Economic Impact of the Fall of Constantinople
Trade Routes prior to the Fall of Constantinople
There were many economic effects of the Fall of Constantinople. Prior to the fall of Constantinople, the Byzantine economy had been reduced to a very low condition, and the population of the city may have fallen to as few as 50,000 inhabitants. After the Ottoman capture of the city in 1453 and the security that came with it, economic activity revived in Constantinople and what were now Turkish possessions. The negative side of the impact was that the Black Sea trade crashed as the Ottoman Empire essentially started a monopoly for trade.The Fall of Constantinople severely hurt trades in the European region. The Ottoman conquest affected the highly lucrative Italian trade and gradually reduced trade bases in the region. Also the fall was just the first step that eventually turned the Black Sea and the Mediterranean into Turkish lakes for trade. With the Ottomans hold of the Byzantine Empire, all nations trade were at the mercy of the Ottomans. Eventually though it turned positive again as the Italians invested in Spain and Portugal, instead of the former Byzantine area, whose conquests in the New World brought much profit to the Italians. The Ottoman realm and the portions of the Eastern Mediterranean Sea controlled by them prospered through trade over long distances. Overall the Fall of Constantinople was economically beneficial to the Ottomans but not to the former trade partners of the Byzantine Empire.