The fall of Constantinople - Blessing for the West?

[Divi Filius]

Greek learning and the influx of Greek-Byzantine scholars started far earlier then 1453. There are a number of Byzantine teachers of Greek in Florence, Venice and Pisa around the 1300's and these decades saw an influx of migrants from eastern Europe, escaping the ottoman conquest. Among these groups were also Balkan mercenaries; and Byzantine nobility.

Edited December 21, 2007 by Divi Filius

[spittle]

In the 13th century the Venetians managed to manipulate an anti-Islamic Crusade against Constantinople, its main rival. lets forget that they were fellow Christians!

 

To me this speaks volumes about the time and area.

 

I know at least one Byzantine Bishop that converted to Rome after the fall and I assume this must have been part of a bigger 'brain drain' as the West cannibalised the talents of its fellow Christians and fallen rival.

 

As Divi Filius states this process was well advanced already. The four horses of the Hippodrome had been in Venice since the above mentioned 'fourth crusade'.

Edited December 17, 2007 by spittle

[caldrail]

There is another side to this. Since the dark ages, the ability of landowners to effectively manage their output had improved no end as time wore on. Now its true I'm discussing Britain, and that I assume the same situation existed in europe as a whole, but this factor means that there was more leisure time. Fewer people were struggling with subsistence and with free time (besides the more frivolous activities) comes a chance to learn and study. The groundwork for this had been made much earlier. During the dark ages in britan there was plenty of monasteries who maintained learning, despite the deprivations of the vikings. Alfred the Great for instance was one monarch who made great efforts to improve such learning. Also, I notice that toward the end of the medieval period the monasteries in britain were developing small scale industries as a prmary source of income. This was possible because of the increasing stability of the realm, the increasing skill in working the land, and because the monasteries were centers of education in the first place. I would say therefore that the rennaisance was going to happen at some point anyway. Now the question is whether Henry 8ths dissolution of the monasteries in 1536 aided or held back the rennaisance. On the one hand, hundreds of educated men had been turfed out of their cloistered existence into the wide world, but on the other hand, these centers of education were closed for business.

[Julius Ratus]

There was an interesting post in the archaeological forum about two years ago that cited evidence Christopher Columbus' family were actually Byzantine Greeks before they became Italians.

 

Do you have a link to this? It sounds very interesting.

[Axel Wers]

My question; was there a correlation bewteen the fall of Constantinopel and the Renaissance?

 

I thinks yes. It's possible that fall of Constantinople helped to rise of Renaissance and West could move forward. This is one of the example of Roman Empire legacy.