Abstract
Habitation of Constantinople after the Conquest: Changing of the City Dwellers and their Houses
This article has developed as a chapter of the research on the (Canbulat, The Ottoman House / Evolutıon of Structure and Form, 2017). Istanbul has unique position in the development of the Ottoman house in terms of Byzantine - Ottoman syncretism and its evolution in continuity. Immediately after the conquest of Istanbul, as a successful social engineering project inhabitation of İstanbul was carried out. The inhabitation supported by exiles and the participation of the population in urban economy is accomplished by the formation of neighborhoods as Turk - Islam settlement organizations. This research deals only with “houses” as a study area. Already the monumental elements of Istanbul's urban structure, palaces, mosques, imarets, madrasas, bazaars and similar public structures have been subject to numerous research and publications. This article first examines what social and physical states of Constantinople just before and after the conquest. 1455, two years after the conquest, and 1477 surveys, which was carried on determining the consequences of the inhabitation of Istanbul, provide very detailed information about the characteristics of the dwellers as well as their habitat. Another source further and not less important than these is the al-Akarat section of the Fatih Foundations’ Scripts, which was completed in 1470 - 1471, provides a significant cross-section between the above-mentioned surveys. Evidently, the existing Byzantine - Constantinople houses were used for the inhabitation of the new dwellers in the beginning. The records of the surveys and Fatih Foundations’ Scripts also provide us with valuable data about the characteristics and conditions of the early Constantinople - Istanbul houses. With this research, we find the earliest examples of wooden constructions “chartaks” in Byzantine monasteries which will gradually become the most decisive feature of the "Ottoman House", and we see that over time they are beginning to become widespread with modifications and annex constructions like "gurfes" as a stage on the evaluation of “Ottoman House”.
Keywords
Inhabitation of Constantinople, Constantinople’s Houses After the Conquest
