Page "Constantinople" Paragraph 69

Constantinople was the largest and richest urban center in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea during the late Eastern Roman Empire, mostly as a result of its strategic position commanding the trade routes between the Aegean Sea and the Black Sea.

It would remain the capital of the eastern, Greek-speaking empire for over a thousand years.

At its peak, roughly corresponding to the Middle Ages, it was the richest and largest European city, exerting a powerful cultural pull and dominating economic life in the Mediterranean.

Visitors and merchants were especially struck by the beautiful monasteries and churches of the city, in particular, Hagia Sophia, or the Church of Holy Wisdom: A Russian 14th-century traveler, Stephen of Novgorod, wrote, " As for St Sophia, the human mind can neither tell it nor make description of it.