Editing Fall of Constantinople (section)

== Atrocities ==

According to the ''[[Encyclopædia Britannica]]'', [[Mehmed II]] "permitted an initial period of looting that saw the destruction of many Orthodox churches", but tried to prevent a complete sack of the city.<ref name="Fall of Constantinople">{{cite web |title=Fall of Constantinople |url=https://www.britannica.com/event/Fall-of-Constantinople-1453 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200819143934/https://www.britannica.com/event/Fall-of-Constantinople-1453 |archive-date=19 August 2020 |access-date=2 August 2020 |publisher=Encyclopædia Britannica}}</ref> 
The looting was extremely thorough in certain parts of the city. On 2 June, the Sultan found the city largely deserted and half in ruins; churches had been desecrated and stripped, houses were no longer habitable, and stores and shops were emptied. He is famously reported to have been moved to tears by this, saying, "What a city we have given over to plunder and destruction."{{sfnp|Runciman|1965|p=152}}

According to [[David Nicolle]], the ordinary people were treated better by their Ottoman conquerors than their ancestors had been by Crusaders back in 1204, stating that only about 4,000 Greeks died in the siege, while according to a [[Venetian Senate]] report, 50 Venetian noblemen and over 500 other Venetian civilians died during the siege.{{sfnp|Nicolle|2000|p=|pp=81–84}} 
Many of the riches of the city were already looted in [[Sack of Constantinople|1204]], leaving only limited loot to the Ottomans.<ref>{{harvp|Crowley|2013a|p=191}}</ref>
Other sources claim far more brutal and successful pillaging by the Ottoman invaders. 

Looting was carried out on a massive scale by sailors and marines who entered the city via other walls before they had been suppressed by regular troops, who were beyond the main gate. 
"Everywhere there was misfortune, everyone was touched by pain" when Mehmed entered the city. "There were lamentations and weeping in every house, screaming in the crossroads, and sorrow in all churches; the groaning of grown men and the shrieking of women accompanied looting, enslavement, separation, and rape."<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QgAdAAAAYAAJ |title=The Fall of the Byzantine Empire: A Chronicle |author=Geōrgios Phrantzēs |year=1980 |publisher=University of Massachusetts Press |isbn=978-0-87023-290-9 |via=Google Books |access-date=19 March 2023 |archive-date=26 March 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230326164808/https://books.google.com/books?id=QgAdAAAAYAAJ |url-status=live }}</ref> 

If any citizens of Constantinople tried to resist, they were slaughtered. According to [[Niccolò Barbaro]], "all through the day the Turks made a great slaughter of Christians through the city". According to [[Makarios Melissenos]]:

{{blockquote|As soon as the Turks were inside the City, they began to seize and enslave every person who came their way; all those who tried to offer resistance were put to the sword. In many places the ground could not be seen, as it was covered by heaps of corpses.{{sfnp|Melissenos|1980|p=130}}}}

The women of Constantinople suffered from rape at the hands of Ottoman forces.<ref name="hRhtW" /> 
According to historian [[Philip Mansel]], widespread persecution of the city's civilian inhabitants took place, resulting in thousands of murders and rapes.<ref name="iK51W" /> 

[[Leonard of Chios]] made accounts of the atrocities that followed the fall of Constantinople stated the Ottoman invaders pillaged the city, murdered or enslaved tens of thousands of people, and raped nuns, women and children:
{{blockquote|All the valuables and other booty were taken to their camp, and as many as sixty thousand Christians who had been captured. The crosses which had been placed on the roofs or the walls of churches were torn down and trampled. Women were raped, virgins deflowered and youths forced to take part in shameful obscenities. The nuns left behind, even those who were obviously such, were disgraced with foul debaucheries.{{sfnp|Melville-Jones|1972|p=39}}}}
According to [[Steven Runciman]] most of the elderly and the infirm/wounded and sick who were refugees inside the churches were killed, and the remainder were chained up and sold into slavery.{{sfnp|Runciman|1965|p=147}}

During three days of pillaging, the Ottoman invaders captured children and took them away to their tents, and became rich by plundering the imperial palace and the houses of Constantinople. 
The Ottoman official Tursun Beg wrote:
{{blockquote|After having completely overcome the enemy, the soldiers began to plunder the city. They enslaved boys and girls and took silver and gold vessels, precious stones and all sorts of valuable goods and fabrics from the imperial palace and the houses of the rich... Every tent was filled with handsome boys and beautiful girls.{{sfnp|Beg|1978|p=37}}}}
[[Michael Critobulus|Critobulus]] also noted: "As for the Sultan, he was sensual rather than acquisitive, and more interested in people than in goods. Phrantzes, the faithful servant of the Basileus, has recounted the fate of his young and good-looking family. His three daughters were consigned to the Imperial harem, even the youngest, a girl of fourteen, who died there of despair. His only son John, a fifteen-year-old boy, was killed by the sultan for having repelled his advances."<ref>Guerdan, Rene ́, Byzantium: its triumphs and tragedy, Allen & Unwin, 1956 p. 219-220</ref>

[[George Sphrantzes]] says that people of both genders were raped inside [[Hagia Sophia]]. [[Michael Critobulus|Critobulus]] described the enslavement and sexual abuse committed by the Ottoman troops inside the Hagia Sophia: 
{{blockquote|Among all those outrages the profanation of Saint Sophia stood out. In the great church an immense crowd was assembled, prauing despairingly. The famous bronze door had been closed, and full of anguish all awaited the conquerors all waited the conquerors. Suddenly violent blows shoock and broke down the doors and a tide of blood-covered brutes swept in to  the holy place. To make rooms for them they begun by using the pikes and scimitar a little; but they were in the grip of covetouness not sadism. Here, they said to themselves as they looked about, fortune awaits us. In an instant, all who were young, good-looking and healthy were stripped, despoiled and herded. High-born women, young and gentle girls of noble family, now naked under their long hair, fell thus into slavery. Their masters bound them with whatever was at hand: sashes, belts, kerchiefs, stoles, tent ropes, camel and horse reins. With blows and kicks they were herded outside into long columns, to be led to a shameful fate and to all the extremities of the Islamic world.<ref>Guerdan, Rene ́, Byzantium: its triumphs and tragedy, Allen & Unwin, 1956 p. 219-220</ref>}}
The elder refugees in the Hagia Sophia were slaughtered and the women raped.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Calian |first=Florin George |date=25 March 2021 |title=The Hagia Sophia and Turkey's Neo-Ottomanism |url=https://armenianweekly.com/2021/03/24/the-hagia-sophia-and-turkeys-neo-ottomanism/ |newspaper=The Armenian Weekly |language=en |access-date=5 November 2021 |archive-date=5 November 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211105091803/https://armenianweekly.com/2021/03/24/the-hagia-sophia-and-turkeys-neo-ottomanism/ |url-status=live }}</ref> 
Mehmed entered the Hagia Sophia, "marveling at the sight" of the grand basilica. Witnessing a Ghazi wildly hammering at the marble floor, he asked what he was doing. "It is for the Faith!" the Ghazi said. 
Mehmed cut him down with his [[Kilij]]: "Be satisfied with the booty and the captives; the buildings of the city belong to me."<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SoUJAQAAIAAJ |title=The Siege of Constantinople 1453: Seven Contemporary Accounts |year=1973 |publisher=Hakkert |isbn=978-90-256-0626-8 |via=Google Books |access-date=2 January 2023 |archive-date=6 January 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240106131445/https://books.google.com/books?id=SoUJAQAAIAAJ |url-status=live }}</ref>

Ottoman Chroniclers confirmed: "They made the people of the city slaves and killed their emperor, and the gazis embraced their pretty girls".<ref>{{cite web |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qFBtAAAAMAAJ |title=Islam, from the Prophet Muhammad to the Capture of Constantinople: Religion and society |year=1976 |via=Google Books |last1=Lewis |first1=Bernard |access-date=19 March 2023 |archive-date=26 March 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230326164808/https://books.google.com/books?id=qFBtAAAAMAAJ |url-status=live }}</ref>

During the festivities, "and as he had promised his viziers and his other officers," Mehmed had the "wretched citizens of Constantinople" dragged before them and "ordered many of them to be hacked to pieces, for the sake of entertainment."{{sfnp|Melville-Jones|1972}}{{page needed|date=December 2023}}<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hwdhQgAACAAJ |isbn=978-0-682-46972-2 |title=Diary of the Siege of Constantinople, 1453 |year=1969 |publisher=Exposition Press |access-date=19 March 2023 |archive-date=26 March 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230326164808/https://books.google.com/books?id=hwdhQgAACAAJ |url-status=live }}</ref>

Byzantine historian [[Doukas (historian)|Doukas]] claims that, while drunk during his victory banquet, the Sultan ordered the Grand Duke [[Loukas Notaras]] to give [[Jacob Notaras|his youngest son]], to him for his pleasure. He replied that "it would be far better for me to die than hand over my own child to be despoiled by him." Mehmed was enraged after hearing this and ordered Loukas to be executed. Before his death, Notaras supposedly said that "Him who was crucified for us, died and arose"' and urged his horrified sons to reject the advances of Mehmed and not fear the outcome. Their father's words encouraged them, and they also "were ready to die". They are also said to have been executed.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rPkcAAAAYAAJ |title=Decline and Fall of Byzantium to the Ottoman Turks |date= 1975 |publisher=Wayne State University Press |isbn=978-0-8143-1540-8 |access-date=15 January 2023 |via=Google Books}}</ref> However, American researcher and professor Walter G. Andrew doubts the authenticity of this story, citing the similarities with the earlier story of Saint [[Pelagius of Córdoba|Pelagius]], he states that, "it is likely that Doukas's tale owes more to Saint Pelagius and a long history of attempts to portray Muslims as morally inferior than to anything that actually happened during the conquest of Constantinople/Istanbul."<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Andrews |first1=Walter |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jID6Z1l0IfEC&q=The+Age+of+Beloveds+%E2%80%93+Love+and+the+Beloved+in+Early-Modern+Ottoman+and+European+Culture+and+Society. |title=The Age of Beloveds: Love and the Beloved in Early-Modern Ottoman and European Culture and Society |last2=Kalpakli |first2=Mehmet |date= 2005 |publisher=Duke University Press |isbn=978-0-8223-3424-8 |page=2 |language=en |quote=Some people who are familiar with the history of stories about sex and love will recognize close parallels to the story of Saint Pelagius, the thirteen-year- old Christian martyr of the early tenth century, said to have been a beautiful and pious youth, who was tortured and dismembered by the Cordoban caliph 'Abdu'r-Rahman III when he refused the caliph's sexual advances." It is easy to see how it could have seemed meaningful and hopeful to a Greek mourning lost Byzantium to reference the cult of Saint Pelagius, which for centuries provided spiritual energy to the Spanish Reconquista. Thus, although it is likely that Doukas's tale owes more to Saint Pelagius and a long history of attempts to portray Muslims as morally inferior than to anything that actually happened during the conquest of Constantinople/Istanbul... |access-date=29 January 2023 |archive-date=23 April 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230423205818/https://books.google.com/books?id=jID6Z1l0IfEC&q=The+Age+of+Beloveds+%E2%80%93+Love+and+the+Beloved+in+Early-Modern+Ottoman+and+European+Culture+and+Society. |url-status=live }}</ref> One of the [[History of concubinage in the Muslim world|concubines (sex slaves)]] in the [[Ottoman Imperial Harem|Ottoman Imperial harem]] of Sultan Mehmet II was [[Çiçek Hatun]], who was herself referred to as a slave-girl captured during the fall of Constantinople. 

The vast majority of the citizens of Constantinople (30,000–50,000) were forced to become slaves.<ref name="iK51W">{{cite news |last1=Mansel |first1=Philip |title=Constantinople: City of the World's Desire 1453–1924 |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/books/chap1/constantinople.htm |newspaper=Washington Post |access-date=7 August 2020 |archive-date=24 July 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190724153239/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/books/chap1/constantinople.htm |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Davis" /><ref name="Crowley2009">{{cite book |author=Roger Crowley |title=Constantinople: The Last Great Siege, 1453 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ftOp1cR7VK8C&pg=PT226 |date= 2009 |publisher=Faber & Faber |isbn=978-0-571-25079-0 |page=226 |quote=The vast majority of the ordinary citizens – about 30,000 – were marched off to the slave markets of Edirne, Bursa and Ankara.}}</ref><ref name="Akbar2002" /><ref name="Bradbury1992">{{cite book |author=Jim Bradbury |title=The Medieval Siege |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xVCRpsfwkiUC&pg=PA322 |year=1992 |publisher=Boydell & Brewer |isbn=978-0-85115-312-4 |page=322 |access-date=7 August 2020 |archive-date=15 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230115215624/https://books.google.com/books?id=xVCRpsfwkiUC&pg=PA322 |url-status=live }}</ref>
According to Nicolas de Nicolay, slaves were displayed naked at the city's slave market, and young girls could be purchased.<ref name="fisher2010">{{cite book |last1=Fisher |first1=Alan |title=A Precarious Balance |date=2010 |publisher=Gorgias Press |location=Piscataway, NJ |page=151 |chapter=The Sale of Slaves in the Ottoman Empire: Markets and State Taxes on Slave Sales, Some Preliminary Considerations}}</ref>