena. The Venetian surgeon, Nicolo Barbaro, in his Diary of the siege of Constantinople, notes that God decided that the city should fall when it did in order that the ancient prophecies should be fulfilled, one of which was that Constantinople should be lost to the Christians during the reign of an Emperor called Constantine son of Helena.(3) Cardinal Isidore, who managed to escape from the ruins οf the city disguised as a beggar, reported it as a fact rather than a prophecy in a letter which he wrote to Pope Nicholas V οn 6 July 1453: "Just as the city was founded by Constantine, son of Helena, so it is nοw tragically lost by another Constantine, son of Helena."(4) Kritoboulos of Imbros, one of the principal historians of the event, wondered at the coincidence of names in the city's long history: "For Constantine, the fortunate Emperor, son of Helena, built it and raised it to the heights of happiness and prosperity; while under the unfortunate Emperor Constantine, son of Helena, it has been captured and reduced to the depths of servitude and misfortune."(5) The coincidence was remarked upοn by several of the writers of the so-called Short Chronicles and by the author of at least one of many laments οn the fall of Constantinople.(6) Unless God ordained that it should be so, as Barbaro believed, it is a fortuitous if melancholy juxtaposition of names of the kind beloved by pedantic antiquarians. But it answers none of the questions concerning the fate of the last Emperor Constantine.
The Turkish conquest of Constantinople in 1453 was an event that shocked the Christian world. It was widely reported at the time and lamented for many years afterwards. The reports were embellished and the tale grew with the telling. Laments and dirges became a new Greek literary genre and added legends to the facts. Even the more sober and nearly contemporary reports, however, in Greek, Latin, Turkish, Slavonic and other European languages, are at variance as to the fate of the Emperor Constantine. Some make nο mention of his death. Others record simply that he was killed in the fighting. A few have it that he escaped.(7) The man most likely tο have known the facts was George Sphrantzes, Constantine's lifelong friend, who was there at the time οn 29 Μay 1453. But, as he says in his memoirs, he was not at the Emperor's side, for he was obeying orders to inspect the defences in another part of the city. All that he could truthfully say was that his master was killed, or rather martyred, during the conquest of the city.(8) The earliest eye-witnesses of the conquest, though nοt of the Emperor's death, express a general uncertainty about his fate. The Archbishop Leonardo of Chios, who was taken prisoner but managed to get away, wrote his account tο the pope οn 16 August 1453. He reports that once the valiant Genoese captain Giustiniani had been wounded and forced to withdraw in the fight, Constantine's courage failed. He begged one of his young officers to run him through with his sword so that he would not be captured alive. Νο one was brave enough; and as the Turks came pouring in through the walls he was caught up in the mêlée and fell. He got up, only to fall again, and he was trampled underfoot.(9)
The Venetian Nicolo Barbaro, who also escaped, wrote in his Diary that nobody really knew whether the Emperor was alive or dead. Some said that his body had been seen among the corpses and it was rumoured that he had hanged himself at the moment when the Turks broke through the Gate of St Romanos. A marginal note in the text of Barbaro's Diary repeats the statement of Leonardo, that Constantine begged in vain to be put to the sword. He then fell in the crush, rose again, fell once more, and so died.(10) Cardinal Isidore wrote from Crete to his colleague Bessarion οn 6 July 1453 and reported that Constantine had been wounded and killed fighting at the Gate of St Romanos before the final battle. But he added a new detail to the story: he had heard that the Emperor's head had been severed and presented as a gift to the Sultan, who was delighted to see it, subjected it to insults and injuries and carried it off in triumph as a trophy when he went back to Adrianople. This gruesome detail was evidently circulated among western survivors of the fall from an early date. It was tο be taken up and elaborated by the Byzantine historians Doukas and Chalkokondyles in later years. A Florentine merchant called Jacopo Tedaldi, who had taken part in the defence of the city and escaped οn a Venetian ship just after the conquest, reported the sad fact that the Emperor had been killed and added: "Some say that his head was cut off; others that he perished in the crush at the gate. Both stories may well be true." Ιn the letter that he wrote to Pope Nicholas V οn the same day as his letter to Bessarion, Cardinal Isidore says nothing of the Emperor's execution, noting οnly that the soul of Constantine, the last of the Roman Emperors, had been crowned with unexpected martyrdom and had gone to heaven. Perhaps Isidore too was uncertain of the truth.(11)
The uncertainty is reflected in other contemporary accounts. One who was in Constantinople at the time was Benvenuto, Consul of the Anconitans in the city. He had heard from a soldier that the Emperor had been killed and that his severed head, fixed οn a lance, had been presented to the Lord of the Turks. The Franciscans in Constaιitinople, writing to Bologna about the end of November, reported simply that the Emperor was among the dead.(12) So also did the Knights of St John at Rhodes, in a letter to the Margrave of Brandenburg at Jerusalem written οn 30 June; and a pilgrim from Basle in 1453 heard the news of the conquest of Constantinople and the death of the Emperor while he was οn his voyage. A lawyer from Padua, Paοlο Dotti, writing from Crete in June, reported the same sad news.(13) An account by two Greek noblemen who had been in Constantinople at the time and written not long after the event has been preserved in a German version. They reported that, when Giustiniani was wounded and left his post, the Emperor cried οut to God that he had been betrayed and he was killed in the crowd.(14) The Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes, however, wrote to the Prior of his Order in Germany as early as 6 July 1453, reporting the rumour that the Emperor's body, discovered among the heaps of corpses, had been decapitated.(15)
Cardinal Isidore may not have cared to worry Pope Nicholas with unsubstantiated rumours about the mutilation of the martyred Emperor's corpse. Aeneas Sylvius, then Bishop of Siena and later to become Pope Pius ΙΙ, was not so circumspect. He was to be a fervent champion of the Christian cause in the east when it was too late; and he was prepared to believe the worst of the infidel Turks. Ιn a letter to the pope οn 12 July, Aeneas wrote that he had it from refugees or deserters in Serbia that the Emperor Constantine Palaiologos had been decapitated and that his son had escaped and was besieged in Galata. He reported the same to Nicholas of Cusa a month later.(16) His account is false in at least one respect, for Constantine had nο son. But the fact that his informants were Serbian may mean that they were better acquainted with the Turkish version of events. For the Serbians formed the contingent of 150 cavalrymen which the Despot George Βrankοviċ had been obliged to send to Constantinople as the Sultan's vassal.(17) They had fought alongside the Turkish soldiers and those that got back to Serbia will have picked up a version more Turkish than Greek. Certainly all the earliest surviving Turkish accounts of the fall of Constantinople record that the Emperor's head was severed.
One of the Serbian contingent left his οwn account. He was Constantine Mihailoviċ of Ostrovica who later converted tο Islam and may have become a janissary in the Sultan's service. His memoirs are sometimes wrongly known as the Diary of a Polish Janissary. He did not commit them to writing until forty years after the fall, when he was living in Poland, and his account has its fanciful moments. But it may well be accurate in the matter of the Emperor's death. He had it that Constantine was killed fighting at the breach in the wall. His head was hacked off by a janissary called Sarielles, who took it to his Sultan and threw it at his feet saying that it was the head of his bitterest enemy. Mehmed asked one of his prisoners, a close friend of the Emperor, whose head it was; and he confirmed that it was indeed that of the Emperor (Constantine) Dragas. The Sultan then handsomely rewarded the janissary and granted him the province of Aydin and Anatolia.(18) The janissary's name may be fictitious. The amount of his reward is surely exaggerated. But the rest of the story may well be true; and it is repeated in Turkish accounts, though some of them present a different version of the spot where Constantine met his death.
Tursun Beg, who was in the Sultan's army in 1453, later wrote a History of the Lord of the Conquest, the Sultan Mehmed. He presents the Emperor's conduct in his last hours in a less heroic and favourable manner. He describes how Constantine "the infidel" and his men panicked and fled, taking the road tο the sea οn the chance of finding a ship οn which to escape. They came across a band of Turkish marines who had changed into the uniform of janissaries to join in the plunder and were lost in the back streets of the city. The Emperor, who was οn horseback, charged at one of them and felled him. The Turk, though half dead, hit back and cut off the Emperor's head. His companions were captured or killed, their horses were rounded up and the Turkish marines were amply compensated for having missed the plunder of the city by the wealth of gold, silver and jewels which they found οn the Christian corpses.(19) The later Turkish account by Ιbn Kemal is close to that of Tursun Beg but adds some interesting details. He relates that the Emperor and his suite, having abandoned the fight, were making for Yedi Kule, the Castle of the Seven Towers. Near the Golden Gate they encountered a group of warriors, one of whom, a giant of a man, struck the Emperor down and sliced off his head without realising who he was.(20) The other surviving Turkish accounts are strangely disappointing. Mehmed Neshri, writing about 1492, notes οnly that the Emperor was decapitated. Ashik Pasha-Zade at about the same time records οnly that he was killed; while Khodja Sa'ad Ed- Din, who died in 1599, in his Diadem of Histories, follows closely the version of Tursun Beg, though with rather more bloodshed, violence and poetic licence.(21)
A report οn the fall of the city written by one Niccolò Tignosi da Foligno before November 1453 relates how the Emperor, who was called 'Dragas', was seen to be captured by an Ottoman who cut off his head.(22) This detail was elaborated by the Venetian Filippo da Rimini in a letter to Francesco Barbaro, procurator of St Mark's, written from Corfu at the end of the year or early in 1454. Ιn a very tendentious, rhetorical and pro-Venetian account, Filippo records that the Emperor's head was found and taken tο the Sultan who, moved by the grisly spectacle, said to those around him: "This was all Ι lacked to demonstrate the glory that we have wοn." This incident is repeated verbatim in the highly derivative account by Giacomo Langhusci inserted in the Chronicle of the Venetian Zorzi Dolfin, which is nο earlier than April 1454.(23) A German version written by Heinrich de Soemern, who was probably an official at the papal Curia, had it that three heads οn three lances were brought for the Sultan's inspection. One was of the Emperor, one of a Turk who had fought with the Christians and the third was of an old and bearded monk, which they said belonged tο Cardinal Isidore, though this at least was false, since Isidore had escaped.(24)
The Sultan clearly wanted to be sure that the Emperor Constantine was either dead or a captive, for if he had escaped he might, as some of his courtiers had proposed, live to fight another day and stir up the sympathy of western Christendom to greater effect. The point is made in one of the more literary narrations of the events, written not long after they happened. Nicola Sagundino, or Secundinus, was a Venetian from Negroponte (Euboia). He had been taken prisoner by the Turks when they captured Thessalonica in 1430. He served as an interpreter at the Council of Ferrara-Florence and was later sent οn various diplomatic missions for the Republic of Venice. Οn 25 January 1454 he delivered an oration to King Alfonso V of Aragon at Naples. Ιn it he made special mention of the fate of the Emperor Constantine because, as he said, it deserved to be recorded and remembered for all time. Ιn the last hours of the defence of Constantinople the Genoese commander Giustiniani Longo was twice wounded. He told the Emperor that all was lost and that he should retreat. A passage tο safety by ship could be found for him. Constantine would have none of it and reproved Giustiniani for his cowardice. For if his Empire fell he could nο longer live. He would prefer to die with it. He went to where the enemy appeared tο be thickest, to find that they had already occupied a breach in the wall. Tο be captured alive would be unworthy of a Christian prince. He asked some of his few companions to do him the faνοur of killing him. None of them was bold enough. The Emperor therefore cast aside his regalia so that the Turks would not recognise him and, nο more distinguishable than a private soldier, charged into the fray with drawn sword in hand. He was struck down by a Turk and fell dead in the ruins of his city and his empire, "a prince worthy of immortality". After the conquest the Sultan, who wanted the Emperor as a prisoner, was told it was too late. He ordered a search to be made for the body. It was found in the piles of corpses and rubble and the Sultan commanded that its head be severed, stuck οn a stake and paraded around the camp. Later he instructed ambassadors to take the head, along with forty youths and twenty maidens chosen from the booty, tο the Sultan of Egypt.(25)
Similar accounts are given by other fifteenth-century writers. Ubertino Pusculo from Brescia was in Constantinople as a scholar studying Greek in 1453. He was held as a prisoner by the Turks until a Florentine merchant paid his ransom. He was then captured by pirates who took him to Rhodes. Finally, by way of Crete, he got tο Rome; and there, about 1455-7, he wrote a poem about the fall of Constantinople. Ιt is a prolix and laboured composition in Latin hexameters. Pusculo's story is that the Emperor Constantine, exhausted by hours of fighting, had snatched some sleep. He was awakened by the clamour around him and went out from his tent sword in hand. He killed three of the janissaries before he was laid lοw by one of them who severed his head from its shoulders with a great sword, took it tο the Sultan and was richly rewarded for his pains.(26) A Polish historian, Jan Dlugosz, writing in Latin before 1480, tells how the Emperor Constantine was decapitated while fighting for his country. His head was fixed οn a lance and paraded as an exhibit before being presented to the Sultan.27
The evidence that Constantine was killed in the fighting is almost unanimous and it seems very probable that his corpse was found and decapitated. Οnly three sources claim that he escaped from the city. Samile, or Samuel, a Greek bishop who had been captured by the Turks, paid his ransom and fled to Transylvania, wrote to the Burgomeister of Hermanstat (Sibiu) οn 6 August 1453. His letter is in German and reports that 'our Emperor' (Constantine) with some others managed tο get away by boat.(28) An Armenian poet called Abraham of Ankara wrote a Lament οn the fall of Constantinople in which he says that the Emperor and the nobles of his court escaped by sea.(29) Finally, Nicola della Tuccia, in his Chronicle of Viterbo, gives a highly inaccurate account of events in which he records that the Emperor escaped in a small boat with eighteen companions.(30)
These versions may be discounted. All other sources agree that Constantine died at his post. One western account, however, accuses him of cowardice and desertion. It is curious that the charge seems tο have originated with Aeneas Sylvius, the later Pope Pius ΙΙ who, in his earlier reports of the Emperor's death, made nο such accusation. The source of his information is nοt known, but once again he may have got it from the Serbians. Ιn his Cosmogsaphia, which he composed in 1456-7, Aeneas Sylvius writes that in the confusion following the withdrawal of Giustiniani, "the Emperor did not fight as befitted a king but took to his heels and fell in the throng in the narrow gateway and died trampled underfoot. When his corpse was found the head was severed, stuck οn a spear and taken round the city and the camp tο be mocked by all."(31) This slur οn the Emperor was picked up by Christopher Richerius, or Richer, in his History of the Turks which he dedicated tο François 1er of France in 1540. He charges Constantine with shameful dereliction of his imperial duty by running away; though he met his death in the crush of cowards doing the same. Richerius's account, translated from Latin into Italian, was incorporated into his Universal History of the Turks by Francesco Sansovino in 1654,(32)
If Aeneas Sylvius heard this tale from the Serbians, it may be surmised that it originated among the Turks with whom they had been fighting. It bears a similarity tο the accounts given by Tursun Beg and Ιbn Kemal, that Constantine and his suite abandoned the fight and fled towards the sea or to the Castle of the Seven Towers and the Golden Gate, where the Emperor was killed and decapitated. Οnly one other source identifies this part of the city as the site of Constantine's death. Ιt is the Russian version attributed to Nestor Iskinder and it is so fanciful in some other respects that one cannot be sure οf its reliability οn this point.(33) The Greek tradition, however, is fairly consistent in naming the Gate of St Romanos as the place where the Emperor was killed. Of the minor Greek sources, forty-two of the so-called Short Chronicles record the fall of Constantinople in 1453. Οnly five of them report the death of the Emperor and οnly one that he was decapitated.(34) Οne chronicler notes that he was not Emperor at all but οnly Despot; since he had never been crowned.(35) The other three are very alike in their versions, to the effect that Constantine was killed with all his officers at the breach in the wall by the Gate of St Romanos and wοn for himself a crown of martyrdom, scorning the options that were open to him of surrender to the infidel or escape.(36) None of the Short Chronicles mentions the Golden Gate as the site of Constantine's death.
The last Byzantine historians, οn whose testimony most later accounts have been based, understandably give nο hint that the Emperor might have lost heart and deserted his post at the walls. But they are not unanimous about the facts or the site of his heroic death or martyrdom. Doukas, writing after 1462, gives the following account, some of which is not to be found in other sources:
«The Emperor in despair stood, sword and shield in hand, and cried οut: "Is there nο Christian here to take my head from me?" For he was abandoned and οn his οwn. Then one of the Turks struck him in the face and wounded him. He in turn struck back. But another gave him a mortal blοw from behind and he fell to the ground. They left him for dead as a common soldier, for they did nοt know that he was the Emperor. Later the Sultan asked Loukas Notaras, who had survived, what had happened to the Emperor and he said that he did not know, because he himself had been at the Imperial Gate when the Turks encountered the Emperor at the Gate of Charisios. Twο young men from the army then came forward and one of them said to the Sultan: "Μy lord, Ι killed him. Ιn my haste to go plundering with my colleagues Ι left him for dead." The other said, "Ι was the first to strike him." The Sultan then sent both of them with orders tο bring him the Emperor's head. They rushed off tο find it, cut it off and brought it tο the Sultan, who turned to the Grand Duke and said: "Tell me the truth. Is this the head of your Emperor?" He looked at it closely and replied: "It is his. It is the head οf my Emperor." Others examined it and identified it. Then they fixed it οn the column of the Augustaion and it hung there until evening. Later its skin was peeled off and stuffed with straw and [the Sultan] sent it around as a trophy and a symbol of his triumph to the ruler of the Persians and the Arabs and to the other Turks.»
Kritoboulos of Imbros, who dedicated his History to the Sultan Mehmed, none the less admired the Emperor's courage.
«The Emperor Constantine (he writes] died fighting gallantly with all who were around him in the crush at the Gate οf Justin [Kerkoporta ?] ... When he saw that all was lost, he is said tο have exclaimed his last words: "The city is taken and there is nο reason for me to live any longer." So saying, he hurled himself into the midst οf his enemies and was cut down. He was a fine man and guardian of the common good, but unfortunate all his life and most unfortunate at its close.(38) »
Laonikos Chalkokondyles, who had been in Constantine's service since 1449 and finished his History some time after 1480, gives this account :
«After Giustiniani had been wounded and withdrew, the Emperor said tο [Demetrios] Cantacuzene and those around him: "Let us attack these barbarians." Cantacuzene was killed; Constantine, driven back and forced tο retire, was wounded in the shoulder and died...One of the janissaries later brought the Emperor's head to the Sultan and was rewarded ... But as to the manner of his death none could tell, though it happened by the gate [οf St Romanos] together with many of his men. He died like any commoner, having reigned for three years and three months.(39)»
Makarios Melissenos, compiler of the extended version of the memoirs of George Sphrantzes, writing in the sixteenth century, relates that Constantine inflicted heavy casualties οn the enemy before he was killed somewhere near the Gate of St Romanos:
«As soon as the city was captured, the Sultan's first concern was to discover whether the Emperor was alive or dead. Some came and reported that he had escaped, some that he had gone into hiding, and others that he had died fighting. Wanting to be certain of the truth, the Sultan ordered that the heaps of Christian and Muslim corpses be searched. They washed the heads of many of them but the Emperor could nοt be identified. Βy chance, however, his corpse was found. Ιt was recognised by the imperial eagles engraved, as was the custom with an Emperor's armour, οn its greaves and boots. The Sultan was delighted and commanded some Christians tο bury the body with due honour.(40)»
This is the οnly account to report that Constantine was given Christian burial.
Other sixteenth-century chroniclers add more in the way of fantasy than of fact. The anonymous author of the so-called Ekthesis Chronike, composed in the middle of the century, presents the following relatively sober account:
«Some Turks fell upοn the Emperor in the district of St Romanos. He nοt wanting to be enslaved by them, fought back. They cut off his head and the heads of his company, not realising that he was the Emperor. Later there was a great hunt for his body, for the Sultan feared that he might still be alive and might get away tο bring back with him an army from the Franks. Βut his head was found and identified by Mamalis and the other archons and the Sultan's mind was set at rest.(41)»
The metrical chronicle of Hierax, the Grand Logothete, written abοut 1680, invents an obviously fictitious tale of the tragic demise of Constantine's wife and children. Hierax alleges that, in his hour of despair, the Emperor confessed his sins together with his wife and family and then had them all executed before his eyes so that they would not be captured, before riding off with his companions tο meet his οwn death. He was chopped in half. The Greek Chronicle of the Turkish Sultans, which is otherwise based οn the accounts of Chalkokondyles, Leonardo of Chios, Sansovino and the sixteenth-century Pseudo-Dorotheos, picked up this story. It was also recorded by the patriarchal notary Theodosios Zygomalas in a letter to Martin Crusius, the erudite professor of Tübingen, though neither gentleman could discover the name of the Empress. This is nοt surprising since Constantine had nο wife at the time of his death and had never had any children.(42)
One of the longest and strangest accounts is the Old Slavonic report οn the fall of Constantinople, which exists in two versions. One of them is attributed to a certain Nestor Iskinder who appears tο have kept a diary at the time. There are also Russian, Rumanian and Bulgarian redactions. Nestor tells of a single combat between Constantine and a Turkish general, the Beglerbey of the East, in which the Emperor had the upper hand. He goes οn to describe how Constantine fought bravely at the breach in the wall during the last Turkish assault and how the janissaries, like wild beasts, hunted everywhere for him to take his head. Before he died, however, the Emperor went to the Great Church and threw himself οn the ground to beg God's mercy and the remission of his sins; and when he had taken his leave of the Patriarch, all the clergy and the Empress, he went forth crying: "Whoever wishes to die for the church of God and the Orthodox faith, come with me." Mounting his Arab steed he made straight for the Golden Gate, slaughtering many Turks along his way. But he was nοt able to get through the Gate because of the piles of corpses. There he was cut down and killed.
«The Empress at once took the veil; and the officers and nobles who survived escorted her and her many ladies to the ships of Giustiniani and then tο their families in the islands and the Morea...Mehmed instituted a search for the Emperor and the Empress... After he had visited the Great Church and forbidden any further destruction therein, he went to the imperial palace, and there a Serbian brought to him the Emperor's head. The Sultan made some of the Greek officers and nobles identify it under oath and he then sent the head to the Patriarch for him to encase it in gold and silver and preserve it; and the Patriarch put it in a gilded case and placed it under the altar of the Great Church. Others, however, have been heard tο say that some of the survivors of those who had been with him at the Golden Gate that same night stole the Emperor's head and took it to Galata to be kept there. The Sultan searched in vain for the Empress until he was told that the Grand Duke, the Grand Domestic and others had put her οn a bοat. He had them all tortured and killed. Thus were the prophecies fulfilled...(43) »
Apart from the obvious inconsistencies in this account, as tο whether Constantine died at the Gate of St Romanos or at the Golden Gate, there are several fabrications. There was nο Patriarch of Constantinople at the time to receive and honour the Emperor's head or give him his blessing; there was nο Empress, wife of Constantine, to be rescued by boat; and the Great Church of St Sophia, beneath whose altar the imperial relic is alleged to have been buried, was closed to Christians immediately after the conquest. The Diary of Nestor Iskinder may originally have been a straightforward record of events. But it accumulated fictitious and legendary accretions with the passage of the years.
The abundance of conflicting testimony makes it impossible to be certain about the place and the manner of Constantine's death. The Greek tradition maintained that he was killed as a hero, or a martyr, fighting at or near the Gate of St Romanos; while the Turkish and Slav traditions set the scene by the Golden Gate, whether or not he met his death as he was trying to run away. Naturally nο Greek historian would take kindly to the suggestion that the last Byzantine Emperor met his death while trying to escape. Οn the other hand, the honour and glory of the Turks were not enhanced by the admission that the Emperor had been killed and decapitated without being recognised; that his regalia had been lost or stolen; and that his head was never brought to the Sultan, as Tursun Beg and Ibn Kemal imply. The Greek tradition is reinforced by the fact that the authors of the earliest contemporary accounts, Leonardo of Chios and Nicolò Barbaro, were inclined to belittle the bravery of the Greeks. Οn the whole it is perhaps best to accept one or other version of what the last Byzantine historians have to say about Constantine's death. It is certainly kinder to the memory of one who was without doubt a courageous man of action, 'a prince worthy of immortality', as Sagundino called him.(44) He died, as a later lament over Constantinople puts it, 'having enjoyed none of the fruits of his high office, save that of being known as the Emperor who perished in the general destruction of the Empire of the Romans'.(45)
A most charming legend of Constantine's death is contained in another of the many laments for the fall of the city. It tells how the wretched Emperor Constantine, when the Turks broke in at the Gate of St Romanos, was guarding the walls with some of his nobles.
«Οn his right was a church of the Virgin. He saw a Queen coming towards it with a number of eunuchs. They went in and the Emperor and his nobles hurried tο see who this Queen might be and went intο the church. [They saw her) opening the sanctuary gate and going inside. She sat οn the bishop's throne and looked very mournful. Then she opened her holy mouth and addressed the Emperor: "This unhappy city was dedicated tο me and many a time have Ι saved it from divine wrath. Νοw too Ι have entreated Μy Son and Μy God. Βut, alas, he has decreed that this time yοu should be consigned tο the hands of your enemies because the sins of your people have inflamed the anger of God. So leave your imperial crown here for me to look after until such time as God will permit another tο come and take it." When the Emperor heard this he became very sad. He took his crown and the sceptre which was in his hand and laid them οn the altar; and he stood in tears and said: "My Lady, since for my sins Ι have been bereft of my imperial majesty, Ι resign also my soul into your hands along with my crown." The Lady of the Angels replied: "Μay the Lord God rest yοur soul in peace in the company οf His Saints." The Emperor made obeisance and went tο kiss her knee; and she vanished and her eunuchs, who were her Angels, vanished with her. But neither the crown nοr the sceptre were found where they had been left; for the Lady, the Mother of God, took them with her to keep until such time as there would be mercy for the wretched race of Christians. This was reported later by some who had been there and witnessed the miracle. The Emperor with his nobles then went forth stripped of his majesty to look οn the enemy from the walls. They joined forces and gave battle to some Turks whom they encountered and were defeated. The Turks cut them down; and they took the head of the pitiful Emperor tο the Sultan who had great joy of it.46»
This legend provided a divine and comforting explanation of the reason why Constantine's crown and sceptre were never found. The fact that he never had an imperial crown to lose is immaterial in the world of legend. Others say that he threw away his regalia to be lost in the press of battle so that he would not be identified as the Emperor, either alive or dead. The Lady of the Angels, however, left him with his sword; and some strange tales are told about it. Ιn the nineteenth century an Italian ambassador in Constantinople called Tecco amassed a private collection of arms and weaponry which in due course he presented to the Armeria Regia or Royal Armoury in his native city of Turin. Among the items was a sword engraved with Christian figures and symbols and bearing a dedication in Greek to an Emperor Constantine. Ιn 1857 the French scholar Victor Langlois examined it and published descriptions of it in three different journals. He pronounced that it was beyond question the sword of the last Byzantine Emperor. He claimed that it had come from the tomb of the Sultan Mehmed ΙΙ.
The mystery deepens when one learns that Alexander Paspatis, the first modern Greek historian of the fall of Constantinople, believed that such a sword, bearing almost the same Greek inscription, had been presented to the Emperor Constantine by Cardinal Isidore in 1452. Unfortunately, Paspatis gives nο reference for the source of this information. But he reports that the sword was preserved in Constantinople in his οwn day. His book was published in 1890. Langlois reported the sword as being in Turin in 1857. Perhaps the sword in Turin was a cοpy of that said to have been in Constantinople more than forty years later. Certainly, nο other expert in the field seems to have shared the confidence of Μ. Langlois in his identification of the Turin sword as that of Constantine Palaiologos.(47)
Ιn 1886 a delegation from the Greek community in Constantinople presented a ceremonial sword to Prince Constantine, heir to the throne of the Hellenes, οn the occasion of his coming of age. The description of this sword, its decoration and the inscription οn it suggest that it was a cοpy or a facsimile of that in Turin, though its donors may have alleged that it had once belonged to Constantine Palaiologos. An Athenian newspaper of the time, reporting its presentation to the prince, provides a rough line drawing of the sword with one half of its inscription and expresses the view that, while it appears to be of Byzantine style, there is nο proof that it ever belonged to the last Emperor.(48) An entertaining story survived in the folklore of Constantinople about another sword of Constantine Palaiologos. During the siege of the city, God sent an angel tο deliver a wooden sword to the Emperor. The angel's intermediary was a holy hermit called Agapios, who hurried tο the palace to fulfil his divine mission. "My lord", he said to the Emperor, "here is a sword sent from God to exterminate your enemies the Turks." When Constantine saw that it was made of wood he was angry and exclaimed : "What am Ι going to do with a wooden sword when Ι already have the wonderful sword of the glorious David, father of Solomon, which is forty cubits long?" He chased the monk away, and he, in high dudgeon, went to present his sword to the Sultan Mehmed who gladly accepted it. It was thanks to this wooden sword that Mehmed succeeded in capturing Constantinople. The monk Agapios was so upset by Constantine's impious scepticism that he became a Muslim.(49)
Since there is so much uncertainty about the manner and the place of Constantine's death and the fate of his decapitated corpse, it might seem useless to hunt for the site of his grave. Theodore Spandounes or Spandugnino, in his lengthy treatise οn The Origins of the Turks, completed in 1538, observes that: "The Turkish historians say that Mehmed organised a search for the holy Emperor's corpse and, having found it, wept over it and honoured it and accompanied it to its tomb. The Christians, however, deny that it was ever found or recognised because nowhere in Constantinople is his grave to be seen."(50) Makarios Melissenos, the pseudo-Phrantzes, is alone among the Greek historians in saying that Constantine was given a Christian burial. This is most improbable. The Sultan would surely not have allowed the tomb of the last Byzantine Emperor to become a shrine or place of pilgrimage, a reminder of past glories for the Christians in the city. The tale that his remains were buried in St Sophia as reported by Makarios Melissenos can also be dismissed as fantasy.(51)
Yet the myth persisted that Constantine's grave was somewhere to be found. The traveller Evliya Chelebi, writing about 1660, believed that the Christians had buried their Emperor in the monastery of Peribleptos, or, as the Turks called it, Sulu Monastir.(52) Peribleptos remained in the hands of the Orthodox until 1643 and it certainly contained the tomb of an Emperor, though of a much earlier date than Constantine. Ιn the nineteenth century a Turkish historian claimed that the last Emperor had been killed near Vefa Meidan where there was a spring of holy water. His body was buried in the monastery οf the Zoodochos Pigi, the life-giving spring, in a wooded spot at Baloukli. While the Greek Patriarch of Constantinople, Constantios of Sinai, reported in 1844 that the mosque of Gül Camii, formerly the church of St Theodosia, whose feast is οn 29 Μay, housed a Christian tomb which many Turkish imams and Christian visitors believed to be that of the Emperor Constantine. These tales were nο doubt encouraged if not invented by the lοcal guides in the city, eager tο make a quick profit out of gullible foreigners. Tourists in the nineteenth century were also told that the Turkish government provided oil for a lamp tο burn ονer the Emperor's grave at Vefa Meidan. This story, for which there is nο evidence but hearsay, was propagated by the proprietor of the nearby coffee shop. The tomb, of which there is nοw nο trace, was probably that of a dervish, or of the Turkish soldier Arapis (or Azapis) who, according to Ottoman legend, was executed by the Sultan for having killed rather than captured the Emperor alive in 1453. Another legend told that it was the tomb of the giant Hasan, the first of the janissaries to scale the walls of the city. At all events, the alleged tomb near Vefa Meidan seems to have remained unhonoured and unknown until the nineteenth century. Yet another tradition was that Constantine was buried in the church of the Holy Apostles which had been the burial place of many of his imperial predecessors and served as the patriarchate of Constantinople for a few years after the conquest. His mortal remains were said to have been moved tο the church of St Theodosia (Gül Camii) when the mosque of the Conqueror was built οn the site of the Holy Apostles by the Greek architect Christodoulos.(53)
Ιt was the opinion of the learned Dr Paspatis in his history of the Turkish capture of Constantinople that Constantine's corpse was never found or identified and that the tale of its beheading was a myth invented by Isidore of Kiev. The Emperor must have been buried in a common grave along with his comrades-in-arms and his enemies; though the district in which he so nobly fell was still in 1890 unapproachable because of its foul smell.(54 )It is idle to speculate further. Had the humiliated Christians of the fifteenth century known where their Emperor was buried, they would surely have passed the secret οn to their descendants. Theodore Spandounes, who boasted descent from the family of Cantacuzene and who knew Constantinople well, spoke the truth. Ιn the sixteenth century at least Constantine's grave was nowhere to be found. Even the popular Greek songs about the death of the noble and heroic Emperor Constantine gave nο hint of where he was buried.
«He died fighting all alone, mounted οn his white-footed horse. He killed ten pashas and sixty janissaries before his lance was broken and his sword snapped and there was nο one there to help him. He raised his eyes to heaven and cried: "Lord Almighty, creator of the world, have pity οn your people, have pity οn Constantinople." A Turk struck him οn the head and the poor Constantine fell from his horse and 1ay stretched upοn the ground in all the dust and blood. They severed his head and stuck it οn the end of a lance; and they buried his corpse beneath the laurel tree.(55)»
The last word may be given to the Grand Logothete Hierax, writing some fifty years after Spandounes: "The fatherland that he loved so dearly became the grave of the Emperor Constantine and all his nobles."(56)
NOTES
1. Runciman, Fall of Constantinople, pp. 154-7
2. Scholarios, œuvres complètes, IV, pp. 510-12. A. Pertusi, Fine di Bizanzio e fine del mοndο (Rome, 1988), pp. 6ο-1; D. Μ. Nicol, Church and Society in the Last Centuries οf Byzantium (Cambridge, 1979), pp. 104-5.
3. Barbaro, Giornale, ed. Cornet, p. 61; ed. Pertusi, Caduta, Ι, pp. 29-30.
4. Isidore of Kiev, ed. Pertusi, Caduta, I p. 60.
5. Kritoboulos, ed. Reinsch, p. 80.
6. Schreiner, Chron. brev., I, 52/4, p. 370; 115/1, p. 684. Anοnymi Monodia de capta Constantinopoli, ed. A. Pertusi, Testi inediti e pοcο noti sulla caduta di Cοnstantinopοli, ed. A. Carile (Bologna, 1983), p. 326 (cited hereafter as Pertusi-Carile, Testi).
7. The sources are conveniently collected in Pertusi, Caduta, Ι, ΙΙ and Pertusi-Cariie, Testi.
8. Sphrantzes, Chron.minus, pp. 96-8. Sphrantzes was taken prisoner and, after some months of slavery, was ransomed οn 1 September and left Constantinople for Mistra.
9. Leonardo Chiensis, Letter to Pope Nicholas V, ed.Pertusi, Caduta, I, pp. 162-4.
10. Barbaro, Giornale, ed. Pertusi, Caduta, Ι, p. 35.
11. Jacopo Tedaldi, ed. Pertusi, Caduta, Ι, pp. 60, 74-5.
12. Pertusi-Carile, Testi, pp. 4, 25.
13. Pertusi, Caduta, II, p. 56; Pertusi-Carile, Testi, pp. 51, 54.
14. Thomas Eparchos and Joshua Diplovatatzes (?), Accοunt of the capture of Constantinople, ed. Pertusi, Caduta, Ι, p. 237.
15. John de Lastic, ed. Ν. Jorga, Notes et Extraits, ΙΙ, p. 520.
16. Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini, ed. Pertusi, Caduta, ΙΙ, pp. 44, 50-2.
17. Οn the Serbian contingent, see Sphrantzes, Chron. minus, p. 102. Cf Pertusi, Caduta, I, p. xl.
18. Constantine Mihailoviċ, ed. Pertusi, Caduta, Ι, p. 259. Ι. Dujčev, "La Conquête turque et la prise de Constantinople dans la littérature slave de l'époque", in Medioevo bizantinο-slavο, ΙΙΙ (Rome, 1971), pp. 478-87.
19. Tursun Beg, The History οf Mehmed the Conqueror, ed. and transl. H. Inalcik and R. Murphey (Minneapolis-Chicago, 1978), pp. 36-7; ed. Pertusi, Caduta, Ι, pp. 324-6 (Italian translation).
20. Ibn Kemal, ed. Pertusi, Caduta, Ι, pp. 463-5 (= note 59) (Ιtalian translation).
21. Mehmed Neshri, ed. Pertusi, Caduta, ΙΙ, p. 265; Ashik Pasha-Zade, ed. Pertusi-Carile, Testi, p. 241 (Italian translation); Sa'ad Ed-Din, translated by Ε. J. W. Gibb, The Capture οf Constantinople (Glasgow, 1879), p.31; Pertusi, Caduta, ΙΙ, pp. 287-8 (Italian translation).
22. Pertusi-Carile, Testi, p. 118.
23. Pertusi-Carile, Testi, pp. 141, 176. Dolfin's account is partially translated by J. R. Melville Jones, The Siege of Constantinople 1453 (Amsterdam, 1972), pp. 125-30.
24. Pertusi, Caduta, ΙΙ, p. 86.
25. Sagundino, ed. Pertusi, Caduta, ΙΙ, pp. 134-6.
26. Ubertini Pasculi Brixiensis Cοnstantinοpοleοs Libri IV, ed. A. Ellissen, Analekten der mittel- und neugriechischen Literatur, III, Anhang (Leipzig, 1857), p. 81.
27. Jan Dlugosz, Historiae Polonicae, lib. ΧΙΙ, ed. Pertusi-Carile, Testi, p.234.
28. Samile, ed. Pertusi, Caduta Ι, p. 231 (Italian translation).
29. Abraham of Ankara, ed. Pertusi, Caduta, II, p.414 (Italian translation); ed. Μ. Β. Krikorian and W. Seibt, Die Eroberung Konstantinopels im Jahre 1453 aus Armenischer Sicht (Byzantinische Geschichtsschreiber, ΧΙΙΙ; Graz-Vienna-Cologne, 1981) (German translation).
30. Nicola della Tuccia, Crοnaca di Viterbo, ed. Pertusi-Carile, Testi, p. 97.
31. Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini, Cosmographia. Historia de Europa VII (in Οpera quae extant omnia [Basle, 1571]), pp. 400-2. It seems first tο have been printed as Pii II pοntificis maximi de captione urbis Constantinopolitanae tractatulus (n.d., Rome: Steph. Plannck, c. 1470): "Imperator nοn ut regem decuit pugnando sed fugiens: in ipsis porte angustiis cum cecidisset oppressus: calcatusque obiit." Ed. with slight variations by P. A. Déthier, Monumenta Hungariae Histotica, ΧΧΙ, I (Pera, 1875), pp. 678, 682. The report of Aeneas Sylvius was translated into Italian, without acknowledgement by Andrea Cambini : Commentario di Andrea Cambini fiοrentinο della origine de Turchi et imperio della casa Ottomana, published in Venice in 1538.
32. Christophorus Richerius ad Franciscum Gallorum Regem Christianiss. Libri quinque, De Rebus Turcorum (Paris, 1540), pp. 96-7; Francesco Sansovino, Historia Universale dell'Origine, Guerre, et Imperio de Turchi (Venice, 1654), pp. 270-1. An English translation of Sansovino's version is presented by). G.R. Melville Jones, Siege οf Constantinople 1453, p..122 (and p.x) under the name of 'Cristoforo Riccherio' as though it were a contemporary account. Christophore Richer, chamberlain to François Ιer, was French ambassador to Stockholm and then tο Copenhagen. Οn his plagiarism of Aeneas Sylvius, see Β. Unbegaun, "Les relations vieux-russes de la prise de Constantinople", Revue des études slaves, 9 (1929), 32-3.
33. See below, pp. 87-8.
34. Schreiner, Chron. brev., Ι. 69/5, p. 529.
35. Schreiner, Chron. brev., Ι. 69/39, p. 535.
36. Schreiner, Chron. brev., I. 14/107, p. 155; 34/21, pp. 271-2; 51, IV/17, p. 369 (= Pertusi-Carile, Testi, nos. ΙΙ, IV, V, pp. 31-2, 34-6, 38).
37. Doukas, pp. 361, 377. The Charisios Gate was slightly tο the north of that of St Romanos. R. Janin, Constantine byzantine, 2nd edn, p. 281 (Edirne kapi).
38. Kritoboulos, ed. Reinsch, pp. 70-1, 81-2.
39. Chalkokondyles, ΙΙ, pp. 159, 163. Sphrantzes, Chron. minus, p. 98, gives a slightly more accurate figure for the length of Constantine's reign as "four years, four months and twenty-four days", and his age as "forty-nine years, three months and twenty days". Οn the manner and place of his death, however, he gives nο information, remarking οnly that his blessed lord and Emperor was killed and that he was not with him at the time.
40. Phrantzes, Chron. minus, pp. 428-30, 432.
41. Anοnimο russo, Οn the capture of Cargrad (Constantinople), ed. Pertusi, Caduta, ΙΙ, p. 406 (Italian translation). Έκθεσις Χρονική, ed. Sp. P. Lambros, Ecthesis Chronica and Chronicon Athenarum (London, 1902), p. 16. See G. T. Zoras, Αι τελευταίαι στιγμαί του Κωνσταντίνου του Παλαιολόγου και Μωάμεθ του κατακτητού, in Zoras, Περί την άλωσιν της Κωνσταντινουπόλεως (Athens, 1959), pp. 132-3. Οn Mamalis (? Laskaris), see PLP, VII, nο. 16554.
42. Hierax, Threnos, ed. C. Ν. Sathas, Μεσαιωνική Βιβλιοθήκη, Ι (Venice, 1872), p. 266; ed. Déthier, Μοn. Hung. Hist., ΧΧΙ, I, p. 387; ΧΧΙ, 2, p. 418. Χρονικόν των Tούρκων Σουλτάνων, ed. G. T. Zoras (Athens, t958), p. 81; Elizabeth A. Zachariadou, Tο Χρονικό των Tούρκων Σουλτάνων...και το ιταλικό του πρότυπο (Thessaloniki, 1960), pp. 62-3. Martinus Crusius, Turco-Graeciae libri octo... (Basle, 1584), Lib.1, p. 96. See G. Kournoutos, Λόγιοι της Tουρκοκρατίας, Ι (Βaσική Βιβλιοθήκn: Athens, 1956), p. 178.
43. Nestor Iskinder, Report οn Constantinople, ed. Pertusi, Caduta, Ι, pp. 292-8 (Italian translation). Cf Β. Unbegaun, "Les relarions vieux-russes", 13-38; Dujčev, Medioevo bizantinο-slavο, ΙΙΙ, pp. 412-52; U.Μ. Braun and A.Μ. Schneider, Bericht über die Eroberung Konstantinopels nach der Nikon-Chronik übersetzt und erläutert (Leipzig, 1943). The Rumanian version is translated into French by V. Grecu, "La Chute de Constantinople dans la littérature populaire roumaine" BS, 14 (1953), 55-81.
44. "Princeps immortalitate dignus": Sagundino, ed. Pertusi, Caduta, II, p. 136.
45. Anonymi Monodia, ed. Lambros, Μονωδίαι και Θρήνοι επί τη αλώσει της Κωνσταντινουπόλεως, ΝΕ, 5 (1908), 245.
46. lbid., 248-50; ed. Pertusi-Carile, Testi, pp.326-31. The same tale is told in a Chronicle in the monastery of St John οn Patmos. Ν. Β. Tomadakis, Η εν τω Πατμιακώ Κώδικι 287 Μικρά Xρονογραφία, EEBS, 25 (1955), 28-37.
47. V. Langlois, "Notice sur le sabre de Constantin XIV, dernier empereur de Constantinople, conservé à l'Armeria Reale de Turin", Revue archéologique, 14, I (1857), 292-4 (translated into Greek in Nea Pandοra, 8 (1858), 302-3 (with a line drawing of the sword) ; Langlois, "Memoire sur le sabre de Constantin XIV Dracosès, dernier empereur grec de Constantinople", Revue de l'Orient et de l'Algerie et des Colonies (Paris, 1858), 153-65. A.G. Paspatis, Πολιορκία και άλωσις της Κωνσταντινουπόλεως, υπό των Οθωμανών εν έτει 1453 (Athens, 1890), pp. 94-5. His version of the inscription reads: Συ βασιλεύ αήττητε λόγε Θεού Παντάναξ, Νίκnς Βραβεία δώρησον κατά των πολεμίων, Tω ηγεμόνι και πιστώ αυθέντη Κωνσταντίνω, Ώσπερ ποτέ τω βaσιλεί μεγάλω Κωνσταντίνω. The latest notice of the Turin sword seems to be by G. A. Sotiriou in the Greek journal Κιβωτός (Μay-June 1953), nο. 17-18, p. 240, with a line drawing but nο further information.
48. Άστυ 2nd year, nο. 64 (Athens, 7 December 1886), p.2, and nο. 65 (14 December 1886), pp. 6-8; Deltion tis Estias, nο. 520 (14 December 1886), p. 3.
49. H. Carnoy and J. Nicolaides, Folklore de Constantinople (Paris, 1894), pp. 74-5.
50. Spandounes (Theodoro Spandugnino), De la origine deli Imperatori Ottomani..., ed. C. Ν. Sathas, Μνnμεία... Documents inédits relatifs à l'histoire de la Grèce au moyen âge, ΙΧ (Paris, 1890), p. 154.
51. Phrantzes, Chron. maius, p. 432.
52. Evliya Chelebi, translated by J. νοn Hammer, Narrative of Travels in Europe, Asia, and Africa in the Seventeenth Century by Evliya Efendi (London, 1846) p. 44. H. Turková, "La Prise de Constantinople d'après le Seyahatname d'Evliya Celebi", BS, 30 (1969), 47-72, especially 61.
53. The various reports οn Constantine's tomb and sword are collected by Χ. A. Siderides, Κωνσταντίνου Παλαιολόγου, θάνατος, τάφος και σπάθη, Η Μελέτη (January-December, 1908), 65-78, 129-46. See also Ν.G. Politis, Paradoseis, Μελέται περί του βόυu και της γλώσσης του Ελλnνικού λaού. Παραδόσεις. Βιβλιοθήκn Μαρασλή, 2 vols. (Athens, 1904), ΙΙ, pp. 658-74; Ε. Pears, The Destruction of the Greek Empire and the Story of the capture of Constantinople by the Turks (London, 1903), pp. 354-5; H. J. Magoulias, Doukas. Decline and Fall of Byzantium to the Ottoman Turks (Detroit, 1975), pp. 314-15, note 289; F. W. Hasluck, Christianity and Islam under the Sultans (Oxford, 1929), Ι, pp. 40-1; ΙΙ, p. 731. Οn the claim that the church of St Theodosia contained the Emperor's tomb, see A. Van Millingen, Βyzantine Churches in Constantinople (London, 1912), pp. 173-8.
54. Paspatis, Pοliorkia,p. 192.
55. Ο θάνατος του Κωνσταντίνου Δράγαζη, in Ε. Legrand, Recueil de chansons populaires grecques (Collection de monuments pour servir à l'étude de 1a langue néo-hellénique, n.s., Ι: Paris, 1874), nο. 48, pp. 74-6.
56. Hierax, ed. Sathas, Μεσαιωνική Βιβλιοθήκn, Ι, lines 685-6, p. 267; ed. Déthier, Μοn. Hung. Hist., ΧΧΙ, I, P. 388.
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