![medieval city medieval city](https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZsHA2.jpg)
During its heyday, between the eighth and tenth centuries, over a million people lived here, and the city served as the cultural and political epicentre of the Middle East. Construction began in 762, and within a few years it was already the home to half a million people. Venice would be the greatest maritime power of the medieval world.īaghdad – this was a city built in the Middle Ages to serve as the capital of a new empire – the Abbasid Caliphate. Its wealth and power were underpinned by a fleet of as many as 3100 ships. The Republic of Venice would go from city-state to its own empire, creating colonies in the Western Mediterranean. Venice would grow through trade, its access to the Mediterranean Sea allowing it to connect to the wider world. Refugees came to this place, relatively safe in this area of islands and marshy lagoons, and started to build a new community. Venice – it was a city that came about as the Western Roman Empire collapsed in the fifth century. In 1453, the city and the empire would be conquered by the Ottomans, but this now began a new era as Constantinople became the capital of the rising Ottoman Empire. The Byzantine Empire would see its power grow and fall over the centuries, and Constantinople itself faced several major sieges.
![medieval city medieval city](https://i1.wp.com/www.vilaoasisverde.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Obidos-1.jpg)
![medieval city medieval city](https://worldinparis.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Medieval-Provins-France-1024x683.jpg)
For about a thousand years, Constantinople would serve as a major player in international affairs and at times was home to as many as a million people. Created to be the eastern capital of the Roman Empire, it would continue on as Rome’s legacy and became the heart of the Byzantine Empire. Constantinople – if any city embodied the medieval world, it was Constantinople.