Constantinople
Among the many cities of medieval Europe, the capital of the Byzantine Empire occupied a special place. Even at a time of relative decline, at the beginning of the 7th century, the population of Constantinople numbered 375,000 - much more than in any other city in Christendom.
Later, this number only increased. Constantinople itself grew. Even centuries later, the cities of the Latin West, compared to the Byzantine capital, seemed pitiful villages. The Latin Crusaders marveled at her beauty and size, as well as wealth. In Russia, Constantinople was called "Tsargrad", which can be interpreted as "Tsar's city" and as "Tsar-city".
Constantine the Great brings the city as a gift to the Mother of God. Mosaic.
In 330, the Roman emperor Constantine I moved the capital to the city of Byzantium and gave it his name. In just a few decades, Constantinople from an ordinary provincial center turned into the largest city of the empire. He was ahead of all the cities of the West, including Rome and the capitals of the Middle East - Antioch and Alexandria. People from all over the Roman world flocked to Constantinople, attracted by its unprecedented wealth and fame. In this city, standing on a promontory between the Marmara and the Black Seas, on the very border of Europe and Asia, trade routes crossed from different parts of the world. For almost the entire Middle Ages, Constantinople remained the most important center of world trade. Here, goods and people from Western Europe and the civilizations of ancient China, India and Russia, Arab countries and Scandinavia met. Already in the XI century, foreigners - merchants,mercenaries - populated entire city blocks.
For almost the entire Middle Ages, Constantinople remained the most important center of world trade.
Emperor Justinian I did a lot to improve the capital. With this ruler, the Eastern Empire expanded significantly. The greatest creations of Byzantine architecture created then have been renewed for centuries. The architects of Justinian erected the Great Imperial Palace overlooking the sea, which served many generations of emperors. The dome of Hagia Sophia, a beautiful temple of the Orthodox world, rose above the city as a grandiose monument of the union between the empire and the church. It was the divine service in Sofia, according to legend, that shocked the Russian ambassadors in the 10th century, sent by Prince Vladimir to "test" the Roman faith. "And we could not understand," they told the prince, "we are in heaven or on earth …"
Construction of Hagia Sophia. Miniature from the chronicle of Constantine Manasseh.
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The wealth and luxury of the capital of the empire have always attracted conquerors. In 626, the combined forces of the Avars and Persians tried to take the city, in 717 - the Arabs, in 860 - the Rus. But for many centuries the Second Rome did not see an enemy within its walls. Several belts of fortifications reliably protected it. Even during the numerous civil wars that shook the empire, the city itself only opened the gates to the victors. Only in 1204 did the crusaders manage to capture the capital. From that moment, the decline of Constantinople began, ending with the fall of the city in 1453, already under the onslaught of the Turks. Ironically, the last emperor bore the same name as the founder of the capital, Constantine.
Under the name Istanbul, the city became the capital of the Muslim Ottoman Empire. He remained it until the fall of the sultans' power in 1924. The Ottomans decided not to destroy the city. They moved into the imperial palaces, and the Hagia Sophia Cathedral was rebuilt into the greatest mosque of the state, retaining the former name - Hagia Sophia, which means "holy".
Orleans
The city in the bend of the Loire at the crossroads of the most important trade routes emerged during the Roman Empire as the main "point" of the Celtic tribe of Carnuts and was then called Tsenabum. Destroyed by Caesar in 52 BC, it was rebuilt in 275 by Emperor Aurelian, from whose name the modern name of Orleans originated.
In 451, the city was besieged by the tribes of the Huns under the leadership of Attila, and only with the help of the troops of the Visigoth king Theodoric I and the Roman commander Flavius Aetius was the siege lifted. The Huns retreated to Troyes, where a fierce "battle of the peoples" took place. Gaul was temporarily saved, so that it would soon be conquered by the Maritime Franks of King Clovis, whose campaigns were represented by Gregory of Tours, the bishop of the city, the author of the history of the Franks, as sacred in the struggle against the Goths-Arians, heretics.
Orleans, 1428.
In 511, 532, 541, 549, church councils were held in Orleans. For some time, the city was the capital of the Kingdom of Orleans, which was formed after the division of the Frankish kingdom, in which Chlodomir ruled. During the reign of Charlemagne, the city became the scientific center of the Frankish state.
In 996, the coronation of Robert II, the son of King Hugo Capet, took place in Orleans Cathedral, and for a time the city was the capital of France.
The geographical location has contributed to the revitalization of economic life, primarily due to transit trade. Fertile soil, development of winemaking and entrepreneurial population made Orleans one of the largest and richest medieval cities. The Seine flowed relatively close, which made it possible to maintain trade links with Paris and the north of the country. Winemaking, and in subsequent centuries the development of manufactories, strengthened the power of the city, which reached its highest rise in the Renaissance.
In the early Middle Ages, education in Orleans was considered prestigious
Even in the early Middle Ages, education in Orleans was considered prestigious. In the VI century, the son of the King of Burgundy Guntramna Gundobad studied here. Charlemagne, and then Hugo Capet, sent their eldest sons to Orleans to study. In the XI - the middle of the XIII centuries, educational institutions of the city were widely known outside France.
In 1230, when the teachers of the Paris Sorbonne were temporarily disbanded, some of them found refuge in Orleans. When Pope Boniface VIII published the sixth collection of decrees in 1298, he commissioned the doctors of Bologna and Orleans to accompany them with commentaries. Saint Ivo Kermartensky, who is considered the patron saint of lawyers, notaries, lawyers and judges, studied civil law in Orleans.
Pope Clement V studied law and literature here. Bull, published by him on January 27, 1306 in Lyon, announced the creation of a university in Orleans - one of the oldest in France and Europe. The next 12 pontiffs provided the university with new privileges. In the XIV century about 5 thousand students from France, Germany, Lorraine, Burgundy, Champagne, Picardy, Normandy, Touraine, Guienne, Scotland studied there.
Joan of Arc at the siege of Orleans. Eugene Lenepwe, 1886 - 1890 years.
The siege of Orleans in 1428-1429 was one of the most important events of the Hundred Years War. After a seven-month siege, the city was liberated on May 8 by troops led by Joan of Arc, after which they began to call her the "Maid of Orleans".
During the Religious Wars of the 16th century, Orleans was one of the centers of the spread of Calvinism, but after the events that followed St. Bartholomew's night in 1572, when about a thousand Huguenots were killed in the city, the influence of Catholics increased. In 1560, the States General convened in the city - for the first time after a 76-year hiatus.
Suzdal
The first documentary mention of Suzdal dates back to 1024. According to the "Tale of Bygone Years", because of the crop failure caused by drought, the Magi revolted and began to kill the "elder child." Prince Yaroslav the Wise, who had arrived from Novgorod, restored order.
In subsequent years, Suzdal became the fiefdom of the Kiev prince Vladimir Monomakh, who paid great attention to the development, strengthening and strengthening of the city's defense. Gradually Suzdal acquired the role of the capital city of the Rostov-Suzdal principality.
View of Suzdal from the Kamenka River. Photo by Sergei Prokudin-Gorsky, early 20th century.
As for many medieval cities, the beginning of the construction of Suzdal was the construction of a fortress on the Kamenka River, in other words, the Kremlin. For this, a place protected from three sides by natural barriers was chosen, and for greater confidence, earthen ramparts were poured. Here, on the orders of Vladimir Monomakh, the Assumption Cathedral was built, and in the XI century, not far from the walls of the fortress, the first monastery was erected - in honor of Dmitry Thessaloniki.
A little to the east of the Kremlin there was a settlement - a trade and craft settlement outside the city walls, where merchants and artisans lived. Posad was fenced off by ramparts, and settlements were gradually built around it.
At the end of the 11th century, Suzdal suffered a terrible disaster - during the internecine struggle between Oleg Chernigovsky and the children of Vladimir Monomakh, Izyaslav and Mstislav, the city was burned. To top it off, in 1107, hordes of Bulgarian tribes plundered the outskirts of Suzdal, and the townspeople had to sit out in a fortified city.
During his lifetime, Vladimir Monomakh gave the Suzdal region to his son Yuri, who turned Suzdal not only into a capital city, but also made it a major religious center of Russia. During the time of Dolgoruky, the borders of his principality extended to White Lake in the north, to the Volga in the east, to the Murom land in the south and to the Smolensk region in the west. The political significance of Suzdal in these years has greatly increased.
With the coming to power of Yuri's son, Prince Andrei, Suzdal began to lose its primacy, yielding to its new capital, Vladimir.
Yuri Dolgoruky turned Suzdal into a major religious center of Russia
By the beginning of the XIV century, the rise of the city began again, the Suzdal-Nizhny Novgorod principality arose, where they even minted their own coins. In those years, Suzdal was flourishing, remaining a rich, populous city, and its inhabitants, in the words of the chronicle, were famous for "leisure in the arts and crafts."
In 1392, Suzdal became part of the Grand Duchy of Moscow. The Grand Ducal throne was transferred to Moscow. So the fall of Suzdal began.
Suzdal Kremlin.
Having become an ordinary city of the Moscow state and being outside the busy trade routes, Suzdal in the 15th - 17th centuries did not acquire an outstanding position in commercial and industrial relations. During the Time of Troubles, the city was plundered twice by Polish troops, in 1634 by Crimean Tatars, and to top it off, in 1654-1655, it experienced a devastating fire and epidemic.
In 1796 Suzdal was declared a district town of the newly established Vladimir province, and in 1798 the episcopal see was transferred from Suzdal to Vladimir.
Winchester
Winchester is one of the most archaeologically explored cities in England. In 1999, in Winchester, in Hyde Abbey, archaeologists found the remains of the tomb of King Alfred the Great, which was transferred here during the Norman conquest. It was during the reign of King Alfred of Wessex that Winchester first gained historical fame, although due to the favorable location of the city, people settled there before. The Roman name "Venta Belgarum" indicates that the city was an important tribal center during the Celtic period. However, information obtained through some excavations indicates that the population appeared in these territories even earlier than during Roman rule, namely, in the Iron Age.
In the Middle Ages, Winchester was a center for arts, commerce, royalty and ecclesiastical power
The Middle Ages passed relatively calmly for Winchester: there were no bloody wars, no numerous assaults and seizures. The city was a fairly popular trade center in the country until the 19th century. You can still see the richly decorated fairground cross, preserved from the 14th century.
In the 15th century, Alfred the Great made Winchester the capital of the Kingdom of Wessex, although, judging by the facts, this status belonged to the city de facto. It was then that the tradition of discussing political issues by the "knights of the round table" was born. The so-called "round table" was in Winchester Castle, which has now become one of the most beautiful exhibitions in England.
In the XIV-XVII centuries, Winchester was the capital of England, after a while he was forced to share domination with London, and later completely give it this official status.
King Arthur and his knights at the round table.
Edessa
Once the main city of the Osroena region, Edessa, was conquered by Assyria in the 8th century BC and received the name Ruhu. One of the important centers of the Mesopotamian civilization, the city was dedicated to the goddess Atergatis, as evidenced by the two sacred ponds that have survived to this day, which contained fish dedicated to the goddess.
Under Seleucus I, who did a lot to exalt the city, Edessa received its name in honor of the city of Edessa in the Macedonian region of Ematia, the historical capital of the ancient Macedonian kingdom.
In 137 (or 132) BC, Abgar Uhomo founded here the Kingdom of Edes, which was also called Orroen or Osroen. According to legend, Abgar was in correspondence with Jesus Christ, and at his request Christ sent him his own "not made by hands" image. According to the same legend, during the reign of the king Osroena, the Apostle Thomas began to preach Christian doctrine in the kingdom of Edessa.
After the collapse of the Roman Empire, Edessa became an important center of early Christianity
Under Emperor Trajan, Luzius Quiet destroyed Edessa, whose inhabitants turned out to be unreliable allies of the Roman people, and forced the Edessa kingdom to pay tribute to the Romans. Emperor Hadrian made it easier to submit and restored the kingdom, but in the following time it remained dependent on Rome. Around 216, the city was turned into a military Roman colony. In 217, the emperor Caracalla was killed here. In 242, Gordian III restored the Osroen kingdom again and entrusted it to a new Abgar, from the descendants of the old royal dynasty, but already in 244 the kingdom again passed into direct dependence on the Romans.
Abgar receives "Savior Not Made by Hands" from the Apostle Thaddeus. Icon of the X century from the monastery of St. Catherine.
After the collapse of the Roman Empire, Edessa passed to Byzantium. During this period, the importance of the city in the history of the Christian church increased. There were more than 300 monasteries in Edessa. The Father of the Church, Ephraim the Syrian, lived in it, and there was a school for his followers.
Under Emperor Justin I, the city was destroyed by an earthquake, but was soon rebuilt, becoming Justinople.
The transition of Edessa in 641 under the rule of Arab caliphs put an end to the prosperity of Christianity here, and during the subsequent internal and external wars, the city's worldwide glory completely faded away. In 1031, the Byzantine emperors managed to take possession of Edessa, but during the same century the city changed its overlords several times. In 1040 it was occupied by the Seljuks.
In 1042 Edessa was returned to the Byzantine Empire, and in 1077 the city was annexed to the state of Filaret Varazhnuni. In 1086, Edessa was again conquered by the Seljuks, but after the death of Sultan Tutush in 1095, his governor in Edessa, the Armenian Toros, became an independent prince.
In 1098, during the first crusade, the brother of Gottfried of Bouillon, Count Baldwin, easily conquered the city with the assistance of its inhabitants and made it the main city of his county of Edes.
For more than half a century, the Edessa county existed under the rule of various Frankish princes as the foremost stronghold of the Kingdom of Jerusalem against the Turks. In the continuous wars with the Muslims, the Franks held themselves firmly and bravely, but, finally, with the pleasure-minded Count Joscelin II, the ruler of Mosul, Imad al-Din Zangi, succeeded in taking the city by storm in 1144.
Islam reigned here again, and all Christian churches were converted into mosques. An attempt by the inhabitants of Edessa in 1146 to shake off the Muslim yoke ended in the death of the city: they were defeated by Zangi's son and successor, Nur ad-Din. The survivors were enslaved, and the city itself was destroyed. Its fate from this time is full of vicissitudes: it was seized by the Egyptian and Syrian sultans, Mongols, Turks, Turkmens and Persians, until the Turks finally conquered it in 1637. Under their rule, Edessa began to rise from the ruins at the expense of the local, mostly non-Turkish, population.