Johannes Grant
Johannes Grant or Johannis Grandi[1] was a mercenary employed by the Byzantine Empire at the fall of Constantinople in 1453. Contemporary Greek and Latin accounts referred to him as being German,[2][3] although Runciman has suggested he may actually have been a Scot named John Grant.[4] He appears to have been affiliated with the Genoese contingent of mercenaries at the siege, possibly part of the men commanded by Giovanni Giustiniani. His use of counter-mining tunnels prevented the Turks from weakening or invading Constantinople from under the walls.[5][6]
Depictions in Fiction[]
- Grant appears as a minor character in The Dark Angel by Mika Waltari
- John Le Grant, an Aberdonian based on the historical Johannes Grant, appears in The House of Niccolò by Dorothy Dunnett
- John Grant is the central character in the historical novel
- John Grant is featured in the third episode of the historical docudrama series Rise of Empires: Ottoman; here he is depicted as Scottish.
- John Grant is the central character in the historical novel by Neil Oliver
References[]
- ^ Leonard of Chios: "Johannis Grandi Alemani", where Grandi can also mean "the great" in Italian
- ^ Georgios Sphrantzes: "Johannes the German"
- ^ Bartusis, Mark, Late Byzantine Army
- ^ Runciman, Steven, Fall of Constantinople 1453, page 84
- ^ Nicol, Donald, Last Centuries of Byzantium. Cambridge University Press, 1993 [2nd edition]. Chapter 18.
- ^ The Fall of Constantinopla Archived 6 February 2007 at the Wayback Machine
Categories:
- German military engineers
- Scottish military engineers
- 15th-century Scottish people
- 15th-century German engineers
- Fall of Constantinople
- People of the Byzantine–Ottoman wars
- German engineer stubs
- German military personnel stubs
- Scottish engineer stubs