On 29 May 1453, after a 53-day siege, Constantinople—capital of the Byzantine Empire and the last remnant of the Eastern Roman world—fell to Sultan Mehmed II. Contemporary sources describe a city weakened by demographic decline, political fragmentation, and limited Western support, yet still symbolically central to Christian Europe. Many historians view 1453 as a transitional moment rather than a clean “end” to the Middle Ages. The Ottoman Empire preserved, adapted, and transformed Byzantine adm