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Ep 204 - Constantinople 1: Foundations

Added 2025-01-29 13:00:09 +0000 UTC

patrons, here's your ad-free regular episode for the week, we answered questions from Dogspotter and Gaffsey

folks, we were delayed one week due to the storm of the century in the American southeast but things have thawed a bit and we're back on track just in time to start a series on the Queen of Cities, Constantinople. Eventually, it would become the crown jewel city of Medieval Europe, a hub of culture, religion, trade, defense, and more, and, briefly, the most important city in the world before falling to the Ottomans and gunpowder. But that's a story for later in the series, for now we must introduce you to Constantinople and to do so, we must discuss three separate factors that turned it in THE Medieval European city: the vagaries of geography that combined to make it one of the most imminently defensible locations in the world, Constantine the Great founding the city and making it the capital of the Roman Empire, and the building of the Theodosian Walls.

attachment 1: a diagram of the measurements of the Theodosian Walls (in meters) during a cannon bombardment

attachment 2: a detailed map of Constantinople as it appeared in the Middle Ages showing prominent locations around the city and the course of the walls

attachment 3: a side-view of the Theodosian Walls to better visualize them