Robert Bartlett TV - Bettany Hughes TV - Diarmaid MacCulloch TV - Simon Sebag Montefiore TV -
On their way to Jerusalem the Crusaders arrived at the capital of the Byzantine Empire – Constantinople was one of the greatest cities of the medieval world. Professor Robert Bartlett, The Normans III: Normans of the South, BBC 2010
It was in what is now western Turkey that the Mary cult started to become a global phenomenon. A special devotion grew up around her to replace the old pagan goddesses like Diana or Artemis. In church doctrine she went from being the mere mother of Jesus to ... the Mother of God. This incredible clout was reinforced by the building of churches devoted to her and the dissemination of her image all over Byzantium, the Christian Roman empire in the east. Bettany Hughes, The Bible, Channel 4 2010
By the middle of the seventh century Muslim armies had snatched two-thirds of Byzantine territory, including the great holy cities of Damascus and Antioch and Jerusalem. Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch, A History of Christianity, BBC 2009
During the fifteen century the Ottoman Turks ruthlessly gobbled up the Byzantine lands. Soon all that was left was the once great city of Constantinople ... On the 29th May 1543 the Ottomans poured into the city ... It was a savage end to the long Christian history of the Byzantine Empire. ibid.
Every holy city has a founding myth. Istanbul’s story begins with the legend of a sea voyage by a Greek king ... Byzas gave his name to the city he founded and the empire it ultimately became – Byzantium. Simon Sebag Montefiore, Byzantium: A Tale of Three Cities, BBC 2013
They called it the City of the World’s desire. ibid.
Many of the earliest remains date back to the 4th century A.D. when it was a Roman city. ibid.
Constantine was turning his back on Rome and betting everything on a faraway Greek fishing port. ibid.
Greek Constantinople became Turkish Istanbul. How the ancient capital of Christianity became the imperial city of Islam. Simon Sebag Montefiore, Byzantium: A Tale of Three Cities II
They called it the Great Schism: the moment Christianity split into two rival camps. ibid.
The Crusades really were an extraordinary and enormous movement of people: 80,000 in them. ibid.
Istanbul: the refuge of the world. ibid.
These are the gardens of the Topkapi palace of Istanbul, the imperial residence of the Sultans of the Ottoman empire. Simon Sebag Montefiore, Byzantium: A Tale of Three Cities III
By Suleiman’s time Istanbul had entered a golden age. ibid.
Tsar Nicholas I called the Ottoman’ empire ‘the sick man of Europe’. ibid.