Talk:Constantinople/Archive 1

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Archive 1

Archive 2

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Latest comment: 8 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

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External links modified

Latest comment: 6 years ago4 comments1 person in discussion

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Drafting

Latest comment: 18 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

I have reverted a number of recent edits. Reasons include:

I disagree with the proposal that the reason for choosing Constantinople as a capital was that it was on a hill and could only be attacked from one side. It is not on a hill but at sea level, although it encloses several hills. That it was accessible only from one side by land may have weighed with the founders of Byzantium, but hardly with Constantine, who is scarcely likely to have imagined enemies ever getting so far from the frontiers. But, above all, these reasons are naive and simplistic, and poor history.

The spelling of 'Sophia' in English is thus, not 'Sofia' (however much the latter may be used by modern Greeks when they write in the Latin alphabet). Look at Bury if you don't know this.

The amendments about St Sophia when founded by Constantine are wrong, as they confuse his church with the one erected by Justinian.

I prefer a more dignified style for an article like this.

"it will have seemed unthinkable to suggest that that capital be moved" is correct. Changing "will" to "would" would imply doubt about whether it was unthinkable or not, while removing the auxiliary verb would imply wrongly that we know for a fact that someone did think that. We know securely now that it was then unthinkable to people...until Constantine came along and thought it.

Constantine did not raze the temples of Byzantium: he removed the roofs (this is why the Temple of Aphrodite could later be used as a coachhouse for the Praetorian Prefect).

Mark O'Sullivan 19:25, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

Merge?

Latest comment: 18 years ago8 comments6 people in discussion

I'm surprised that there hasn't been any discussion at all on this page about whether or not the article ought to be merged with Istanbul, or vice versa. I wouldn't care which direction the merge went, but these really look like duplicate articles to me. --arkuat (talk) 03:58, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

I see that there has been some discussion on Talk:Istanbul (proposing a three-way merger including Byzantium), but nothing conclusive. --arkuat (talk) 04:00, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

I suppose that logically a Constantinople article should run at least from 330 to 1923/1930, when there was a big change with it stopping being the capital, the Greeks being expelled &c. The problem is really length: to keep the article within bounds it needs to be broken up somehow, if the matter is to be dealt with in reasonable detail. It's true that by 1453 the city was almost a scatter of villages, and that it was extensively repopulated by Mehmet II, so that's not a bad caesura. Mark O'Sullivan 16:50, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

I think it's better not to merge them. If for no other reason than so many history articles reference Constantinople. Stbalbach 17:09, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

I merged Tsargrad into this, because Tsargrad was just a stub about a historical Slavic name for this city. --Revolución (talk) 18:36, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

I am against merging the articles for the following reasons:

The city has a three thousand year history. However what is even more important, is that it was the capital of two of the history's biggest empires (in age and areas covered). Both empires have a common history in the areas they controlled, but they are also radically different. Both phases of the history of the city had different identities.
As there is such a long history, to put it all on one page would be way too long
Imperial Constantinople - Byzantine and Ottoman - is very different from "major city" Istanbul. The name change indicates the change in the role of the city - in fact, the reason why it was finally changed by the Turks, was to distance the city from the New Republics imperial past. The Istanbul page should reflect the modern day city.

Biz 18:49, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

But Tsargrad was never part of the Russian Empire, and was just a name for the city, so it like the stub Konstantiniyye, needs to be merged and redirected. --Revolución (talk) 00:07, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

I am opposed to any merges at this point and would instead suggest a series. Starting with Byzantium, Constantinople, Istanbul, then it could describe then a link could be made to the Byzantine Empire, and the Ottomon Empire, finally the history of other names such as the Slavic one. Byzantine is one of the most important cities in history rivaling Athens, Rome, Moscow, Jerusalem, Mecca, Lhassa etc. In fact I would have to put it in my top 5 but that is irrelevant. This article's history is complicated enough to merit its own series. Falphin 19:22, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Heraclius and Hellenization

Latest comment: 18 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

I have added a line about Heraclius's conversion of the city and empire's official language to greek. Obviously significant, but it doesn't appear to fit in amongst the military chronology of "After Justinian" where I have sandwiched it; perhaps someone might like to add an extra heading ? Preceding unsigned comment added by Gtredr (talk) 00:31, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

More needed

Latest comment: 17 years ago5 comments5 people in discussion

I have done a fair amount on this article over the last few days but must now leave it for a bit. It needs IMHO a fair bit more on religion (Councils of Constantinople and Chalcedon, maybe more on the effects of iconoclasm, something on monasticism), and city politics (eg John the Cappadocian), industry (including silk) and administration (including street lighting), and a bit more on 1204 and 1453. I think it would be nice to have a section on daily life as well: there are some decent sources on this. A more detailed map would be good too: the one on p 66 of Bury is out of copyright and suitable.

Mark O'Sullivan 13:06, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

A link to Isauria in the paragraph on the Isaurians would be helpful. Kember 02:32, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

Another weakpoint of this article that I noticed was that it does not describe the economy of Constantinople, not mentioning the trade routes that passed through it to Scandinavia or the trade with the Islamic Empire and Asia. Leobaumgart 07:04, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm not much pleased by the complete ommitance of the city's situation under the Macedonian emperors. In fact, after discussing the city during Justinian, everything peters out to what I'd consider section stubs. Ryan 04:32, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

The latter point now seems to have been cured, but at the cost of treating the article a bit as though it was about the Byzantine Empire rather than Constantinople. Deipnosophista 08:04, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

No merge

Latest comment: 17 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Some argue that this article has a right in it's own. Critics believe this article should not be edited in any way, shape, or form --68.217.13.174 22:11, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

it is a beautiful city to come and visit

Delisted GA

Latest comment: 17 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

This article did not go through the current GAN nomination process. Looking at the article as is, it fails on criteria 2b of the GA quality standards. Although references are provided, the citation of sources is essential for verifiability. Most Good Articles use inline citations. I would recommend that this be fixed, to reexamine the article against the GA quality standards, and to submit the article through the nomination process. --TheClockKing 22:13, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Merge of Byzantium

Latest comment: 17 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion

An anon editor suggested the Byzantium article be merged with Constantinople. This section is for discussing the merge tag.

Object. Even though the Byzantium article only has about 1 paragraph that is directly related to the city before it became Constantinople, and everything else is just a duplicate of this article - I think it could be expanded into a more detailed history of the city pre-Constantine. It had a very different history and importance in the pagan Ancient World. --TheClockKing 22:13, 2 October 2006 (UTC)--
Object, as well. and i will remove the merge-tags from both articles, unless someone thinks that i shouldn't. Hectorian 23:59, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
Object per above. If these two articles were to be merged, what would the title be? Byzantinople? :p —Khoi khoi 01:46, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Constantinople was in no great developmental period when it fell

Latest comment: 17 years ago8 comments3 people in discussion

Khoi That language was simply historically wrong. It had been in decline for centuries, and that wording was wrong and needed correcting, which I did. I am sure you did not mean that the Empire was still in it's apogee when it fell, but that was the impression that wording gave, and it needed correcting. If you wish to discuss it, it needs discussing here. This is a question for the Military History Committee, since the Fall certainly is in that arena. old windy bear 22:08, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

My bad, I was just trying to revert some vandalism by an anon. I guess your contribution got caught-in. —Khoi khoi 23:03, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Khoi That was why I wanted to write you, you are too good an editor to have this happen unless it was by accident. I know there has been tremendous vandalism this article - the anon's here are terrible with the needless vandalism. I wanted to let you know I was not part of that, and was just correcting some language which was giving a wrong impression. Like I said, I know you are a really first rate editor who is just protecting the article. Thanks! old windy bear 23:09, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your kind words. :-) I know you're not part of it. BTW, if you ever see any vandalism you can simply revert it to the previous version. Cheers, —Khoi khoi 02:06, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Khoi Thanks! I will try to take a look at this regularly and start revert it to the previous version. Isn't it a shame that people like you work hard to make this the best it can be, and anon's come along and for no reason at all, just destroy the article with needless vandalism. This article, the one on the Byzantine Empire , just seems to bring out the nuts! Take care! old windy bear 09:41, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

It's really not that big of a deal. I see vandalism as one of the byproducts of a free encyclopedia. You can't have only good contributors, or it wouldn't reflect reality. But then again, vandals are hardly contributors... Khoi khoi 03:57, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

It's good to see some editors who aren't flaming each other constantly. I spend a lot of time at Byzantine Empire and its talk page, mainly because of interest in the Byzantines, and partly because I helped write the article. But the amount of arguing and bitterness at times can be depressing. There has been some extremely good discussion, but a recent bitter episode has really soured my view of things.

So I commend you who work on this article, and who have apparently avoided the pitfalls of other wikipedia talk pages... Bigdaddy1204 23:05, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

P.S. I know this has nothing to do with the topic, but what do you think of the photograph of the walls of Constantinople in this article? I took it myself :) Bigdaddy1204 23:05, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Renewed merge proposal

Latest comment: 17 years ago8 comments5 people in discussion

I don't think the renewed merge proposal [1] will work. It's just too big, and it's correctly marked and linked as a legitimate subarticle of the main article Istanbul. Independently of whether one agrees with the decision of using 1453 as a cutoff point for the Istanbul/Constantinople naming issue (see the recent Phanariotes debate), the decision to branch out the article content in this way seems almost unavoidable. Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:18, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

The merge proposal won't work... The article is too long... Deals with another historical period and also merge proposal failed in the past. I would be really interesting to read reasons for this merge proposal instead of just a tab above the article. If not, i will remove it. Hectorian 12:12, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but if you check the Istanbul article, there are sections about Constantinople and Byzantium. The Constantinople and Byzantium articles would fit there quite well. Furthermore, these articles contains material common to Byzantine Empire (even Roman Empire). By merging the articles we would have a chance to avoid to represent the same staff in different places. E104421 16:59, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

We are talking about a history expanding to almost 1 millenium for Byzantium, and more than a millenium for Constantinople. There is much unique content, especially in this one. and there are also large possibilities that these two articles will expand even more, having in mind the sources that exist, and have not been used till now. furthermore, if there will be a merge, Constantinople would probably cover much of the article, putting in danger its current name. Re-think about it... Hectorian 17:28, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

The merged article would either be horrendously long or have to skim on important content. Merging is really not a good idea. Constatinople and Byzantium work best as WP:SS summary articles of Istanbul.Borisblue 07:51, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Ok, then, i'm removing the tag. E104421 10:10, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Colossus 21:09, 17 November 2006 (UTC)== Name change to Istanbul is not true ==

Official name canged to Istanbul in 1930 is incorrectly informing reader, changed from WHAT to istanbul ? Official name was Dersaadet, public name was Istanbul. In 1930 the republic(founded 1923) redefined provincial borders, it have never been a name-change, also the citations are using the same sentences which looks like BBC used the "orient encyclopedia"(proper name for peak for orientalism). An article on BBC is not a proper citation either.

All major treaties and public documents cite the city as Constantinople up until 1930. Even outside of Turkey, the name "Istanbul" failed to catch up with Europe and America until years later. And 1930 is not a random date. It coincides with Ataturks major reconstructuring of Turkish society, enhancing Turkish nationality, and in our case cleansing it of its Greek influence. All major treaties and documents afterwords city it as Istanbul. Erasing the Greek name of greatest city in Turkey from Turkish memory was vital. Colossus 21:09, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

edits

Latest comment: 17 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Someone reverted my edits of yesterday. They did two things: (i) they removed a lot of detail from the introduction, about what happened before the foundation and after the fall of Constantinople, which belongs in other articles rather than this one, and (ii) they restored text originated last year so as to smooth and improve the style. I would still argue that both changes are needed. Moreover, there is now quite a lot of stuff here which is history of the Byzantine ~Empire rather than of the city, and ought to be removed (while there is still urban history which needs to go in). Deipnosophista 16:51, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

User:Shuppiluliuma

Latest comment: 17 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

This user has chosen to twice now remove the map I place into the article, a REAL map from the 15th Century showing Constantinople in its proper place (upper left of the map). The user is choosing to remove my work from the article based on ther user's own desires, and not that of the consensus. Let me know if anyone else agrees or disagrees with me. Thank you. Rarelibra 20:43, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Capital of Rome

Latest comment: 17 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Is it not just horridly idiotic to have the capital of the Roman Empire be anything but Rome? VolatileChemical 01:39, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

No trolling, please. We're not here to change what happened in history, just report on it. --Macrakis 19:13, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

CalicoJackRackam

Latest comment: 17 years ago4 comments2 people in discussion

You are both User:CalicoJackRackam and User:Shuppiluliuma. Why are you editing under BOTH names, especially when this was specifically addressed on BOTH of your talk pages? Rarelibra 20:32, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I enjoy using the "alter ego" CalicoJackRackham because I'm a descendant of Barbarossa (Ottoman admiral) from my mother's family which comes from Mytilene.

The name stimulates me for the hard work that's necessary for translating Italian archives into English (because Italian archives are far more detailed than Turkish archives in terms of the Turkish marine activity in the Mediterranean) when writing the lives of famous Turkish seamen like Barbarossa (Ottoman admiral), Oruç Reis, Turgut Reis, Kemal Reis, Piri Reis, Murat Reis the Older, Battle of Preveza, Battle of Djerba, etc...

It took me "weeks" to make such translations.

Right now I'm a professor at the University of Milan in Italy, and I have direct access to Italian archives, which helps me to find the historic resources for writing detailed stories regarding Turkish naval history.

And I'm a part-time sailor (yachting) of course. :)

Regards. Shuppiluliuma 23:59, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

That doesn't justify using two accounts. Stick to one, as you were instructed by an admin to do... no need to go back and forth (well, you can't anyway). And bring stuff up on the talk page, that way it is into consensus and then we will protect any edits against your work! Once it is into consensus, or provide a reference for the Latin Empire statement... :) Rarelibra 03:23, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Try clicking on the Latin Empire for reference (and I didn't add it to Wikipedia)

Or click on the Fourth Crusade for some more insight.

Regards. Shuppiluliuma 15:56, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

unclear: Roman vs. Latin

Latest comment: 17 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion

**Roman name: Constantinopolis;

**Latin name: Cospoli

It is not clear what distinction between Roman and Latin is meant in the quoted piece of a footnote.--Imz 23:01, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

My recollection was that Romans had full citizenship, Latins lived outside the city. There were rules about ownership, taxes, etc. It's in the Roman Code but my memory is fuzzy on this at the moment. --JRinPDX 07:34, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

People here are confused. The reference must be not to Latin in the ancient but in the medieval sense (as Cospoli is not a classical Latin name). Hence the Romans used the Greek name which Constantine who spoke both languages gave it; what must be meant is that after the "Latins" of the Fourth Crusade conquered the city in 1204 some of them used the name "Cospoli". Deipnosophista 08:18, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

First official form of the name "Constantinopolis" and the 4 empires it served as a capital city

Latest comment: 17 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

1) The name "Constantinopolis" was first "officially" coined between 330 and 337 in Latin, since Latin was the official language of the Roman Empire at that time. Of course many of the people in the streets of Constantinople spoke Greek, but the official state language was Latin, and it remained that way until the reign of Heraclius in the 7th century, when Greek became the new official language. Thus, the most archaic (and official) form is "Constantinopolis" (Latin), not "Konstantinoupolis" (Greek) which is the Hellenized form. Constantine called himself "Constantinus", not "Konstantinos", and the city was officially called "Constantinopolis" at Constantine's period, not Konstantinoupolis which is a later name.

2) Constantinople has been the capital city of the Roman Empire (330-395), the East Roman (Byzantine) Empire (395-1204 and 1261-1453), the Latin Empire (1204-1261) and the Ottoman Empire (1453-1922).

These are "facts", not mere "opinions".

Regards. Shuppiluliuma 23:51, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

"Konstantinoupolis" is in any event not a conventional or correct transliteration of the Greek (for example, kappa goes to C, as in Cythera or Creon). Deipnosophista 22:20, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Iconoclasm

Latest comment: 17 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Someone removed the material on iconoclasm and I have just reverted most of it. The reason is that although it is true that iconoclasm affected the whole empire, not just the city, (a) the city was more affected than many parts of the empire which were (either) generally iconoclastic or iconodule, (b) the destruction of images affected the city disproportionately because it was the repository of so much classical art, (c) we already one nice piece of local detail about the arrival of iconoclasm in the city and it would be better to add to it rather than delete the lot. Deipnosophista 22:25, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Latin Empire (1204-1261)

Latest comment: 16 years ago5 comments4 people in discussion

Try clicking on the Latin Empire for reference (and I didn't add it to Wikipedia)

Or click on the Fourth Crusade for some more insight.

The Byzantine capital was moved to Nicaea (İznik) between 1204 and 1261.

Regards. Shuppiluliuma 16:00, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't mind adding the Latin Empire on the intro paragraph, I think this edit was removed due to your extensive edit-warring and uncivil behaviour, and not due to a content-dispute per se. Furthermore I also tried to add two names: Latin - Constantinopolis next to Greek - Konstantinoupolis but it was agreed by other editors to move all names on a separate section. I retained that the Greek version was important enough to stay in the head because of the Greek etymology of the word and the long Greek presence in the city. I wouldn't mind having the Latin name next to it (after all I was the one who added it) but I would mind favouring the Latinised name over the Greek, or claiming that the Latinised name has a Latin etymology. After all, Latin was only an imported (foreign), co-official (albeit not co-vernacular) language in the city, and only for a short period of time, whereas Greek has been official for most of the Empire's history, and present as a vernacular until some decades ago. Miskin 18:44, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Actually, through Justinian's time, Latin was the only official language in the city; and, as Justinian himself shows, vernacular for some of the population. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:34, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Where does Jusinian himself show that? If Latin was the only official language then how come Justinian wrote Novellae in Greek? How come the Church used _exclusively_ Greek and the education was bilingual? Latin was vernacular only in the Western and northern balkan territories re-conquered by Justinian. So yes, in the 20th century, this would be an argument to support the existence of a minority language, but not in late antiquity. Therefore this is not an argument about in favour of Latin. As the Cambridge medieval history affirms, upon the re-conquest of Italy by Jusinian, the Emperor ordered Greek-speakers to colonise the peninsula. This shows that by his time, Greek had already become the defacto "Roman language". Miskin 21:06, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

It is unbelievable that what Latins did to the city (the Fourth Crusade ending up in Constantinople rather than the Holy Land) is concealed in such an artful manner and left out from the article regarding the history of Constantinople! I just want to recommend those who edit the article to read pages 124-147 from "Byzantium and Venice" from Donald M. Nicol or 138 and so on of Fourth Crusade by Queller if they have not encountered with any kind of info about the story so far. Some seem to be obsessed with 1453 rather than 1204 in which all the wealth of Constantinople was sacked by some Christian brothers who forgot about the Holy Land and preferred to take over the capital of the Byzantine Empire in the most humiliating way! --Z y Talk 22:35, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Colonial Expansion of the Megarian

Latest comment: 16 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

The history of the city starts with Megarians who are claimed to have come to the city in (roughly) 660 B.C. Is it possible that there had not been any other civilisations settled in the region before Greek Colonialists came. What happened to Thracians? Claiming that Greeks were the authoctone people of the city (as a number of books, articles etc. implicitly suggest) can only be explained by the official-religious ideology of the Byzantine Empire or the mythology which naturally is irrelevant (despite being nice and interesting) to the scientific explanation of the history of the city . Why to ignore the existence of well-advanced civilisations prior to Greek Colonialisation. What about the archeological findings dating back to 6000-7000 B.C.? --Z y Talk 22:51, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Of course there were Thracians around before the Megarians arrived. I think there's little point in mentioning it (i) because as far as I am aware there is no evidence of a Thracian settlement (and this article is about the city), and (ii) because the subject of the article is Constantinople - strictly speaking the material about Byzantium is irrelevant, but one may accept that a small amount of historical background is useful. Deipnosophista 08:45, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Warning - Section on Constantinople's Survival, 565–717 Suspect

Latest comment: 16 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion

The third and fourth paragraphs of this section are suspect and should not be taken as fact without serious research from other sources. The suspect text reads:

"The key to the survival of Constantinople was its walls. The walls were built after the army of the Byzantine empire had been vanquished by Gangis Kahn in 1259, leaving the capital completely open. At this time elsewhere in the world the middle ages had their impact, the people were starving and living in overcrowded areas sprawled with filth. This was not the case with Constantinople, Constantinople was the wealthiest city in the world by far. The people were living at the hight of luxury so, naturally it was attacked often.

The walls were its main form of defence, they were 30 feet high, large for that time; however, the walls of Constantinople had been largely destroyed by an earlier attack and was in a terrible state of repair. Gengis Khan had employed an army of italian mercenaries skilled in the early use of gunpowder and who destroyed the remaining pieces of the wall. The wall was destroyed and Gengis Khan was only a few months off. Work began immediately, the people of Constantinople were united to build the walls. The plan was to build not one, but three walls in increasing increments of 20 feet, with enough space between every wall to fight with infantry. It was strengthened with 96 towers, 18-20 metres tall, every 55 metres. It was completed within the time before Gangis Khan arrived with the infamous horde. However, Gangis Khan knew that he wouldn't be able to take the city, for he was unprepared for a long siege."

1st Gangis Khan (sic) died in 1227, his son Batu was the only Mongolian leader to even come within a five hundred miles of Constantinople and that was his attacks on Poland and Hungary in the 1260's and 1270's (see Gangis Khan article on Wikipedia). Whoever inserted these two paragraphs is distorting history and citing a non-event in the wrong section of the article.

````wmbl94134 (09/29/2007)

Yes, this is quite inaccurate: the walls were built under Theodosius II, Constantinople itself was never attacked by Genghis Khan, and there was no attack using gunpowder until the successful assault of Mehmet the Conqueror in 1453.

Deipnosophista 08:52, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Batu was Genghis's grandson. His attacks on Poland and Hungary were in the 1240s. Furthermore, the Mongol general Baiju was campaigning in Anatolia against the Seljuks of Rum around the same time, and I'm fairly certain that he would've gotten closer to Constantinople than Batu. That being s aid, the material being criticized here is pretty clearly made up. john k 07:39, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Its all nonesense. As already said, Gengis Khan was dead way before the Khanate even reached Anatolia. And an alliance between the Mongols and the Nicaeans was sealed with a marriage. See Michael VIII - John IV's sisters were married off to foreigners, and I swore I remember hearing that one of them ended up as a Mongol bride. Tourskin (talk) 05:33, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Largest city?

Latest comment: 16 years ago10 comments9 people in discussion

The article states that after the fall of the western roman empire, Constantinople became the largest city in the empire and the world? In the world? This is definately something that needs to be verified. Harley peters 00:21, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Hi. It is impossible to say for sure that Constantinople was the largest city in the world at that time. But considering the estimates that we have, it was the largest city in the world in the 4th, 5th and 6th centuries with a total population that has estimates with range from 400,000 to 500,000. After that Bagdah and the capital of Tang China were the largest cities in the 7th, 8th and 9th centuries, with the decline of the Byzantine empire. In the 10th and 11th centuries, with the reemergence of the empire, it became the largest city again with a population of 300,000 to 400,000.--RafaelG 01:22, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

I know for a fact that during the 13th century it was the second largest city in the word after Babylon. In the 5th century when Rome was decreased to a village, Constantinople was definitely the largest in Europe, but I don't know about the rest of the world. Miskin 16:57, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Babylon did not exist anymore by the 13th century, the city was abandoned since the 2th century BC.--RafaelG 03:59, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Rome was not "decreased to a village" in the 5th century. --Stbalbach 04:30, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes it was, sheep were grazed in the ruins of the forum —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.148.118.190 (talk) 00:46, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Actually according to Procopius in his History of the Wars Rome had a population of over 200,000 right up to the 530's AD and it was the several sieges of the city during Justinian's wars that depopulated the city. - Galloglass 01:34, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

During the 10th and 11th centuries, arab historians claim that Cordoba had 1,000,000, and modern historians argue that they were aroud 600,000 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.85.197.38 (talk) 16:46, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Can anyone give me some figures for the population of Constantinople in the 12th century? It would be great to know whether the population had recovered to Roman levels by this time. On the History of Rome article, they have an infobox which lists the population figures for the city throughout its existence; I think it would be a good idea to add something similar here. Bigdaddy1204 09:22, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

True, Cordovan Caliphate was really advanced. Btw sheep grazed on the Forum Romanum from 12th to 14th century not before not after. Rome was a respectable sized community back then. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kontrolleur Cro (talk • contribs) 00:10, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Norse name for the city

Latest comment: 16 years ago5 comments5 people in discussion

I am working on redirecting wikilinks to bypass the disambiguation page Norse. In Note 1 "Miklagard" is noted as the "Norse" name; could someone clarify which language this refers to? ... the Norse page has references to most that would fall under that category. Thanks for considering this. Courtland 01:10, August 3, 2005 (UTC)

Why are the Norse and Icelandic names being listed here anyway? --Revolución (talk) 18:14, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

I presume because of the Varangian Guard. Olessi 05:43, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Or because someone has read Stephen Lawhead's Byzantium? MnJWalker 20:52, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

OK,the article about Constantinople is very well written but I am wondering why do you think that it is important to put in here the Norse name of the city and not even mention the name that the Slavs have given it:Carigrad ( Car-Emperor, Tzar; Grad-city )=Imperial City, City of the Emperor Not only did the Empire control a large area where Slavs lived it also had signed agreements with e.g. Croatian kings and dukes,Serbian dukes and others. Besides Dalmatian cities were very important to the Empire before they were passed on to the Croatian king. And those cities had a mixed Roman-Croatian population that reffered to their capital city as Konstantinopolis, Carigrad etc. Kontrolleur Cro 15:52, February 10 2008 (UTC)

I don't: in my view the only relevant name is the English one: Constantinople. Let the "Norse" name go in the Norse wikipedia and the "Slav" name in the Slav wikipedia (if either exist), and let's save space in the English wikipedia for material which belongs in an encyclopedia rather than a language dictionary. Deipnosophista (talk) 13:42, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

I know for sure that the Swedish name Mikligarðr is sometimes mentioned in popular introductions on Byzantium. The relevancy would probably be that it shows some light on how Byzantium was viewed upon during an early period of cultural or economical exchange between the eastern Mediterranean and northern Europe (the means of the exchange being the Varangians). Iblardi (talk) 20:55, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

I get it but I just wanted to state out that while this is an English Wiki there is the Norse name and no Slav name. Nothing else nothing more. And while this is interesting ( reffering to the talk about connections between North and South of Europe ) it would only be fair to put it in since the two names are equally important :)

Kontrolleur Cro (talk) 01:11, 17 February 2008

Istanbul

Latest comment: 15 years ago5 comments5 people in discussion

Actually, "Istanbul" did not become the official name until Ataturk. It was referred to colloquially as Istanbul, or Stambol, wich probably derive from the Greek expression εις την πόλιν, eis tim boli "in the city." The Greeks themselves often referred to it as η Πόλις, "The City." The sultans liked to think of themelves as the successors to Byzantium, so they kept the name officially intact, in its Arabic form Qusţanţaniyyeh (قسطنطنيه) Check the Istanbul article for more info. --Jpbrenna 22:37, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

That is true, but Turkish tribes have used "Istanbul", if only in common tongue, since the 11th century or so. There is also a document where both "Constantinople" and "Istanbul" are used- see http://www.sephardicstudies.org/istanbul.html -RomeW

But the song sure was catchy. --Isequals 06:35, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

"The sultans liked to think of themelves as the successors to Byzantium"

What are you? Psychologist to Sultans?--Kagan the Barbarian 10:28, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

One note, εις την πόλιν is transliterated "eis ten polis." Thanatosimii 02:44, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Kagan the Barbarian: I ve heart too that the Sultans regarded themselves as successors of the Byzantine empirors or at least the Greek Patriarchate in Constantinople/Istanbul regarded them as such. Now, maybe this information is not correct, but various scholars support it. It's also correct that the city used to be called Constantinople in official documents until the Turkish government changed the name (i suppose the date above-1930- is correct). Of course the people might have used different names, but in official documents this is how the city was called. Thanatosimii: Now about how Greek should be transliterated (eis tin polin or eis ten polin), well "ten" is the more standard one . However, the pronunciation of the Greek as was spoken at the time (15th-16th cent) was probably closer to "tin" than to "ten". --Greece666 21:18, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

I have reverted the latest edit, which said in brief that the name Istanbul means "The City". I think this is not relevant to an article on Constantinople, and belongs in the article on Istanbul (I have also read that "Istanbul" is a corruption of the Greek "eis ten polin" (see above), which implies that any elaboration about "Istanbul" could get us immersed in Graeco-Turkish conflicts again): best imho to keep it simple and leave it out. Deipnosophista (talk) 15:28, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Names

Latest comment: 15 years ago6 comments4 people in discussion

Someone's just added some "Greek names". "Constantinople" itself, of course, is a Greek name: it is the Greek for "City of Constantine" transliterated into the Roman alphabet and given a Latin form, then adapted into French or German and finally adopted into English over a period of hundreds of years, with the final version being settled many years ago. I see from my OED that "Constantinopolitan" goes back to the year 1568, so presumably "Constantinople" itself is earlier.

Perhaps this is the time to call a halt to inserting "translations" of names in this article. Just as the history of the Byzantine Empire has suffered by the fact that a knowledge of a bewildering variety of languages as used in the historical sources is necessary to be a really competent scholar of it, so there seems to be a temptation for everyone to add their own translations or transliterations of names in this article (I'm especially bewildered by the people who think it's helpful to add Greek names transliterated into Roman letters using modern Greek conventions, rather than the Latin conventions by which Byzantine place names actually entered Western culture: what does "Byzantium (Greek: Byzantion)" add to the reader's knowledge?). This is, let's remember, the English Wikipedia: it's not really of core interest in relation to the history of Constantinople to know that, for example, the Vikings called it Mikelgard, though it might be interesting in an article about Norse perceptions of southern Europe in the Middle Ages. Maybe this is misplaced patriotism: if so, couldn't those involved show a bit more self-control?

I propose that we should take out all the names here other than those which can be shown to be accepted English versions of the names as they were in the original language. Deipnosophista 21:49, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Em, since I'm the one who added a few Greek names (and refrained from adding more), I'll respond. I added names of some of the city's landmarks, as they were actually used during most of the city's history, especially where no relevant article exists for no further elaboration (for instance, how would you know what "Mese" actually means? Its Latin form is meaningless...). I think that is common practice in articles on cities where the Latin alphabet is not used to add the local names As for the inclusion of Greek or transliterated Greek, since no one has set up any concrete standards or guidelines, I suppose everyone is free to do as he or she chooses. A lot of people who can't actually (or simply don't care to learn to) read the Greek alphabet, so to them, I suppose, it makes sense. Regards, Cplakidas 08:15, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

I think the one with 'Mese' should stay; I am not sure about the Greek name of the city at the beginning (it should not be bolded though), but the rest should go (Nova Roma as well). Deniz^T_C 00:04, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

The Greek form of the city's name is of outmost relevance, considering the history of the city. And of course I am refering to the prevelance of the Greek language in those parts of the Roman Empire. There are literally myriad references to that, in primary sources, treatments in secondary sources, articles and any other authorship imaginable. Upon request I could put some here. --157.228.x.x (talk) 20:50, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

The Greek form of the city's name is of no relevance. "Constantinopolis" is plainly the same word as "Constantinople": this does not need to be explained to the reader. Putting it into Greek letters communicates no more, and does not help the many readers who do not read Greek. If the point is that we ought to be Greek patriots, and speak and write Greek, then the patriotic thing to do is to edit the Greek Wikipedia, not clutter up the English one.Deipnosophista (talk) 06:41, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Complete and utter nonsense. According to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names), General Guideline 2, point Two:

Relevant foreign language names (one used by at least 10% of sources in the English language or is used by a group of people which used to inhabit this geographical place. ^[1]

I would suggest to read the whole page (and then some), carefully before jump here with any objections.^[2] Greek was the prevailing language of its inhabitants for centuries, if not millennia .^[3] I do not even have to cite its Greek form but if you retract that "Greek-patriot-go-home-to-Greek-Wiki-Moussaka" brouhaha, I might reconsider. Mind you, only if you ask really politely. Pretty please with sugar on top kinda thing. --157.228.x.x (talk) 18:26, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

P.S. I am fully aware about your "contributions" to this article.

Notes

^ Not that it would be a "feat" to provide English language sources with the Greek form too.
^ There are a few other reasons to justify its use, too.
^ Moravcsik (1970), 11-12

Constantinople (not Istanbul)

Latest comment: 15 years ago14 comments3 people in discussion

Constantinople was the capital of the Ottoman Sultanate ("Ottoman Empire") and it has been treated as that by contemporary authors (i.e. 18th and 19th century historians, writers, journalists etc) and modern (i.e. 20th and 21st centuries) historians.

Edward Gibbon, Henry Hart Milman , 1850, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, pg. 77
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1911 edition
The New Encyclopaedia Britannica. Constantinople, Ottoman Empire , Jacob E. Safra, 2005
Philip Mansel, 2006, Constantinople: City of the World's Desire, 1453-1924

Plus numerous other publications as seen in google books and g. scholar. If memory serves right also American "heavyweights" as Stanford J. Shaw (in his 'Between old and new (1971) and History of the Ottoman Empire and modern Turkey (1976) books) plus the controversial Justin McCarthy ( in his The Ottoman peoples and the end of empire (2001)) also used this naming convention. Off-hand, I don't have access to these books right now as in recent past but I will try to locate them if need be. --157.228.x.x (talk) 16:23, 2 June 2008 (UTC) --157.228.x.x (talk) 16:10, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't think you quite understand. The history of the city had been divided into three separate articles based on time periods. The first one Byzantium covering the period from its foundation in 667 BC until 330 AD when it became capital of the Roman Empire. The second article be able to Constantinople covers the period 330 AD until 1453 when it became capital of the Ottoman empire, then the third Istanbul is the history from 1453 onward. I hope this is now clear to you. - Galloglass 16:17, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Its not a matter of references as we are all aware of when the city formally became Istanbul in the 20C but one of historical time periods: The ancient city prior to 330 AD, the medieval city from 330 until 1453 and the modern period from 1453 until the present. - Galloglass 16:29, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

I understand what you are trying to say but this is irrelevant. I wasn't supporting my argument on the base of referencing alone. I was editing concurrently, without seeing your previous answer. We have to treat this article as most historians do. We can not eliminate the referencing plethora of "Constantinople" as capital of the Ottoman empire, from this article, just because we have another article for "Istanbul". In other words "Constantinople" was the name used in contemporary and modern academia, popular culture, press (media) and any other kind of authorship; we can not "hide" that just because, erroneously IMHO, one user (or some users) made the questionable editorial judgement to treat the history of Constantinople after the Fall in another article. --157.228.x.x (talk) 16:37, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Plus, please do not revert. It was you who removed long standing (cited by reliable sources) text so you have the burden of proof, to build consensus and provide adequate references from reliable and verifiable sources (see WP:NPOV, WP:Verifiability etc.). --157.228.x.x (talk) 16:43, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

This is a long standing division into three articles so the burden reasons of changing this lies with you. Please bear in mind though this is a 'historical' article and the divisions have been made for the reasons outlined above. Also please bear in mind that most of us who contribute to these pages have a good knowledge of its history so simply quoting references for what we already know will not suffice - Galloglass 16:46, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Are you seriously saying that it is not suffice to say that most modern historians are using this naming convention? This is against every editorial principle, not only in Wikipedia, but well, everywhere, anywhere. --157.228.x.x (talk) 16:55, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

You are not really helping your case you know. If you wish to see a change in the time periods covered by the articles then you should do it on the talk page. Simply ignoring this will just result in you being reverted again and again by more informed editors. - Galloglass 16:58, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) To clarify myself. I do not dispute of course that there are multiple articles for this city nor that much of its modern history is treated in the "Istanbul" article. What I do object though is to your suggestion that that we must eliminate all references of "Constantinople" as the capital of the Ottoman Sultanate from this article, especially when there is a plethora of academic (and other) sources to the contrary. In short what your are suggesting is completely irrelevant. We can and we should mention that this city, treated by this particular name, was the capital of the Ottoman sultanate. --157.228.x.x (talk) 17:04, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

I am very sorry you don't seem to understand the first line of the article where it says "For after 1453, see Istanbul." This seems clear English to me. Well I'm off to work now so I will leave it others to try and explain the meaning of this to you. - Galloglass 17:10, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

I am very sorry too, but the only thing I have seen from you is the absurd notion that just because we are treating some aspects of the city's history in another article we must ignore, widely known and credibly verifiable facts, perfectly treated in this one. If nothing else what you are suggesting is a gross violation of WP:NPOV, WP:Verifiability and in some aspects WP:NOR as well. --157.228.x.x (talk) 17:19, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Now you are just making yourself look silly. I would really suggest reading (and trying to understand) WP:NPOV, WP:Verifiability and WP:NOR before quoting them out of context like this. - Galloglass 06:47, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

It's worth noting that we have an entire article, Names of Istanbul, on the naming issues. The main articles themselves should, and for the most part do, focus on the actual history of the city in its various periods, instead of being hung up on the name changes, which are interesting but comparatively less important. As others have mentioned, the periodization is based primarily on things other than linguistics; the change in 1453 from Byzantine to Ottoman rule is of course a much more important departure than the official renaming in 1930 is, and so a more reasonable break in article coverage as well. --Delirium (talk) 01:03, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry but I think that there is some confusion of intentions here. No-one is putting excess emphasis on the renaming of the city from Constantinople to Istanbul. The whole incident is treated in literally two lines of text and that's that. A millennium-and-a-half-old name, officially in use up until the 1930's and in common use several decades after that, deserves two lines of text, I would think in its one of the most pertinent places in WP or any encyclopedia. That we have an article treating this and various other names is completely irrelevant. Think of it this way; the article (any article) should be accurate, precise, concisely presenting the relevant facts and reasonably stand on its own by not depending on the treatise of other articles. I think there is a universal agreement that "Constantinople-Constantinopolis" is one of the most (if not the most) important name throughout its vast history so we need to put some emphasis here. If you are referring to other names (e.g. Nova Roma) I would agree that it is preferable to treat those in the Names of Istanbul with more detail. I would also agree that the change from Byzantine to Ottoman rule is a pivotal point of its history that deserves great focus, of course; but in terms of linguistics, we should also communicate -in its actual article i.e. here- that "Constantinople" (as a name) survived for centuries after the actual fall the City . --157.228.x.x (talk) 05:18, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Constantinople (not Nova Roma)

Latest comment: 15 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion

I was wondering about the well-known statement that Constantinople was dubbed "New Rome" (Nova Roma / Nea Rhome) by Constantine. This is something that reappears in many popular books on this subject, but what is the ultimate source for this assertion? In a comment above one Socrates is mentioned, but he was apparently born near the end of the 4th century. Now, maybe I am being too suspicious, but it seems not unthinkable that a 5th-century writer on ecclesiastical and/or political affairs who resided in Constantinople could have motives to assert the status of the Eastern capital vis-à-vis Rome by having its status enhanced in retrospect (i.e. as if Constantine would have officially transferred the status of 'old' Rome to 'new' Rome).

On the other hand, coins mentioning the city's name as Constantinopolis apparently already appeared during Constantine's lifetime. (See the one in the article, which is dated in the early 330s ([2]); also Michael Grant, The climax of Rome, p. 133: "In c. 330 there were special coinages honouring _{CONSTANTINOPOLIS}; but they were paralleled by issues celebrating the City of Rome" - that last remark is also interesting in this context.) Maybe I'm just missing some obvious line of evidence. Any thoughts? Iblardi (talk) 19:06, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

The Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum, vol. 164 (Stuttgart 2005), has, under Konstantinopel, column 442 (translated from German, Greek transliterated):

"The designation of Constantinople as [a] second Rome is already found soon after the city's foundation in a poem of Optatianus Porfyrius (...), i.e. in purely rhetoric context. Possibly Constantine himself, too, in a law, of which the text is admittedly only transmitted by the church historian Socrates (...), designated the city as [a] second Rome (deutera Rhome), although never as [a] new Rome (nea Rhome (...))."

The text makes reference to publications by Dölger and Bühl, but unfortunately I haven't had the opportunity yet to consult these. But from this entry it seems clear, to me at least, that the notion of Constantinople having been officially named 'New Rome' by Constantine must be discarded, while 'second Rome' remains possible, but is only attested indirectly. Iblardi (talk) 17:04, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

There seems to be many sources here http://books.google.com/books?q=%22New+Rome%22+OR+%22Roma+Nova%22+OR+%22Nova+Roma%22+OR+%22Nea+Roma%22+OR+%22second+Rome%22+OR+%22Roma+secunda%22+%22official+name%22+Constantinople&btnG=Search+Books which consider New Rome as the official name, so I believe that the following "although this was an ecclesiastical rather than an official name" should be deleted. Cody7777777 (talk) 20:08, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Constantine founding Constantinople in what date?

Latest comment: 15 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

"Constantinople was founded by the Roman emperor Constantine I on the site of an already existing city, Byzantium, settled in the early days of Greek colonial expansion, probably around 671-662 BC."

Was Byzantium settled in 671? Or did Constantine settle Constantinople in 671? Because he was very dead by 671. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.72.70.124 (talk) 19:53, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Cordoba

Latest comment: 14 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

At the beginning, the article says that Constantinople was the biggest wealthiest city in Europe throughout the Middle Ages. I have changed it to say most of the Middle Ages, since there were times when Cordoba was bigger. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.106.96.58 (talk) 04:37, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Why the history ends at 1453 ?

Latest comment: 14 years ago5 comments5 people in discussion

The title History in the article refers to "History of the name Constantinople", or "History of the city" ? I think history after 1453 should be added to this article independent or merge discussions.

We can rather change the title as: Constantinople before 1453

I think this has been done because the city's name changed. I don;t know enough about the subject to help you more than that; but please be careful, though, it sucks to get blocked because of the 3 revert rule. Ahudson 17:07, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

~~ Where is it documented that the name changed after 1453? Wasn't it officially changed much later, around 1930s? by ApplesnPeaches ~~

Officially, but the name Constantinople had long been out of use by the '30s. JonnyLightning 21:22, 3 October 2007 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.167.102.71 (talk)

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Leecharleswalker (talk • contribs) 15:21, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

It's Istanbul, not Constantinople. --Pete 06:57, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Complete nonsense. The name Constantinople was pretty universally used by westerners until 1930, in addition to being the official name. john k 07:34, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

You might think that it is nonsense but it was refered as istanbul by his rulers and legaly its called istanbul an dits pretty good to end it whit the conquest of İSTANBUL.

I have several atlases that pre-date 1930, and they all say Constantinople, with the occasional book having (Istanbul) in brackets. Dinkytown (talk) 20:57, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Coordinate error

Latest comment: 13 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Resolved

– coordinates are now identical

The coordinates need the following fixes:

There is a discrepancy in Wikipedia between the coordinates of Constantinople and Istanbul. These should be identical, as they refer to the same city.

Aetheling (talk) 05:32, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

What's the right term for someone of or something from Constantinople?

Latest comment: 13 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Constantinian? Constantinoplian? New Roman? I just used the word "Constantine" but that only sounds right and probably isn't. -- Kendrick7^talk 03:08, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

The form you're looking for is "Constantinopolitan". Cheers, Constantine ✍ 08:42, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Ah, much obliged -- Kendrick7^talk

Empire Names

Latest comment: 12 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

This article separates the Eastern Roman Empire and the Byzantine Empire as two different things, when they are the same. It should be changed to Eastern Roman Empire/Byzantine Empire.

I've done this. It's contentious because there was never a "Byzantine" Empire or state. The "Byzantine" Empire was the continuation of the ancient Roman state and called itself Roman for the same reasons the English still call themselves that when Angles, as a race, have pretty much been bred out of existance. The West called the Empire "The Greek Empire" or "Romania" (latin for Land of the Romans) following the development of a separate Western identity. "Byzantine" is a modern invention, it's useful to distinguish the christian, Greek medieval state that succeeded the larger pagan, latin-greek classical one but it has the unfortunate side-effect of making us think that there was a conciously-separate entity that sprung-up fully-formed around the forth century when that simply isn't the case. The shift from the rump classic Roman state that still claimed theoretically soverignty over the city of Rome and the West to the medaeival Greek empire of the balkans and asian minor that was a de facto East-mediterranean kingdom and a continuation of the Roman state in name and history only took centuries. In the sixth century, Constantinople still had a senate, the office of Consul and even held a triumph for a conquering General. By the twelth century all these things were gone and yet the state had continued to exist for all this time. The history is well-worth reading for a greater understanding of the Eastern Empire and its place in European history --Zagrebo 11:31, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I think this quote from The Fall of the Roman Empire by Peter Heather is relevant:
Gibbon concluded that the Roman Empire survived in the eastern Mediterranean for virtually a millennium, dating its fall to Ottoman capture of Constantinople in 1453. To my mind, however, the rise of Islam in the seventh century caused a decisive break in east Mediterranean Romanness. It robbed Justinian's state of three-quarters of its revenues and prompted institutional and cultural restructuring on a massive scale. Even though the rulers of Constantinople continued to call themselves 'Emperors of the Romans' long after the year 700, they were actually ruling an entity best understood as another successor state rather than a proper continuation of the Roman Empire.

--James W Boston (talk) 18:03, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Miscellaneous discussion

Latest comment: 12 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion

Date for name change from Constantinople to Istanbul is marked as 1930 according to the wiki Istanbul page. Please stop changing the date from 1930 to 1453 to coincide with the fall of Constantinople.K...

--- The toolbox "What links here" has many links that could be worked into text for this still very brief entry. Wetman 07:16, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)

- Shouldn't this be a redirect to Istanbul? Chris5369 22:10 EST, Jan 18th, 2005

should'nt the word "bosporus" on the map be re-labeled "bosphorus" since it is its correct spelling?

The correct transliteration is indeed "Bosporus" (from «ΒΟΣΠΟΡΟΣ») - there is a «Π» in there, not a «Φ». Note the contrast with «ΦΩΣΦΟΡΟΣ» (from which the english word "phosphor" is derived) and which seems to be the reason some people get confused. I am proceeding to correct this spelling. (Note from a native speaker)

144.32.81.175 2 July 2005 09:15 (UTC)

It came to my attention that the date the Fall of Constantinople happened, was May 29 according to Julian and not Gregorian calendar. It was a Tuesday. Should the date change to June 7 or note the different calendar? --geraki 20:21, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

On the calendar it should stay Julian: anyone who cares should know that all dates were affected by the calendar change and will know that for certain purposes they need to make adjustments. Mark O'Sullivan 13:06, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

This is a false assumption. People who care might or might know about the date change, but to expect them to know the specifics of the date change is totally inappropriate for Wikipedia.202.179.16.96 (talk) 10:28, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

On the spelling point, "Bosporus" (from πορος, a ford) is I'm sure correct. But "Bosphorus" (presumably with reference to φερω, to bear, or its frequentative φορεω) is an ancient spelling ("Bosforus" is sometimes found in Latin manuscripts). So it's not just a recent or ignorant mistake. Mark O'Sullivan 16:05, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

Editing

Latest comment: 12 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

I can't seem to edit the main page. The search function doesn't turn up a word that is clearly in the main text. I tried to fix a minor error (it's-->its) and got bounced into some editorial whirl dealing with something called false positives. 202.179.16.96 (talk) 10:32, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't know anything about the technicalities, but I had no problems implementing your suggestion. Iblardi (talk) 14:02, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Where to go with (pre 1453) Turkish lore on the City?

Latest comment: 11 years ago6 comments4 people in discussion

On May, 20th, 2009, I placed the subheader: "Origins: The Turkish Tale" – text given below. It was immediately deleted by User Dinkytown, together with several other items of mine. Stating I was inserting false information, and vandalizing Wikipedia, Dinkytown threathened to ban me: “You claim that some guy named Yanko bin Madyan started Constantinople. That is simply flat out wrong, read the article. The rest of what you wrote has no basis in reality. They were also off topic.”

I leave it to the reader to judge this person’s reading-comprehension abilities, given that the text starts with the words “Tale” and “Legend” respectively. The question however remains, as all three articles on the City (following the much discussed division in three eras) are containing historical facts only : Do all feel this philology bit is off topic on this page? If so, where to insert it then? If not, I ask senior Users/moderators, what about a simple revert of Dinkytown’s undo (bearing in mind all his ban talk?)

To illustrate the importance : --This legend is a clever reworking of already existing elements in Byzantine tales, which is important for Turkish-Byzantine relations; -- the author (living and writing in relatively nearby Gallipoli) is a cultural accolade encompassing most of the 15th century (but “failing” the 1453 time division, as he has both significant pre-, and post– activities concerning the City); -- Bican's book deeply influenced Ottoman sentiment (quite a few felt the City to be intrinsically alien) and literature on this topic, and reflects muslim thinking on Constantinople in the pre-1453 period as well [cf. eg. Stephane Yerasimos, Légende d’ Empire. Paris 1990].

So I feel at least one Wiki article on the City should include material of the man who singlehandedly, and in close cultural interaction with (pre-1453) Greek Constantinople shaped its status in the Ottomans’ cultural legacy. They, after all, went on to live there ever after.

(Please note that material I included on Nicomedia (referred to with a link in the text below) was also deleted by Dinkytown that same day, same warnings etc.)

Origins: The Turkish Tale

According to the muslim Turkish legend, coined by Ahmed Bican, of the founding of ‘Kostantiniyye’, Yanko bin Madyan (yankobinmadyan < ‘Nicomedia’) decided to build the city on a ‘wedge shaped’ plot of land, triangled between two sea arms. To make sure building activities would commence under an auspicious constellation, his astronomers deviced a system of poles with bells and cords attached to them, to set the army of diggers, masons etc. to work at the same right time: “Alas, man proposes, God disposes.” A snake snatched by a local stork curled itself around the bird’s neck, thus causing it to fall out of the sky, against one of the bells, thereby setting on the entire enterprise in the most ominous of hours, that of the planet Mars. Inevitably, the future of the city was to be rife with earthquakes, war and plagues.^[1]

(Radbod (talk) 17:11, 22 May 2009 (UTC))

Hmmm, interesting fact. I knew that some Byzantine authors conjured up fictional histories on Constantinople's origins, but not that the Ottomans did the same (doesn;t surprise me, though). The info is certainly welcome, but I too would have doubts about its suitability for this article, since it deals with the actual history of the city. Perhaps starting an article on the Mythological origins of Constantinople would be a good idea? Regards, Constantine ✍ 18:22, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

I would have to agree with Constantine regarding the above as historical mythology as a conflict to the actual history of the city. A new article on the Mythological origins of Constantinople would be in order. I would compare the above with the evolution vs creationism conflict, as there is no historical basis for the mythology. In addition, Ahmed Bican and other Ottoman sources post-date the founding of Constantinople by eleven centuries and therefore, would not be a reliable source for the creation of the city as they are far removed in time. Nothing is mention about Byzantium as the first city in the above source. In addition, stating that Yanko bin Madyan founded the city is in direct conflict with every historical source in any language. Mentioning snakes, storks, planets an earthquakes, without any type of context must be deleted as per Exceptional claims require exceptional sources, and also as it has an undo weight to the whole historical record.

Yes, I did remove your additions to the other two articles, but only after I tried to find any verification of your additions to the Constantinople article on other websites. I found nothing in English that confirmed the above claims. You also had no history of contributions to this article, so I reasonably assumed that it was false information / vandalism. However, I only removed your other two additions for the same reasons as they were similar in content, and only those three because all were created on the same date. The previous dated article additions I let go as I had little knowledge of those subjects and choose to let others deal with them.

I noticed that you have reverted my edits on the bat [3] article. It states that the addition was under "The bat in Islam" and listed under 'Cultural Descriptions'. I over looked this before and I will not dispute this and let it stand. I again reverted your additions to the Nicomedia article as per Exceptional claims require exceptional sources, and undo weight as described above to the whole historical record, which I will state in that talk page shortly.

I gave you a warning as to what I thought was vandalism, as described by Wikipedia policy on warnings and went by their policy. After a certain number of warnings, a person could be blocked from editing for a certain amount of time, depending on the severity of the offense. I did not report you to any administrator so your reputation is still clean. Judging from your contribution record, I am going to assume that you are new to Wikipedia - Welcome... I would suggest that you ask other people who have contributed extensively on wikipedia for advice if you have any questions about anything.

One final note - please do not send me personal emails to my email address, but rather state them publicly on the talk pages for everyone to see and comment. Thank you and take care. Dinkytown 06:24, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Following Dinkytown's suggestion elsewhere, I have now included this Ottoman-Turkish legend material under an appropriate subheader in the main article Ahmed Bican and will make a 'see also' link from the Constantinople article. Radbod (talk) 12:56, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

I've moved this from the list of Churches and monasteries to Other related topics under the heading; The Turkish Tale. If people are nor happy with this please feel free to change. Cheers - Galloglass 13:38, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

I am fine with that, it will cover the subject just as well. The reason why I initially opted for "Churches and monasteries", was because Bican, while dealing with the legendary past of the City, elaborates extensively on the Hagia Sophia (> Turkish Aya Sofia), even up to the degree of working out an (anti-) Ottoman State ideology straight out of that building if you will; hence the title of the main monograph to date on that aspect: Stephane Yerasimos, Legende d'Empire. La fondation de Constantinople et de Sainte-Sophie dans les traditions turques. Paris 1990. Radbod (talk) 18:35, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Here. Ask Prof. Dr. Halil INALCIK all your questions, reading this book. --E4024 (talk) 08:59, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

References

^ Laban Kaptein (ed.), Ahmed Bican, Dürr-i meknûn, p. 183ff and § 7.104–7.119; 8.45–8.49. Asch 2007. ISBN 9789090214085

"Transition to the Ottoman era" section

Latest comment: 11 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

The intro is not well written. I corrected the mistake about God (in Arabic: Allah; also used by Arab Christians if they spek Arabic). Still there are other issues. The word "thorn" and what it implies is not encyclopedic at all. The section begins with two "finally"s which are other than not a nice language present some hidden POV (from reverse; how is it called in psychology?). The last paragraph of the first subsection is not due; I would remove it. 1453-1923 (population exchange) is too far away in history. --E4024 (talk) 22:37, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

BTW what a long "transition" is that? Takes almost half a millenium! Users may take this as a pretext not to make an "Ottoman" city. I would like to remind you that the Empire ended in 1922; before completing the transition? No way. Please edit it to make it look more like what it is: Capital of the Ottoman Empire...

The section "1261–1453 and the Fall of Constantinople" is in awful shape needs a rewrite

Latest comment: 9 years ago4 comments4 people in discussion

It is way too long and gives far too much emphasis to the Fall of Constantinople. Only the first paragraph is about the period before 1453, while the rest deals exclusively with the Fall of Constantinople, which has its own article.

With the exception of the first paragraph, everything dealing with 1453 is very poorly sourced, most to this [4], not an ideal source. Large chunks are unsourced.

The language used is naive and unencyclopedic, e.g. "When the Byzantine forces saw the entire Ottoman army get on their knees to pray, the Byzantine army was witnessing how united the Ottoman Turks were and this worried them". The stuff about "Mehmet's secret weapon" is total malarkey and is unsurprisingly unsourced.

I propose to replace the text of this section with material from the much better Fall of Constantinople, which uses quality sources and encyclopedic language. Athenean (talk) 16:50, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

The section reads more like a narrative and a rather naive at that. If you have faith in the material from Fall of Constantinople, it can only improve the article. As for the secret weapon, maybe the text means Orban and his bombard technology (which was Central European btw). In the end, however, the city was taken by assault (or rather mounting a section of the wall unprotected during an assault), not modern technology of the time. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 22:41, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

I just read that section for the first time, & immediately deleted 2 paragraphs that are complete fantasy. (No, Sultan Mehmet had no mobile tower. No, the Pope did not send help at the last moment.) And those paragraphs read as if written by a 12-year-old. -- llywrch (talk) 21:04, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

Did some final cleanup and brought in a bunch from the other article. 69.180.164.240 (talk) 01:50, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Flag of Constantinople

Latest comment: 8 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Very interesting but this was the flag of the city. Is there anyway anyone can add the image in the opening of the article: http://www.idtg.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/constantinople-banner.png — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.244.11.203 (talk) 16:43, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Roman, Eastern Roman and Byzantine

Latest comment: 6 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion

Seraphim_System, your edit: [5] to an inexperienced eye may look just logical and obvious. However, it creates more problems than it does solve and for this reason it has been reverted. I do not disagree with your changes, and I even myself have attempted that change in the past, but problems such as removal of an important wikilink to the related article Roman Empire in favor of the unecessary listing of all the known names for that empire, arise here. Since the lead section is more about the capital Constantinople and less about the Empire itself, to keep wikilinks to whom Constantinople was administrative center, is crucial and can not be replaced by the information about the various names the empire had/is given. --❤ SILENTRESIDENT ❤ 13:40, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

The related article is the Byzantine Empire, use of Roman Empire is not consistent with WP:LEDE. The LEDE is supposed to be for an audience that has little to no knowledge of the subject, in which case linking Roman Empire is ambiguous and unclear. It is more helpful to clearly state, briefly, that it became the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, thus preserving the Wikilink Seraphim System ^(talk) 22:12, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

This is what I too have thought at a time. But this approach is, like how I said above, problematic. The related articles are both Roman and Byzantine Empire articles, since Constantinople's history is directly connected to both Roman and Byzantine historiographical periods, having served as one of the two major administrative centres of the imperial realm from the early days, when it still was intact. Nothing less, nothing more. Hence why it is in fact consistent with WP:LEDE even if it doesn't seem to you. --❤ SILENTRESIDENT ❤ 14:42, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

Coordinate error

Latest comment: 6 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

{{geodata-check}}

The following coordinate fixes are needed for

—106.66.173.162 (talk) 18:56, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

You haven't described an error, and the coordinates in the article seem to be correct. If you still think that there is an error, please give a clear explanation of it. Deor (talk) 19:00, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

Citation Request Spam

Latest comment: 5 years ago6 comments3 people in discussion

A bot should not be the designator of citation requests. AnonieBOT has arbitrarily labelled nearly every single paragraph for citation requests. Citations are needed, but this work needs to be done by a editor.

Basic statements like "the city eventually fell to the Ottomans after a 53-day siege on 29 May 1453" do not need a citation request. I will be reverting from the citation spam later as they need editorial review. Do not undo unless you're willing to properly review. Sleath56 (talk) 19:30, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

I see no evidence that these citation requests were originated by AnomieBot. AnomieBot doesn't originate citation-needed tags; it only applies dates to tags that human editors have placed in the article. [6] Some of these fact tags are arguably extraneous, but others--for example, ". . . whose only result was the destruction of the great statue of Athena, the work of Phidias, which stood in the principal forum facing west" most certainly do require citations. I would suggest you hold off on any wholesale cleanout. NewEnglandYankee (talk) 19:44, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict)@Sleath56: Hello, Sleath. Thank you for engaging in discussion. I think you have misunderstood the role of the bot. The citation-needed tags were added by a human. However, the human forgot to add dates to those tags, and adding those dates was the only action that the bot performed. And as I noted in my edit summary, these do appear to be legitimate requests for citations. NewYorkActuary (talk) 19:48, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

Yes, it appears I erred. The edit was done by an user one edit down from the bot in edit history which is why I misread. This is acceptable to me. I would only balk at the notion a bot is going around mass tagging reqs. However, review of these citations are needed. They were done by an user named 2602:306:c445:429:39fa:511f:4881:ddb0, likely an anon, and the reqs are excessively overzealous in comparison to other pages and without implicit examination of the page content. The line I cited earlier was given a citation req even though the same sentence directly links to the event in question: The Fall of Constantinople.

I suggest leaving the citation top template but remove the arbitrarily indiscriminate applications until an editor is properly able to review the page's citation necessities. Sleath56 (talk) 20:00, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

@Sleath56: I'm glad we got that basic matter resolved. As for the need to add citations, please allow me to make two brief observations. First, when someone adds a citation-needed tag at the end of a paragraph, they usually are not referring solely to the paragraph's final sentence. Instead, they are saying that the entire paragraph needs to be sourced. If all of the sourcing can be done with one reference, then that one reference will be added at the end of the paragraph. Otherwise, removing the tag might require adding two or more references within the paragraph. And second, we can't use another Wikipedia article as a source. If the information is sourced in that other article, then the correct course of action is to copy that source into this article. That way, the reader does not have to go searching for the relevant reference. I hope this has been helpful. NewYorkActuary (talk) 20:16, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for your thoughts. Addressing the observation that citation requests are put at the end of paragraphs, this is something that should obviously be discouraged for the most part for obvious reasons. This is directly noted on WP:Citation Needed. Without careful review in the cases where it's applicable, it's lazy and imprecise, and particular tags of the user in question appears to demonstrate the latter point. In-paragraph citation reqs are undoubtedly more beneficial not only for reader comprehension in determining the context of the page's failure to provide verifiability but also beneficial to future editors looking to fill in citations.

I'm curious on the provisional basis of your second observational note, it would be beneficial for me if you could provide the WP provision so we can have a further concrete base to proceed.

I do believe we are in consensus about our pre-tangential topic however on the independent implementation of the template? It's a satisfactory compromise and adheres to discussions on the mutual applicability of both citation req spamming and implementation of a top-page template provided in Talk:Citation Needed. However, my observations are these. A quick look at any tangentially related page, more prominent and top-level ones including the Rome page, demonstrates vast breadths of uncited materials and paragraphs. The consensus on those pages appear to be that citations can be filled in at editorial leisure and obvious major conjectures are caught by editors before the use of citation reqs become necessary because of active talk or watchlist page communities, but that those pages need not be cluttered with citation-reqs or a top-page template that adds unneeded ambiguity. WP:V unambiguously states the necessity for every fact to be provided with a citation but in working with a imperfect reality, most pages appear to follow the aforementioned compromising philosophy. If top-level pages follow an less overzealous attitude, it brings into question the merits of not maintaining uniformity. I hope this has been helpful. Sleath56 (talk) 22:52, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

Population figures

Latest comment: 5 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion

The recent addition of population figures throughout this article is a problem: population figures for Constantinople are highly contested, and the additions show no sign of this. Unless evidence and qualifications are added they would be better removed. Deipnosophista 08:54, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

I totally approve the above comment: population figures in historical writings are rarely based on any serious research of historical demography. They do not take into account obvious factors such as the low agricultural yields before the 11th century, restricting the amount of grain available for non-agricultural (= urban + military) population, the limitations in the transportation of food, the practical limits of population density (eg. with a million inhabitants within its area, ancient Rome would be more densely populated than modern-day Hong Kong), etc... It is highly contested that ancient/mediaeval Constantinople ever had more than 150 000 citizens at its peak. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.84.109.60 (talk) 11:45, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Not true. It's a historical consensus among scholars that at times the city had a population approaching 400K if not more. 50.111.61.54 (talk) 11:12, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

POV fork

Latest comment: 4 years ago6 comments6 people in discussion

This article is a WP:POVFORK of Istanbul.--Prisencolin (talk) 02:33, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

Read more carefully what POVFORK is about; this article has not resulted from a content dispute, it is the result of different names for different periods in the city's history. This is common practice not only in Wikipedia. Roman Londinium is different from London even though it is essentially the same settlement. --Constantine ✍ 07:22, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

Agree with Constantine. This certainly is not POVFORK. -- ❤ SILENTRESIDENT ❤ 08:59, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

Not a POV fork by any means. --Calthinus (talk) 20:30, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

@Prisencolin: No not a POVFORK. Do you think there are POV issues here, or other problems? Paul August ☎ 20:37, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

While Turkish people today may dislike the use of "Constantinople" for the Ottoman city, they do not have this attitude towards the use of "Constantinople" for the Byzantine city. Therefore I find "POVfork" assertion untenable. WhisperToMe (talk) 09:36, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Article name

Latest comment: 4 years ago8 comments7 people in discussion

In the above section, it's pointed out that Constantinople is not a clear name for a historical article. We need names for the Byzantine and for the Ottoman periods. The straightforward solution would be Byzantine Constantinople and Ottoman Constantinople or maybe Constantinople (to 1453) and Constantinople (since 1453), with redirects from things like Istanbul (since 1453) etc. --Macrakis (talk) 20:22, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

Good idea. I recommend Constantinople (to 1453) and Constantinople (since 1453) reason: if you are interested say in the city in century XX you know the name but perhaps do not look under Byzantine or Ottoman Rjensen (talk) 21:16, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

It might be good to run the clock down on this RFC, but I have found myself to agree with the division proposal re: dividing by period as per the others. Even though Wikipedia doesn't cover words per se, this was about the definitions of words, which is why words are important. Nevertheless the finding that "Istanbul" was used retroactively to refer to Ottoman Constantinople in academic literature is significant, at it shows that historiographically 1453 is a very important dividing line. Therefore I agree with Constantinople (to 1453) and Constantinople (since 1453) WhisperToMe (talk) 04:06, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

Personally I favour a clear disambiguation by the actual subject, i.e. Byzantine Constantinople and Ottoman Constantinople, with the latter ending at 1922/23. However, if dates were chosen, I would prefer Constantinople (330–1453) and Constantinople (1453–1923) for clarity. Constantinople (since 1453) for example leaves unclear if it also includes modern (post-1923) Istanbul. Constantine ✍ 06:42, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

I would strongly prefer retaining an article at Constantinople. That would mean adding Ottoman content to it and also creating sub-article to keep the size down. Sub-articles would not have to cover the whole Byzantine and whole Ottoman periods. Srnec (talk) 14:40, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

But what then would be the difference between this and essentially a 'History of Istanbul' article? About two thirds of the city's existence, and 90% of its recorded history, would be covered by this. Constantine ✍ 16:44, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

Sorry for the late reply, but I have to agree with Srnec about retaining the current title as a general article about the city. The fact that there's a major article at Istanbul covering the modern city but necessarily overlapping with this one and potentially others simply illustrates one of the problems when you decide to rename something very old and well-known: not everyone is going to go along (especially when the new name is simply a local pronunciation of the old one). We can't really resolve this—although the Turks could if they decided they liked the old name better after all—but precisely because "Constantinople" is the English version of the Latin name used since the fourth century, appears in all English sources up to the early 20th century, and retains some currency, it probably needs to remain a primary article for the city's history, even if there's some duplication with "Istanbul". The other titles could go into more detail about specific periods, i.e. Byzantine, Ottoman, without replacing this article. P Aculeius (talk) 07:13, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

I disagree with the usage of "Byzantine Constantinople" only in that it's a reductive terminology that neglects the historiographical controversy of the 'Byzantine' appellation, which is why I stated years ago when I created the infobox and redid the intro paragraph that Constantinople was both a Roman and Byzantine city as a compromise solution to emphasize to readers the city's clear founding in Antiquity. While I support the use of 'Constantinople' as the term of reference to the city beyond 1453 as Istanbul is a very modern revisionist renaming born from 20th century nationalism that misconstrues the continued usage of Constantinople into the Ottoman era, I believe the city before its conquest by the Ottomans deserves its independent article as is in "Constantinople", I agree with Aculeius in this. This is not just because of its unprecedented significance and role in an entirely different civilization, but the general trend of Wikipedia is to isolate, in the history of a city, the modern and the ancient. This is particularly true for Turkish cities which have set on a completely divergent identity and history after their capture by the Turks which includes 20th century renamings.

It's been my years long delayed project but I intend to greatly expand this present article to flesh out the history of the city in its different eras beyond the current paragraph blurbs in present that reflects the growing field of historiography on Constantinople and its topography in Byzantinology, perhaps requiring the eventual need for a "History of Constantinople" page if things get too unwieldy. So I strongly believe in the relevance and usefulness of the purpose of the page in its current form and not as an agglomeration. As for the Constantinople (to/since 1453) double article proposal, I think the infantile (and currently non-existent) state of a Ottoman Constantinople page makes a (since 1453) page pointless from the Istanbul page and not a worthwhile task until we can get editors to hammer out a proper page for "Constantinople since 1453/Ottoman Constantinople" to the length and quality of the current page we have here for "Constantinople" For now, the status quo of delineating Byzantium, Constantinople, Ottoman/Turkish Constantinople/Istanbul in the disambiguation blurb at the top of the page is sufficient in this editor's view. Sleath56 (talk) 19:57, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

RFC on whether to change the end date of this article to 1930

Latest comment: 4 years ago24 comments12 people in discussion

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Looking at the initial question and the explicit statements of support or opposition, there is no consensus. However, looking more closely at the comments, as the discussion has evolved, there does appear to be the evolution of a consensus among the engaging editors.

To summarise the discussion, Istanbul is the main article for the geographical location. Byzantium is a content fork for history of the ancient Greek period. This article (Constantinople) similarly covers (in broad terms) the Byzantine period, ending 1453. The modern (post Ottoman period) has not been forked from the main article and there is tacit agreement not to. There is no article fork for the history of the city during the Ottoman period. There appears to be a consensus (with some disagreement) that the city was widely (v locally) known as Constantinople in reference to the Ottoman period and that an article for this period might take this name. Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names) is guidance touching on this. Considering the 1930 break-point, the discussion has evolved for a break on historical periods (ie 1923). However, as a pragmatic observation, articles tend to touch on both pre and post periods, so that any date used is not a hard barrier.

There appears to be agreement in principle for creating a content fork for history of the city during the Ottoman period being Ottoman Constantinople and disambiguating by renaming here to Byzantine Constantinople or similar (ie placing the periods parenthetically). I any case, the city is referred to as Constantinople. However, this is an hypothetical question until Ottoman Constantinople is more than just a redirect to Istanbul. There is also the article History of Istanbul. There is comment that this may be the foundation for Ottoman Constantinople. This would appear to have merit, since it deals with the subject in more detail.

To conclude, the changes indicated by this discussion would either directly or indirectly impact other articles. It would be inappropriate to use this discussion as a mandate for action across other articles without achieving a broader consensus.

Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 01:04, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

Dear editors, Currently the top notice says that the article covers until 1453, with Ottoman Constantinople discussed at Istanbul. I want to change the "hard limit" of the page until 1930, for the following reasons:

The city was known in the west and in western languages as "Constantinople" until the Turkish law required the use of Istanbul in 1930 (I believe it was officially known as Constantinople in Turkish prior to 1923?)
Istanbul is currently a featured article, and covering too much detail about Ottoman history there may put undue weight as people reading that page may want more of a focus on modern Istanbul. Having this set to 1930 allows adding of additional info that may not necessarily fit at "Istanbul".
Many aspects covered in city articles (such as Media, formal western Education, and formal diplomatic relations) were undeveloped in Byzantine periods and did not develop until late Ottoman rule: it can comfortably cover the types of schools in the city, the newspapers printed in the city, etc.

Note: I am not advocating for removing all traces of Ottoman Constantinople from Istanbul, but instead I want to allow adding of Ottoman info and the first seven years of the Turkish republic to this article, with these two periods sort of overlapping with Istanbul. In other words, have Ottoman stuff go in both Constantinople and "Istanbul" but with the amount of coverage/detail differing according to weight.

Even though there is no recent talk page discussion on this, I felt filing an RFC would be for the best since the Ottoman Empire project is moribund, and it may be good to get many editors to discuss this. WhisperToMe (talk) 10:53, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

Pinging editors who were involved in a previous discussion @Ahudson:, @JonnyLightning:, @Skyring:, @John Kenney: @Dinkytown: @Galloglass: @157.228.x.x:. Also @Cplakidas: might be interested as he's edited Ottoman-related articles WhisperToMe (talk) 11:09, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

Oppose for several reasons. First, 1453 represents such a rupture in the city's identity that folding the Ottoman history here is not really tenable. While in Western terms the city was indeed known as Constantinople until the 1920s (and many WP articles erroneously link here when they use "Constantinople" for the Ottoman period), the continuity of the city's history was not really broken in 1930, at least not in a degree comparable to 1453. If we want to go by a break in continuity with the modern era, then 1923 would be more apt, with the end of the Ottoman Empire itself, and the end of the city as a multicultural imperial capital. Second, there is a growing trend in scholarship to use "Istanbul" for the city during its Ottoman period as well, so common usage is debatable. Third, regardless of motivation, I fear that this proposal will only ignite nationalist reflexes among our fellow Turkish editors.

I would support, however, a different option: moving this article to Constantinople (Byzantine Empire) or Byzantine Constantinople, and having a new article on the city's Ottoman period at Constantinople (Ottoman Empire) or Ottoman Constantinople, going from 1453 to 1923. Constantine ✍ 17:41, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

Comment: I think what would be cool is if someone could find a historiographical book/journal/article about Constantinople/Istanbul which explicitly divides the history as such: Byzantine, 1453-1923/1930, and 1923/1930-onwards. Having such would support the option here, in light of Rjensen's post. Also, if there are references which explicitly say "scholars are now using "Istanbul" for the Ottoman period" (especially if they specify why they are doing this), that would really help! WhisperToMe (talk) 18:15, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

Support The issue is what the RS say, not the unsourced opinions of wiki editors. 1) "Constantinople (kŏn´stăn´tĬnō´pəl), former capital of the Byzantine Empire and of the Ottoman Empire, since 1930 officially called İstanbul (for location and description, see İstanbul)." The Columbia Encyclopedia 6th ed. 2) scholsrly history book = P. Mansel, Constantinople: City of the World's Desire, 1453–1924 (1996). 3) recent scholarly article Diplomacy & Statecraft 2016 - "in December 1923 Sir George Clerk, British ambassador in Constantinople...." 4) contemporary guide book: Constantinople Today or the Pathfinder Survey of Constantinople: A Study in Oriental Social Life by CR Johnson, (1922). Rjensen (talk) 18:11, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

Oppose Articles are supposed to focus on one topic, not one name. Though of course there is some continuity between the Byzantine and the Ottoman cities, 1453 is a meaningful and natural breakpoint between the two. Of course, 1923 is an important breakpoint in the history of the city as well, but surely of a different scale than 1453. Whether the Ottoman city was called Constantinople or قسطنطنية or Stamboul or İstanbul is a different and orthogonal issue.

And the section Kostantiniyye] does not belong in this article.

Perhaps a different name for the article, as Cplakidas suggests, would make sense. That's a different issue.

Re Reliable Sources, I would be very surprised to find a single one that treats the period 324-1930 as a unit; 324-1453, sure; 1453-1923, yes, 1453-present, sure. Mansel uses 1453-1924; and the other sources Rjensen aren't relevant to periodization at all. --Macrakis (talk) 20:25, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

One issue is how the topic is defined differently by people who speak different languages: Until 1930 it was all Constantinople to an English speaker, so to an English speaker (in the past) Constantinople ended in 1930, not when the Ottomans took Constantinople. But if there's evidence that modern historiography is preferring Istanbul for the Ottoman era (especially if historians explicitly state they are doing so and state why) it will be a lot easier to exclude Ottoman topics or divide them as such WhisperToMe (talk) 20:30, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

Comment: I wanted to explore Google Books and see if anyone's talked about the historiography of the naming. Academic Donald Quataert discussed what he did with his book:

Quataert, Donald. The Ottoman Empire, 1700-1922. Cambridge University Press, August 11, 2005. ISBN 0521839106, 9780521839105. p. xiv:
"For the Ottoman capital, I use the current designation of Istanbul even though the Ottomans called it Konstantiniyye or Dersaadet. However, I use Constantinople to denote the Byzantine city before the Ottoman conquest in 1453."

As for the why he argues that it's for simplification reasons as this is a textbook and he doesn't want to confuse the reader, despite historical accuracy. He added that: "The old names often but not always have completely disappeared from the present memory of all but a few devotees of the area or subject." (feel free to read the whole page)

Cohen, Julia Philips and Sarah Abrevaya Stein (editors). Sephardi Lives: A Documentary History, 1700–1950. Stanford University Press, August 27, 2014. ISBN 0804791910, 9780804791915. p. xxiii-xiv.

While the book says most place names remain as they are in the sources, "In four exceptional cases we use city names commonly employed in contemporary English-language scholarship, i.e.: Edirne, Istanbul, and Izmir, rather than their historical variants Adrianople, Constantinople, and Smyrna. Throughout we refer to Thessaloniki as Salonica."

This book explains a common viewpoint in Turkey:

Edhem, Eldem. "Istanbul." In: Ágoston, Gábor and Bruce Alan Masters. Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire. Infobase Publishing, May 21, 2010. ISBN 1438110251, 9781438110257. p. 286.
"Today the use of the name Constantinople to describe the Ottoman capital, although historically accurate, is often deemed politically incorrect by Turkish historians and by most Turks."

This essay seems to use Istanbul when talking about its time in the Ottoman period. From p. 288: "A parasitic city, Istanbul to a large extent[...]The heart of the empire fed on[...]" // in another encyclopedia entry p. 290 talks about Izmir throughout its entire history instead of Smyrna.

Also two books talking about Ottoman/pre-1930s Constantinople/Istanbul using "Istanbul" in the title deliberately:

Cem Behar's book "A Neighborhood in Ottoman Istanbul: Fruit Vendors and Civil Servants in the Kasap Ilyas Mahalle." (2003)
Taner Akcam and Vahakn Dadrian's book Judgment at Istanbul] refers to genocide trials from 1919-1922, when the city was actually known as Constantinople in English, but in the 2011 book they use Istanbul in the title. Akcam also used it in that way in another of his books.

The encyclopedia also mentioned some books (some of which had non-Turkish authors) The Remaking of Istanbul: Portrait of an Ottoman City in the Nineteenth Century , The Ottoman City between East and West: Aleppo, Izmir, and Istanbul, and Istanbul and the Civilization of the Ottoman Empire.

Other academic books deliberately using Istanbul in an Ottoman context:

The Ottoman Empire: A Historical Encyclopedia. p. 129.

I wonder how many other historians do these things, and how Wikipedians should judge this info. It does seem like several academics historiographically deliberately use "Istanbul" despite the entire city not actually known by that name in Ottoman times. Interestingly in Istanbul - Kushta - Constantinople: Narratives of Identity in the Ottoman Capital, 1830-1930 the editors use "Istanbul" but several of the essays use "Constantinople".

Constantinople: City of the World's Desire, 1453–1924 does use the name "Constantinople" for the city in Ottoman times, though it's a book for the general public (St. Martin's Press) rather than for academics. Also the book Everyday Luxuries: Art and Objects in Ottoman Constantinople, 1600-1800 [7] did the same. I wonder if using "Istanbul" retroactively is more common for academic books compared to mass-market books, or vice versa?

WhisperToMe (talk) 23:59, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

There is a currently a short section on Ottoman Constantinople here. Our hatnote points you to Istanbul, but there is also an article at History of Istanbul. I would be inclined to convert the latter into a Constantinople under Ottoman rule article. Leave the post-1923 history at Istanbul. Then we have a chronological series of articles Byzantium → Constantinople → Constantinople under Ottoman rule → Istanbul. The paragraphs on Ottoman history should remain here and the hatnote reworded, since Constantinople under Ottoman rule would be sub-article of this one to avoid bogging this article down. Constantine's proposal would work, but I dislike the idea of no article at this title such that all links to Constantinople would be rendered wrong. Srnec (talk) 03:43, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

That's what i suggest above, except that "under X rule" usually denotes that X was a foreign occupier or at least an imperial power ruling over a subject area. Constantinople was the Ottoman capital, if anything, the entire rest of the empire was under Constantinople's rule. And we really should accord the Ottoman period the same weight as the Byzantine one, so whatever naminb format applies to one should also apply to the other. Perhaps a disambiguation by dates might be more straightforward? Constantine ✍ 19:08, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

well it gets more complicated--the Turks were not a dominant element in the city's population until after 1910-1920. Before that Greeks and Armenians & Jews and others were the main residents. That's a major reason the Turks moved their national capital to Ankawa. Rjensen (talk) 19:37, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

The discussion is covering several different topics: how to divide our coverage of Constantinople/Istanbul by period; what to call Constantinople/Istanbul in the different periods; what to call the article covering the different periods; and the ethnic composition of Constantinople/Istanbul at various periods. This section started as an RFC specifically on the issue of periodization. I think we can close that: up to 1453 is one period (possibly with subperiods); 1453-present is another period (with subperiods 1453-1922, 1922-present). The only reason 1930 comes up as a possible cutpoint is because the official name changed; but WP is not a dictionary -- it is about things and ideas, not about words. So I hope that we all agree that 1453 is a much more major cut-point than 1930. In that case, let's close this RFC and cover the other issues in a separate section. --Macrakis (talk) 20:22, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

Comment - If we're having an article titled "Constantinople", then it should cover the whole history up to the renaming, per nom and Rjensen above. Macrakis makes a fair point that an article should deal with a clearly defined topic, though I reject the idea that an article on "history of Constantinople, 324–1930" is impossible. The best way to deal with that concern from my perspective would be to have separate articles on "Byzantine Constantinople" and "Ottoman Constantinople"—as Constantine suggested—and to keep Constantinople as either a redirect or a dab page. These also reflect the typical scholarly categorisations. —Nizolan ^{(talk · c.)} 16:34, 14 July 2019 (UTC)
Comment: After 1453 the name Constantinople was never used by the Ottomans. Instead they used 5 different names; Konstantiniyye (corrupt form of Constantinople), İstanbul, İslambol, Asitane and Derssaadet. The residents of the city preferred İstanbul. During the early years of the Republic, the name İstanbul was already in the comman usage. What the government did was to reject the foreign letters addressed to Constantinople. Nedim Ardoğa (talk) 14:10, 17 July 2019 (UTC)
- @Nedim Ardoğa: Based on a series of postcards on Wikipedia I believe in the French language the Ottomans did use "Constantinople" (and they would have used it in English, German, Italian, etc too), and for the purposes of this discussion, usage in English is key. According to this specialist encyclopedia "Istanbul" at the time referred to the central part of Constantinople in the old city walls, not the entire city, and this usage was "Stamboul" in western languages. The usage of Istanbul meaning the whole city was in place by 1923 (not sure when it began), and in 1930 it became final for Western languages. WhisperToMe (talk) 20:37, 17 July 2019 (UTC)
- BTW this https://archive.org/details/cataloguedespote00stan/ Catalogue of Byzantine pottery, by an agency of the Ottoman government, uses "Constantinople" in French WhisperToMe (talk) 12:12, 19 July 2019 (UTC)
Support Well, geez, thanks. I made one lighthearted comment about the song and I've been pinged for contribution here. Seems to me: one city, two names, three periods. Byzantine, Ottoman, Turkish. 1453 was a significant date - though one might argue that the city had several changes of ownership during the Crusader period - in that it changed the nature of the city permanently. The end of the Ottoman Empire was also significant, more or less consistent with the official proclamation of the name Istanbul.

The fact that the name needed to be officially changed suggests that prior to that point other names were in common use, as noted above. It seems to me that someone hunting information on Constantinople is looking for the historic city, the Byzantine or Ottoman capital, and not the modern city of Istanbul. I'd like to have three articles on 1. Constantinople, 2. the Ottoman city, and 3. Istanbul, because the history of the place falls handily into these three periods. Not sure what to call the middle article, though.

So: Constantinople was the common English-language name up until - and well beyond - Ataturk's reforms. I think that Constantinople the article should cover historical periods of Byzantine and Ottoman rule, and Istanbul the time since. --Pete (talk) 01:46, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

Three-way split per Constantine. Rename this article as Byzantine Constantinople, and split Istanbul article into Ottoman Constantinople and Istanbul. People just liked it better that way! --T*U (talk) 08:44, 20 July 2019 (UTC)
Oppose per Macrakis. Article units are defined by topic, not by name. There is no justification to separate the present-day city from the Ottoman part of its past. Nothing happened in either 1918, 1920, let alone 1930, that would have changed the city so profoundly that we'd want to treat the before and after as two separate entities. To begin with, there never was a "renaming", as far as we know; claiming that the city was renamed in 1930 is still a red herring. Also, we need to separate the issues of how to cut up article content into properly defined units from the issue of how to refer (and link) to these units from other articles. Sure, there are situations where we would want to refer to the city as "Constantinople" in contexts between 1453 and the 1900s (although it is by no means wrong to also use "Istanbul" in many of the same contexts, because the reliable sources do that too, as Whisper To Me has shown above). But in any case, the target article of such links should still be the main article about the city, which is and will remain at Istanbul; there's nothing wrong about piping it like [[Instanbul|Constantinople]] if and where needed. Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:21, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

While I have no problem with leaving things as they are, Fut.Perf., I don't think you are correct that "nothing happened" to Constantinople/Istanbul in the aftermath of WWI. Being the seat of a vast empire and the object of patronage from an imperial dynasty is one thing, being 'just' a city (albeit the biggest and richest) in a republican nation-state quite another. This is the case with Habsburg Vienna and Vienna post 1918, Beijing under the Qing and after, Saint Petersburg under the Romanovs and after... The name issue is incidental, but also symptomatic of this transformation. Constantine ✍ 18:24, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

Sure, all those cities changed. But nobody would dream of splitting up their articles into a "before" and "after" as if those were different entities. Vienna is still Vienna, Beijing is still Beijing, and Saint Petersburg is still the same city it once was no matter how often its name has changed. Fut.Perf. ☼ 18:37, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

But we do, in fact, follow this practice in Wikipedia, with countries, and even cities (Smyrna vs Izmir for instance, however ill- or well-conceived this may be). And the split does not imply that what went before has no relation to what came after; this is elementary historical periodization, not a negation of continuity. Constantine ✍ 18:53, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

Support. Some overlap seems reasonable, since "Constantinople" was the common name in English until well after "Istanbul" became official in 1930. And after all, "Istanbul" is just the modern Turkish pronunciation of "Constantinople", isn't it? My grandfather (although not Turkish) was born in Constantinople (in 1885), and so all discussion of the city in my family tends to use just "Constantinople", even though I have no desire to insult the Turks. Ironically, my father (who never came within 500 miles of the place) was quite fond of the song! Incidentally, if you haven't listened to it, do. It'll lighten the mood! My interest is historical, not contemporary, and most English-language sources up to 1930–1950 are likely to use "Constantinople" almost exclusively. The current proposal isn't to remove content from "Istanbul", just to include at least some of the post-1453 history of the city here. It didn't stop being Constantinople in 1453, and arguably it wouldn't even if the Turkish government decided to rename it "Bubblegum". Covering at least up to the official renaming doesn't seem unreasonable. P Aculeius (talk) 01:45, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Separated empires

Latest comment: 3 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Blocked sock. See Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Roqui15 Dreamy Jazz ^{talk to me \| my contributions} 12:59, 19 October 2020 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I suggest that in the first paragraph the Roman empire and Byzantine empire shouldn't be mentioned as two different empires, as both of them were the same. JoãoMolina99 (talk) 20:22, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

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Lead

Latest comment: 2 years ago13 comments3 people in discussion

It's rather peculiar in my view when editors swoop in to contest lead content that is affirmed by material in the body, being that the section in the body amounts to the same conclusion. User:Ichthyovenator, you've asserted that something "does not need a source" if it's an assessment. This is obviously not true. It's the basic second sentence of WP:CITE: "Wikipedia's verifiability policy requires inline citations for any material challenged or likely to be challenged."

You've argued that the use of the term 'misrule' is POV, which is hardly unanimous. Rather, it is an assessment of the historical context, just as "This formidable complex of defences was one of the most sophisticated of Antiquity" similarly presents itself in the earlier paragraph. The contestation that it was not a 'misrule' relies on a lack of academic consensus to be viewed as an opinion that violates WP:NPOV.

Finally, to address this claim: "I don't think the later Palaiologan dynasty can be characterized as much of a success either, but we're not going around calling it an age of misrule," we as editors aren't going around calling anything, as that would be WP:OR. Beyond the linguistic reality that "lack of success" does not equivocate to "misrule," we go by the academic consensus in historical articles. If a broad historical consensus asserts that something was a success, such as the defences of the city, there is no justification to improperly invoke WP:NPOV, and indeed it has not in this case, and neither would it be proper to do the same to negative assessments either. Sleath56 (talk) 16:18, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

Sleath56, it's not neutral. Cut it out. Elizium23 (talk) 17:43, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

Elizium23 If you're interested in entering the conversation, it's open. Otherwise, don't stigmatize your fellow editors by casting aspersions of "poor form." Sleath56 (talk) 21:35, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

Sleath56, we're asking you to adhere to the Wikipedia core policy of WP:NPOV and be neutral in writing for this article. It's pretty simple. Elizium23 (talk) 21:53, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

Elizium23, ignoring the WP:CIV-lacking diminutives, you can either elaborate on the way you perceive the edit to have broached WP:NPOV or retract the stigmatizations if you aren't interested, as you've already been invited to join the conversation and I've already highlighted my response to Ichthyovenator above. Sleath56 (talk) 22:01, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

Sleath56, simply put: nothing about this edit is acceptable or neutral. You are casting aspersions on Latin rule and siding unncessarily with the Byzantine inhabitants. You don't get to take sides. Elizium23 (talk) 22:04, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

Elizium23, appreciate that you've elaborated. I'd care to clarify on your comment as "WE don't get to take sides." As I'm sure you have already noted, I've said that exact sentiment above that : "we as editors aren't going around calling anything, as that would be WP:OR." To cast my edit as "casting aspersions on Latin rule and siding unncessarily with the Byzantine inhabitants" seems clearly WP:OR. The edit was a reflection of a WP:RS, and I'm curious on your basis for asserting there is reason for either yourself or Ichthyovenator to make a particular stand here against the assessment, as it's unsupported by the reflection towards academic scholarship which our edits must be based on. Sleath56 (talk) 22:15, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

I'd care to add that the exact same linguistic assessment has been made on this related page, here. Claiming that the language use on this page, which summarizes the academic consensus on the period, is inappropriate while the similar usage persists there, also reflected through academic consensus, and which I would actually agree with in its linguistically appropriate utility there, contrary to the assertion of "siding unncessarily with the Byzantine inhabitants" by Elizium23 and that of "but we're not going around calling it an age of misrule" by Ichthyovenator here. We don't get to decide how to style the historical assessment of a period, that work belongs to the WP:RS. If they present a consistent pronouncement, it is not up to us to insist on false balance with a position that does not duely persist in WP:RS. [[Sleath56 (talk) 22:23, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

Elizium23, While I maintain that the use of the term "misrule" is appropriate in an encyclopaedia context provided that it is support by WP:RS, as it is indeed utilized on other related pages, I've nonetheless adjusted the passage here in adherence to WP:BRD. Sleath56 (talk) 22:40, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

@Elizium23: Looks like I'm swooping in late, never got a notification despite being mentioned for some reason. A statement like "lived several decades under Latin rule" does not need a source in the lede if it is accounted for in the article body. It's just a factual statement that the Latins ruled Constantinople for several decades. You can check MOS:LEADCITE. Notice for instance how today's featured article Hurricane Fay has only a single citation for its entire lede, because most of it is factual statements that cannot really be challenged.

"Endured" and "misrule" are clearly POV terms, it's a negative historical assessment of the Latin Empire. It's unnecessary and clearly takes a side with the Byzantines. While I'm no fan of the Latin Empire, taking sides in historical conflicts is something we absolutely should not do. There are positive and negative assessments of nearly every historical figure or empire but that doesn't mean we can add in one side of the argument just because some sources or a single source supports it. Ichthyovenator (talk) 08:59, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

Good to see discussion here Ichthyovenator I would reply that MOS:LEADCITE directly states against any exceptionality in citations in the lead: "there is not, however, an exception to citation requirements specific to leads." I'm quite sure that some article leads exist that have had nearly all their citations excised. The same is the case with many other articles which have leads that contain citations for general uncontroversial factoids. The usual stand in utilizing the strictness of that view in the MOS, as is usually the case, has been to conform to the needs and context of each individual page. Beyond that, the addition of a citation in this edit has been precisely to provide WP:RS for an assessment that remarks a broad academic consensus.

"While I'm no fan of the Latin Empire" I do not think it is fair to construe my edit here as being reflective of a personal preference. As I've said above, my edit has been reflective of (proper, I might add) editting conduct to maintain article content as demonstrative of academic consensus. To say "It's unnecessary and clearly takes a side with the Byzantines," as I've already put forward to @Elizium23: above seems like WP:OR. I would ask again what exactly is this being asserted upon? By what, I mean WP:RS. WP:NPOV's FAQ directly stands against this interpretation of its use: editors must follow "what people have said about it rather than what is so" as however editors could interpret it (it being what they presume "is so" of a context).

The broad scope of WP:RS, ie "what people have said about it," on this matter do agree on an assessment of "misrule," and if that is so, it is not up to us as editors to provide some sort of WP:FALSEBALANCE between actual WP:RS and some imaginary due weight opponent. As I've mentioned earlier, a cursory search would attest to the utility of the word "misrule" has been made and accepted across pages, including the topically related page here which uses the term "against" the Byzantines, and yet nevertheless I support its utility there.

Sleath56 (talk) 13:56, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

There can be citations in the lede, sure, but per MOS:LEADCITE, "material that is challenged or likely to be challenged, and direct quotations, should be supported by an inline citation", that Constantinople was under Latin rule is not something that is likely to be challenged given that it is factually true.

"its inhabitants resided under Latin occupation" is a factual statement, I don't see how it implies a false balance. "Misrule" is a negative assessment and you can't back it up by referring to different Wikipedia articles, just because it's there doesn't mean that it is a good thing or should spread here and I don't see how using "misrule" is any better or more relevant than just stating the facts of the situation. I also don't think you can appeal to academic consensus since you only used one source for using "misrule". I don't see how calling the Latin period an age of misrule is not negatively assessing the Latin Empire in favor of the Byzantines. WP:NPOV also talks about due and undue weight, is the Latin Empire characterized as an age of misrule widely enough so that explicitly calling it that in the lede, with phrasing suggesting that this is true rather than just an assessment is not giving undue weight to that assessment? Ichthyovenator (talk) 15:01, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

First, to correct the conversation, Ichthyovenator: what is being asserted as enabling WP:FALSEBALANCE is the opposition of stating the "Latin misrule" line on grounds of WP:NPOV, as WP:NPOV is based on the opposing positions of WP:RS, which we must assess neutrally, not the positions between WP:RS and the sentiments of editors such as ourselves. The latter would be what is characterized as False Balance. This is the biggest misconception with invocations of something breaching WP:NPOV. NPOV is NOT what editors assume themselves to be the "neutral position" but (and I quote the first line of the NPOV policy): "representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic." Editors must be neutral. A consensus of WP:RS does not.

"I also don't think you can appeal to academic consensus" Quite frankly, ignoring the absurdity of such a comment given that not one WP:RS has been yet produced on your behalf, to be plain, it's one thing to assert that there should exist a balance, but another quite entirely to continue to assert it in a deficit of WP:RS to support the claim that an assessment has a countervailing side to it. It's been continually insisted that WP:RS should be produced by either yourself or @Elizium23: to support the claim, after all as editors, we must not dabble in WP:OR: "Articles may not contain any new analysis or synthesis of published material that serves to reach or imply a conclusion not clearly stated by the sources themselves." This includes creating a WP:FALSEBALANCE between a position asserted in academic WP:RS and one which has not.

With that covered, let's continue. Keep in mind that "Latin Empire characterized as an age of misrule" is not the argument I am putting forth. Using "misrule" in regards towards the Latin Empire is with context to its relationship with the inhabitants and city of Constantinople. Its trade policy, for example, certainly would not be characterized as "misrule" to Venetian or Genovese traders, who benefitted from the favorable trading terms they were afforded by the Latin occupiers. However, "misrule" here would be perfectly appropriate to characterize the Latin relationship with the city and its inhabitants, even beyond procedural bases of widely satisfying WP:NPOV as I've asserted above. This is the academic consensus on the matter and Talbot's assessment there is hardly controversial. Keep in mind WP:CITEKILL which states that "When citing material in an article, it is better to cite a couple of great sources than a stack of decent or sub-par ones." Talbot's voice in the related field of academia here is prominent and reflective of the fact that significant WP:RS on the matter do not contest the assessment between the Latins and the city and its inhabitant as "misrule," though I welcome the introduction of any WP:RS that asserts otherwise.

I should add that I am satisfied with the current revision and that this discussion is merely an intellectual one on the procedural basis of the term "misrule" in an encyclopaedia context, which I have maintained as appropriate. Sleath56 (talk) 16:36, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

[1] Not that it would be a "feat" to provide English language sources with the Greek form too.

[2] There are a few other reasons to justify its use, too.

[3] Moravcsik (1970), 11-12

[4] Laban Kaptein (ed.), Ahmed Bican, Dürr-i meknûn, p. 183ff and § 7.104–7.119; 8.45–8.49. Asch 2007. ISBN 9789090214085

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Talk:Constantinople/Archive 1

External links modified

External links modified

Drafting

Merge?

Heraclius and Hellenization

More needed

No merge

Delisted GA

Merge of Byzantium

Constantinople was in no great developmental period when it fell

Renewed merge proposal

edits

User:Shuppiluliuma

Capital of Rome

CalicoJackRackam

unclear: Roman vs. Latin

Categories

First official form of the name "Constantinopolis" and the 4 empires it served as a capital city

Iconoclasm

Latin Empire (1204-1261)

Colonial Expansion of the Megarian

Warning - Section on Constantinople's Survival, 565–717 Suspect

Largest city?

Norse name for the city

Istanbul

Names

Notes

Constantinople (not Istanbul)

Constantinople (not Nova Roma)

Constantine founding Constantinople in what date?

Cordoba

Why the history ends at 1453 ?

Coordinate error

What's the right term for someone of or something from Constantinople?

Empire Names

Miscellaneous discussion

Editing

Where to go with (pre 1453) Turkish lore on the City?

"Transition to the Ottoman era" section

The section "1261–1453 and the Fall of Constantinople" is in awful shape needs a rewrite

Flag of Constantinople

Roman, Eastern Roman and Byzantine

Coordinate error

Citation Request Spam

Population figures

POV fork

Article name

RFC on whether to change the end date of this article to 1930

Separated empires

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Lead