Constantinople: Capital of Byzantium 9781474254656, 9781474254649, 9781474254687, 9781474254663

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Constantinople

ii

Constantinople Capital of Byzantium Second Edition

Jonathan Harris

Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

LON DON • OX F O R D • N E W YO R K • N E W D E L H I • SY DN EY

Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square 1385 Broadway London New York WC1B 3DP NY 10018 UK USA www.bloomsbury.com BLOOMSBURY and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First edition published 2007 by Continuum This second edition first published 2017 © Jonathan Harris, 2017 Jonathan Harris has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the author. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN: HB: 978-1-4742-5465-6   PB: 978-1-4742-5464-9  ePDF: 978-1-4742-5466-3 ePub: 978-1-4742-5467-0 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Harris, Jonathan, author. Title: Constantinople: capital of Byzantium / Jonathan Harris. Description: Second edition. | London; New York: Bloomsbury Academic, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016032987| ISBN 9781474254656 (hardback) | ISBN 9781474254649 (pbk.) Subjects: LCSH: Istanbul (Turkey)–History–To 1453. | Istanbul (Turkey)–Civilization. Classification: LCC DR729 .H37 2017 | DDC 949.61/8012–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016032987 Cover design: Adriana Brioso Cover image © Italian School/Getty Images Typeset by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India

In memory of Tony Crosby (1927–2016)

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Contents

List of illustrations  viii List of text boxes  x List of maps  xi Acknowledgements  xii

1 City of wonders 1 2 Founding fathers 19 3 The God-guarded city 39 4 Palaces and power 57 5 Churches and monasteries 77 6 ‘Two thirds of the wealth of this world’ 95 7 Democracy 113 8 Outsiders 131 9 The Latin interlude 149 10 Indian summer 167 11 The ruin of Byzantine Constantinople 185 12 Byzantine Constantinople today 203

Appendix A: Timeline  223 Appendix B: List of emperors  228 Notes  231 Further reading  256 Bibliography  259 Index  277

List of Illustrations

Figure 1 Column from the Arch of Theodosius © Evren Kalinbacak, Source: IStock 9 Figure 2 Column of Constantine © Scaliger, Source: IStock 11 Figure 3 Mosaic of Constantine and Justinian from Hagia Sophia © Tolga Tezcan, Source: Shutterstock.com 20 Figure 4 The obelisk of Theodosius in the Hippodrome © Waj, Source: Shutterstock.com 31 Figure 5 The Land Walls © Viacheslav Lopatin, Source: Shutterstock.com 45 Figure 6 Gold coin (nomisma) of Emperor Romanos III with the Virgin Mary © Jonathan Harris 59 Figure 7 Remains of the Palace of Boukoleon, part of the Great Palace © Grannyogrimm, Source: IStock 60 Figure 8 Tekfur Sarayı, part of the Palace of Blachernae © Designist, Source: IStock 61 Figure 9 Great Palace mosaic: Boy driving geese © Montainpics, Source: Shutterstock.com 70 Figure 10 Christ Pantokrator from the Chora church © Evren Kalinbacak, Source: Shutterstock.com 78 Figure 11 The church of the Holy Saviour in Chora © rm, Source: Shutterstock.com 81 Figure 12 Constantine IX and Zoe from Hagia Sophia © Antony McAulay, Source: Shutterstock.com 86 Figure 13 Trachy of Alexios III © Jonathan Harris 99 Figure 14 Emperor Theodosius I in the Kathisma: from the Obelisk column base in the Hippodrome © Pavle Marjanovic, Source: Shutterstock.com 120 Figure 15 Theodore Metochites from the Holy Saviour in Chora © Paul Williams, Source: FunkyStock 174 Figure 16 Resurrection from the Church of the Holy Saviour in Chora © Zzvet, Source: Shutterstock.com 209

List of Illustrations

Figure 17 The serpent column in the Hippodrome © Santirf, Source: IStock 211 Figure 18 Marble sarcophagus outside the Archaeological Museum, Istanbul © Evren Kalinbacak, Source: IStock 217 Figure 19 The Tetrarchs, Venice © Mountainpics, Source: Shutterstock.com 221 Figure 20 Roundel depicting a Byzantine emperor, Venice © Jonathan Phillips 222

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LIST OF Text Boxes

Text Box 1 A description of Constantinople by an anonymous western visitor 17 Text Box 2 A later Byzantine description of Constantine 25 Text Box 3 Cassius Dio on the Bosporus and the Golden Horn 44 Text Box 4 An outsider’s view of Byzantine ceremonial 64 Text Box 5 A visit to the Church of St George in Mangana, 1403 88 Text Box 6 Alexios III’s treaty with Venice 1198 111 Text Box 7 A description of a chariot race in the Hippodrome in around 1100 121 Text Box 8 Two sides of the Jewish experience in Constantinople 141 Text Box 9 Marino Sanudo Torsello on the Latin Empire 165 Text Box 10 A portrait of Theodore Metochites 175 Text Box 11 An Englishman in Constantinople, 1610 201 Text Box 12 The discovery of the Peristyle mosaic in the remains of the Great Palace, 1935 206

LIST OF Maps

Map 1 Constantinople in 1200 ce 4 Map 2 Constantinople in around 400 ce 32 Map 3 The Byzantine Empire in 1200 ce 58 Map 4 Modern Istanbul with some surviving Byzantine sites 207

Acknowledgements

The second edition of this book comes at the end of a journey. The first edition was largely the idea of Martin Sheppard and Tony Morris and was commissioned for their publishing house, Hambledon. After Hambledon had been acquired by Continuum, Michael Greenwood smoothed the path to the publication of the first edition in 2007. When Continuum was absorbed into Bloomsbury, Rhodri Mogford was very receptive to the idea of a second edition. I am indebted to him for the efficiency with which he set the process in motion and his generosity in the matter of word limits. I am also greatly obliged to Grishma Fredric and Ian Buck who saw the book through the production stage. The new edition is therefore larger and I have taken the opportunity to correct a number of errors in the original version. I am grateful to Mark Lehnertz for correcting the number of square hectares in the first edition, to Toby Bromige and Joseph Munitiz for providing me with new information, to Jonathan Phillips for permission to use his Venetian roundel photograph, to four anonymous reviewers whose helpful comments and corrections allowed me to see the book from a reader’s point of view. The following publishers and institutions kindly gave permission for the reproduction of the passages in the textboxes: Bloomsbury Publishing, the Department of Languages and Humanities of the University of Brussels, the Institute of Art History of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Oxford University Press and the Taylor and Francis Group. I have made every effort to contact the copyright holders of the other extracts and I hope that the inclusion of these passages will be accepted as constituting fair use. Finally I am hugely indebted to the History Department at Royal Holloway for giving me two terms of sabbatical leave, which allowed the process of rewriting to go ahead unhindered, and particularly to Stephanie Surrey for her patience in sorting out my expense claims. For the rest, the book is my own understanding of the subject and reflects my preferences and idiosyncrasies. Turkish readers will, I hope, forgive me for using ‘Constantinople’ up to 1926 and ‘Istanbul’ only thereafter, and Greek ones for my giving the Byzantines the anglicized versions of their first names. I trust that the latter will also overlook ‘Porphyrogenitos’, as opposed to ‘Porphyrogennetos’, as this form simply looks better to me.

1 City of wonders

In around the year 1110, King Sigurd I Magnusson of Norway and a band of followers were sailing home in their longships after a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Cruising up the Aegean, they planned to reach their distant northern home by a land route across Russia. So before they reached the Black Sea, they piloted their vessels into the broad harbour of a city that they called Miklagarth. There they were accorded a magnificent reception. The ruler of Miklagarth, whose name was Kirialax, had covered the streets from the harbour to the palace with precious cloth in their honour and, as they rode along these richly adorned thoroughfares, the Norwegians were serenaded by choirs and lute players. On reaching Kirialax’s palace, the visitors were ushered into a lavish banquet and, as they took their seats, purses full of gold and silver coins were thrust into their hands. As if this largesse were not enough, the servants reappeared shortly afterwards bearing great chests filled with gold which were distributed in the same way. Finally they brought in a cloak of costly purple cloth and two gold rings for King Sigurd who stood and made an elegant speech, thanking Kirialax for his generosity. When the Norwegians were finally ready to leave, Sigurd presented Kirialax with all of his longships and then continued his journey by land. Many of his men, however, chose to remain behind and to enter the service of the ruler of this splendid city.1 One might be forgiven for thinking that this entire episode was just another of the fantastic and implausible tales that fill the pages of the Norse sagas. Yet in its essentials, the story is probably true. For Miklagarth was a real place. Its proper name was Constantinople and it was the capital city of what is known to history as the Byzantine Empire or Byzantium, which in the early twelfth century dominated the Balkans and much of what is now Turkey. The inhabitants of the city who welcomed the Norwegians so cordially were the Byzantines, a Greek-speaking, Christian people who regarded their state as a continuation of the old Roman Empire. Likewise their ruler, ‘Kirialax’, was a real person, the Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenos (1081–1118). His odd name in the saga no doubt arose from his being referred to by his subjects as Kyr Alexios, ‘Lord Alexios’.

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Constantinople

It is not just the place and its ruler that can be verified from the saga’s account. Its tale of the wonders and wealth of Constantinople is reproduced in a host of written records from the Middle Ages, left behind by pilgrims, soldiers and diplomats, many of them more sober and convincing than the Norse biographer of Sigurd yet often breathless with astonishment at what they saw. The almost universal reaction was that recorded by a French soldier who noticed that, as his ship drew near to Constantinople in 1203, those who had never been there before ‘gazed very intently at the city, having never imagined that there could be so fine a place in all the world’. Another visitor recorded that when he had arrived and had looked around, he was stunned by the sight of so many wonderful things. They all said the same: an ‘excellent and beautiful city’, ‘rich in renown’ and ‘the noblest of capitals of the world’.2 Constantinople had the same impact on its inhabitants who had spent all their lives there. ‘The city gives light to the world in marvellous fashion with its wonders,’ wrote a Byzantine poet. So magnificent a place did he and his contemporaries consider it that they seldom even referred to it by name. They preferred to use epithets such as the ‘Queen of Cities’ (basileuousa), the ‘Great City’ (megalopolis) or simply ‘the City’ (polis), there being no possible doubt as to which one was meant.3 Perhaps the most striking feature to visitors was Constantinople’s sheer size. Those coming from the Islamic world would have been familiar with large and prosperous cities, notably Baghdad, the seat of the Abbasid Caliphate, and Cordoba in Spain, although Muslim visitors were still impressed by what they saw in the Byzantine capital. Those who, like Sigurd and his followers, hailed from Scandinavia, western Europe and Russia, on the other hand, would never have seen such a vast urban area before. Their world was an undeveloped one where much of the land was still covered in primal forest. Those cities that existed had a population of no more than about 20,000 people at the very most, and the stone churches in villages would have been the largest man-made structures that most people would ever see. By contrast, Constantinople had a profusion of houses, churches, monasteries and palaces, many built on a colossal scale. The area enclosed by its walls was almost 30,000 hectares (115 square miles) and within that area lived a population which, it was asserted at the time, outnumbered that of the whole of England between York and the Thames. More sober modern estimates put it at around 375,000 inhabitants in the twelfth century but that was still many times larger than any city in the Christian world.4 Then there was the city’s conspicuous wealth that featured so prominently in the account of King Sigurd’s visit. Those from societies where coinage scarcely circulated and whose only movable possessions were their drab, homespun clothes and a basket to put them in, gazed in open-mouthed astonishment the sight of people walking around in brightly dressed silks and of exotic goods that they had never encountered before changing hands in the city markets. On the stalls of the money changers, piles of gold and silver coins and precious stones could be seen and richly dressed noblemen with flowing

City of wonders

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beards and tall hats would have passed by on horseback or been carried in a litter on their way to or from the emperor’s palace. But there was more to it than that. Alongside the size and the wealth there was a kind of a supernatural aura to match. The saga of King Sigurd’s adventures recounts how the Norwegians were treated to a display of horsemanship, music and fireworks on a flat plain surrounded by banks of seating. Above the seats were statues cast in metal that were so skilfully wrought that they looked as if they were alive, some watching the performance, others riding in the air. The Norwegians had no idea how they could have been made.5 Every medieval account of Constantinople records some similar cause for wonder and awe. An angel was believed to stand on perpetual guard in the city’s great cathedral of Hagia Sophia. The twelve baskets of crumbs left over from the feeding of the five thousand were said to be buried under one of its columns. It was even held that the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, extended a special protection over the city, keeping it safe from its enemies. When the khan of the Bulgars threatened to attack in 917, the patriarch of Constantinople wrote to warn him off, threatening him not with military force but with the Virgin who, he insisted, was the commander-in-chief of the city and would not take kindly to any presumptuous assault.6 From the perspective of a later century, the juxtaposition of the miraculous and the supernatural with the physical and the quotidian may seem rather curious. After all, the world has had plenty of holy cities, such as Jerusalem, Mecca or Varanasi, and even more centres of political power and economic muscle but it is rare for a large urban settlement to claim to be both as Constantinople did. It would be easy to dismiss all these myths and legends as so much medieval superstition that simply obscures the true political and socio-economic picture. On the other hand, these elements were clearly extremely important in the minds not only of medieval visitors to Constantinople but also of the Byzantines themselves. Indeed, the rulers of Constantinople assiduously cultivated them and went out of their way to promote the spiritual aura around their city. Of course, these myths often masked a reality that was greatly at variance with the ideal but that does not lessen their significance. The ideal played a vital role in justifying the reality. Far from being completely unrelated to Constantinople’s wealth and power, the myths and legends were the main way in which the Byzantine emperors bolstered their political and diplomatic position and were a major factor in Constantinople’s extraordinary success in preserving itself and its empire for over a thousand years. For when the myth evaporated, so did the power and so did the wealth. * The best way to appreciate the heady mixture of worldly glamour and religious awe experienced by visitors to Byzantine Constantinople is to follow

4

Diplokionion

To the Monastery of St. Cosmas and Damian (Kosmidion)

Palace of Blachernae

Xylokerkos

sR

ko

Ly

Gate of Adrianople

Mother of God at Blachernae

GOLDEN HORN

GALATA (PERA)

er

iv

Pammakaristos Monastery

M

Kastellion Tower

es

BOSPORUS

e

Forum of Theodosius

Forum Bovis

Peribleptos Monastery Monastery of St. Mamas Stoudios Monastery Golden Gate

MAP 1  Constantinople in 1200 ce.

Palace of Niketas Choniates Forum of Constantine

Harbour of Theodosius

om

Kentenarion Tower Monastery of St. George of Mangana

St. Irene Hagia Sophia Augousteion

dr po H

Myrelaion Monastery

Milion e

Mese ip

Land Walls

Venetian Quarter

Kyriotissa Monastery

Sea Walls

SEA OF MARMARA

GREAT PALACE

Constantinople

Column of Marcian

Forum of Arcadius

Genoese Quarter

Pantokrator Monastery

n

Holy Apostles

ai

Ch

Gate of St. Romanos

City of wonders

5

the path that they would have taken through it in around 1200 ce, when the city was in its heyday, and to consider what they would have seen and, perhaps more importantly, what they would have felt. There were, and are, two ways to approach Constantinople: by land and by sea. Both offered a striking foretaste of what was to come. King Sigurd and his companions came by sea, and would have been greeted by the sight of a skyline punctuated by tall columns and by domes of churches and surrounded by the defensive Sea Walls. Most visitors, however, came by land, and their first inkling of the city beyond would come when the towers of the immense defensive Land Walls rose into view and barred any further progress. These visitors would have to apply for entry through one of the eight main civil gates, usually the one known as Charisios or the Gate of Adrianople. There was a ninth, the Golden Gate, an impressive structure topped with two bronze elephants at the far south of the fortifications but that was reserved for emperors returning from victorious campaigns and normally remained closed.7 Formalities at this stage could be tedious, since the authorities forbade any weapons to be carried inside the walls and only allowed a certain quota of people to enter at a time. It would perhaps have been now that the more prudent and affluent among the new arrivals would have employed the services of a guide. As one returning visitor advised, Constantinople was like a great forest and it was impossible to see anything without a local to steer you in the right direction. Eventually permission would be given and the visitors would emerge through the Gate of Adrianople into the broad Middle Street or Mese that ran through the centre of the city.8 Those who entered through this gate would have found themselves close to the district known as Blachernae at the extreme northwest of the Land Walls. The area was dominated by one of the two main imperial residences, the Palace of Blachernae whose tall towers would have been visible for miles around. It was presumably here that King Sigurd and his retinue were feasted by Emperor Alexios. Humbler folk would not have been able to visit the palace but they did have access to Constantinople’s churches and monasteries. Although much of the outlying area of the city close to the Land Walls and south of Blachernae was given over to vineyards, orchards, vegetable plots and cornfields,9 guides would have pointed out to new arrivals that there were several important ecclesiastical buildings in the vicinity. In Blachernae, they would have been able to enter the Holy Saviour in Chora and the Church of the Mother of God which served as the chapel of the Palace. The latter was a beautiful building whose soaring roof was held up by slender columns of green marble. To the south lay the Virgin Peribleptos, St John Stoudios and St Mamas which all lay near or on the way to the Golden Gate. The Church of the Virgin outside the Pege Gate boasted a healing spring that had allegedly cured numerous Byzantine emperors and empresses.10 Unlike most tourists today, medieval visitors did not enter churches and monasteries like these just to look at the decoration and architecture. Indeed

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Constantinople

although plenty of the travellers’ accounts do describe these aspects, others scarcely mention them. They were much more interested in something else: Constantinople’s reputation as a holy place. Now at first sight, it is not immediately obvious why it should have been accorded any spiritual significance by medieval Christians. After all, the city had played no part in the Gospel story, for it had not even been founded in its present form at the time of Christ. The Byzantines did make the claim, albeit on rather scanty evidence, that their church had been founded by St Andrew, one of the original twelve apostles or companions of Christ, just as that of Rome had been founded by St Peter. Moreover, Constantinople did occupy an important place in the ecclesiastical hierarchy. Three ecumenical councils, whose decisions were considered to be binding on the whole church, had been held there in 381, 553 and 680. It was one of five cities in the Christian world whose bishops were honoured with the title of patriarch (the others being Rome, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem). The patriarch of Constantinople enjoyed huge prestige and authority not only in the Byzantine Empire itself but far beyond its borders as far as Russia and he was regarded as second only to the pope in Rome, so that the Byzantines were fond of using ‘New Jerusalem’ as a poetical way to refer to their capital.11 Nevertheless, while pilgrims to Jerusalem could visit the very places where Jesus had walked and taught, and those to Rome could follow in the footsteps of the Apostles Peter and Paul, there was nothing of that kind in Constantinople. What the Byzantine capital did possess was the next best thing to the personal presence of Christ: an unrivalled collection of relics, built up over the centuries. Relics could be either mortal remains of saints and holy persons or objects closely associated with them or with the Virgin Mary or even with Christ himself. It has been reckoned that there were some 3,600 body parts stored in Constantinople in 1200, representing about 476 different saints. Such objects were regarded with intense veneration by medieval Christians because they represented a tangible link to the sanctity of the person with whom they were connected. It was believed that prayers made in a place sanctified by the presence of such an object would be all the more efficacious and that in some cases they might even be rewarded by a miraculous healing. The pick of the collection, which included what was believed to be the Crown of Thorns and other instruments of Christ’s passion, was locked away in the chapel of the Holy Virgin of Pharos within the Great Palace and was only shown to very high-ranking visitors. There were, however, plenty of others available to public view, although inevitably, the locals made sure that they profited from the tourist influx and money changed hands before any relics were put on display. The chief draw of the Church of the Mother of God at Blachernae was its famous Maphorion of the Virgin Mary, a garment that covered the head and shoulders, which was also sometimes referred to as a veil or as a robe. It was kept with a wall painting of the Virgin in a smaller, round chapel to one side of the main church.12 Few Christian visitors would have passed up the opportunity to

City of wonders

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pray before an object that was believed to be so closely linked to the very heart of their faith. Their reaction when confronted with such relics was one of touching enthusiasm, undiluted by any scepticism as to their authenticity. * Having left Blachernae and the vicinity of the Land Walls, it would have taken travellers some time to pass through the less heavily built-up western quarters of the city on foot and to reach the centre of things, a distance of over four and a half kilometres or some three miles. As they moved east along the narrowing promontory on which Constantinople was built, visitors would have soon been aware of the proximity of the sea. They would have smelt the salt in the breeze, heard the cry of seagulls and glimpsed the blue water between the buildings. This was Constantinople’s harbour, the Golden Horn, whose waters would have been crowded with ships, their masts and rigging standing out against the sky. Alongside the Golden Horn were the crowded districts that housed the city’s working population and the quarters where the Venetian, Genoese and Pisan merchants lived. Western European visitors might lodge in this area where Latin and western vernacular languages were understood. Walking east along the Mese, they would have arrived at one of Constantinople’s major monuments. A very large church would have stood on the left-hand side of the street, cruciform in structure and topped by five domes. This was the Holy Apostles, the second largest church in Constantinople and dedicated to Christ’s original twelve companions, minus Judas but including St Paul. It stood at the centre of a complex of buildings that included a theological college and public baths. Its roof commanded a magnificent view over the Golden Horn, the Sea of Marmara and the countryside beyond the Land Walls.13 The main doorway gave access to a cavernous interior, lined by a gallery. The lower walls were clad with marble slabs of different colours. The roof and domes were supported by columns whose capitals were carved to resemble leaves and fruit, and almost every available space was covered in glittering mosaics depicting the life of Christ and the deeds of the Apostles. There were important relics on display too. One could see two stone pillars, one of which purported to be that against which Christ had been scourged, the other the one on which St Peter had wept bitterly after he had three times denied that he knew Jesus. There were also the tombs of the apostle St Andrew, St Luke the Evangelist and St Timothy.14 Beautiful though the interior of the church was and significant though its relics were, its greatest attraction lay in a separate building joined on to its east end, a round mausoleum, known as the Heröon. It housed the tombs of the emperors of Byzantium who had been regularly buried there until 1028 when it had become full up. In pride of place was that of Constantine the Great (306–37), the founder of Constantinople and the first Christian emperor. His magnificent sarcophagus of purple porphyry

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Constantinople

marble was covered with a sumptuous cloth of gold cover, while those of lesser rulers were grouped around it in a semicircle.15 A second mausoleum on the north side of the church housed the tomb of Justinian (527–65) who had been responsible for rebuilding the Church of the Holy Apostles in its present form.16 Here in their imposing marble sarcophagi, these imperial personages awaited the last trump while awestruck groups of visitors were ushered through. Back on the Mese, the road continued its progress eastwards into the busy and heavily populated quarters. By now, some sections of the street were porticoed on either side, providing a sheltered pavement for pedestrians and for shops behind. Tall mansions belonging to Constantinople’s great and good fronted onto the thoroughfare. To the left marched the arches of the aqueduct of Valens, bearing water into the city from the streams and rivers of Thrace.17 As they went, their guides might have enticed them to make a quick detour to the right to visit the Kyriotissa convent where a wonder-working icon of the Virgin Mary could be seen.18 There was also the monastery of the Pantokrator whose church was noted for its elaborate mosaic pavement and painted glass and boasted the slab of red marble on which Christ had lain after his crucifixion. It supposedly still bore the marks of the tears shed by the Virgin Mary.19 As they continued along the Mese, they would have seen nearby a ninemetre-high column of pink granite, protruding above the roof tops, one of many scattered around the city standing, as one contemporary claimed, higher than the clouds. Erected in honour of Marcian (450–7), the column was topped by a statue of the emperor on horseback, the hoof of his steed on the head of defeated enemy.20 Another column could be seen in the distance, that of Emperor Arcadius (395–408). It was taller than that of Marcian with a doorway in the pedestal and a spiral stairway of 233 steps to give access to the top and fifty-six windows to admire the view on the way. Rather like Trajan’s column in Rome, the outside was decorated with spiral reliefs depicting military victories.21 These and other columns helped to give Constantinople its distinctive skyline but they also typified the city in another way. Such was its antiquity and so many centuries had passed without it having been captured or sacked by any hostile power that Constantinople had come to acquire a mystical quality in its own right, and a host of myths and legends had become attached to many of its monuments. Even the most everyday objects had become imbued with a kind of spiritual significance and had acquired some element of legend or lore. These columns were no exception. It was said that the spiral reliefs that ran from their bases to their capitals, depicting soldiers and battles, were visual prophecies of what would befall Constantinople. Unfortunately, their usefulness as a guide to the future was limited since the meaning of the reliefs would only become comprehensible once the events had taken place.22 *

City of wonders

9

By now the Mese had joined up with Constantinople’s other main street, the Triumphal Way which ran up from the Golden Gate. The route then led into a large square known as the Forum of Theodosius, also called the Forum of Tauros. It was entered through a colossal triumphal arch held up by Corinthian columns that were carved with a distinctive teardrop pattern and adorned with carvings of marching soldiers (Figure 1). Once through the arch, visitors would have found themselves in the largest public square in Constantinople. Encountering such a wide open space in the centre of a city would have been a novelty to those from western Europe where such towns as there were possessed no public space to speak of, the houses being packed in tightly within the walls. In all probability, the forum would have looked something like Trafalgar Square in London or the Place Vendôme in Paris, because it was dominated by a stone column

Figure 1  The remains of the Arch of Theodosius today (Evren Kalinbacak/IStock).

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Constantinople

that stood at its centre, this one bearing the name of Emperor Theodosius I (379–95). This column was the tallest in the city, standing over forty metres (120 feet) high. It must have towered above the square and there can have been few visitors who did not crane their necks to peer up at it. If they hoped to get a glimpse of the statue of Theodosius on his horse, they would have been disappointed, for in the year 480 an earthquake had brought it crashing down and it was never replaced.23 There was something else in the Forum of Theodosius which would have attracted the attention of those passing through it for the first time in 1200, just as it had the Nordic companions of King Sigurd. All around the square and on the triumphal arch itself were lifelike statues, mainly of past emperors, empresses and their families. Most striking of all was a huge bronze man on horseback, set on a white marble plinth. Like the statue of Marcian, his horse was crushing a small bound and kneeling man, but in this case, by 1200, no one could remember who it was that the statue was supposed to represent. Some said that it was the Old Testament hero Joshua, others that it was Bellerophon from Greek mythology, mounted upon Pegasus.24 Statues such as these were to be found not just in the Forum of Theodosius but scattered everywhere around the highways and squares of Constantinople and they were as much a feature of the cityscape as the columns and the domes. Some, like the nameless horseman, were made of bronze. Others were marble, like the group of four men in red porphyry clasping their arms around each other, known as the ‘Philadelphion’ or brotherly love.25 Some of them had been made during the Byzantine period in the city itself but many more were much older and had been brought to Constantinople from elsewhere. One depicted the Hellenistic king Seleucus I (c. 358–281 bce), his head adorned with horns. Guides explained the horns with a story that Alexander the Great had tried to sacrifice a bull, the animal had run away and only Seleucus had been able to catch it by grabbing its horns. Somewhat incongruously in such an overtly Christian city, many of these older statues were of pagan gods and goddesses. There was a winged figure of Hermes, the messenger of the gods, holding a golden pouch and a seated Zeus, chief of the gods, naked to the waist, a sceptre in his left hand and an eagle on his right. There was even a Priapus, his hallmark feature proudly held in his left hand.26 These works of art seem to have been preserved and cherished by the Byzantines of the twelfth century for their aesthetic merits, regardless of their pagan connotations. To visitors from remoter parts of the world, unused to realistic portrayals of the human figure, they must have been a source of wonder. Hence the remark of the author of the Norse Sigurd saga that the bronze statues of Constantinople were so cleverly made that they looked as if they were alive.27 On leaving the Forum of Theodosius, the Mese led on to another open space, the Forum of Constantine, named after the founder of the city, Constantine the Great. The forum was oval shaped, with a shady portico along the entire

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length of its periphery, and its centrepiece was another towering column, this one made of reddish porphyry marble (Figure 2). It was under this column that the two thieves’ crosses, the twelve baskets of leftovers from the feeding of the five thousand and other relics were said to be buried.28 The column had originally been surmounted with a bronze statue, with seven rays emanating from its head. It had probably first served as an image of the pagan god Apollo but it had later been recycled to depict Constantine the Great. Like the statue of Theodosius, this had now vanished, although it had met its end relatively recently. On a spring day in 1106, a particularly strong gust of wind had toppled the statue and sent it plummeting into the forum below where it had killed several unfortunate passers-by. It had

Figure 2  The column of Constantine today (Scaliger/IStock).

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since been replaced by a simple cross. The column itself was also showing signs of wear and tear and for some time had had to be held together with stout iron hoops to prevent it from falling down.29 All around it stood statues of pagan goddesses. There was a nine-metre-high bronze image of Pallas Athena, the goddess of wisdom, helmeted with her hand stretched out towards the south, possibly the work of the Athenian sculptor, Phidias (c. 490–c. 420 bce). Nearby was a colossal representation of Hera, the queen of heaven and wife of Zeus, along with Tyche, the goddess of fortune, and a depiction of Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love, being presented with the Apple of Discord by Paris, the episode that was said ultimately to have led to the Trojan War.30 * From the Forum of Constantine, the Mese progressed rapidly towards the monumental heart of Byzantine Constantinople and opened into the last of the great squares, the Augousteion. Probably smaller than the Forum of Theodosius, the Augousteion was laid out in much the same way with a tall column at its centre. Unlike those of Theodosius and Constantine, this one had its bronze statue intact. Emperor Justinian, whose tomb was at the Holy Apostles, was depicted seated on a horse, facing east and holding in one hand an orb surmounted by a cross, while his other hand was raised in warning to his enemies. Menacing though Justinian looked, he was decidedly exposed up on his column to the prevailing wind that gusted around the Augousteion and would whistle mournfully around him. He was a favourite with the local herons who regularly built their nests on his head and along his horse’s back.31 Quite apart from column, the Augousteion was filled with curiosities. There was the Anemodoulion or ‘the servant of the winds’, a four-sided structure that was as tall as many of the city’s columns and whose sides were intricately carved not only with animals and birds but also with a riotous scene of naked women pelting each other with apples. On top of it stood the bronze figure of a woman that served as a kind of weathervane and turned with the direction of the wind. Nearby was the Milion, a triumphal arch, which was surmounted by statues of Constantine the Great and his mother Helena, standing on either side of a cross. The arch covered a milestone from which all distances were measured. At the Milion stood the Horologion, a mechanical clock, one of whose twenty-four doors flew open at the appropriate hour of the day.32 To one side of the square stood the Senate House, which was decorated with ancient columns and statues. On another was the Brazen Gate, a domed structure that formed the main entrance and vestibule to the Great Palace of the Byzantine emperors that lay beyond. There was a large mosaic image of Christ over the gateway and a church, dedicated to Christ the Saviour, precariously balanced on top.

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When the gates were open, passers-by would have been able to glimpse the mosaic portraits of Emperor Justinian and his wife Theodora in the vestibule. Beyond that, most of the Great Palace would have been inaccessible but its gardens were open to the public during the early morning and again after three in the afternoon.33 To the south of the Augousteion stretched the Hippodrome, an extensive stadium some 400 metres in length which could seat up to 100,000 people. It had originally been designed for the staging of chariot races, and so at the Augousteion end it had twelve gates that could be opened simultaneously at the start of the contest. From there, the chariots raced to the far end of the track, wheeled around the central spine and galloped back to head for the winning post. By the twelfth century, the Hippodrome provided the venue not just for chariot races but for all kinds of public happening, from music and fireworks to displays of tightrope walking. In the year 961, it had been used to display the booty brought back by the successful expedition to reconquer the island of Crete. It was also where executions of prominent people took place and it played a key role in imperial ceremonial. That was why it had a special box for the emperor, known as the Kathisma that could be reached by a covered walkway from the Great Palace. Evidently the Hippodrome was the flat plain with banks of seating described by the author of the Norse saga of Sigurd.34 Like the Augousteion, the Hippodrome was filled with curiosities. At one end of its central spine stood a four-sided, twenty-metre-high Egyptian obelisk. Made of a single piece of red granite, it was decorated with hieroglyphs and stood on a marble plinth that depicted Theodosius I surrounded by his family and courtiers.35 At the other end of the spine, the obelisk was mirrored by another, built of masonry and put there to match the Egyptian one. No one could remember who had originally set it up but Emperor Constantine VII (945–59), who usually had the epithet ‘Porphyrogenitos’ or ‘born in the purple’ added to his name, had decided to improve its appearance. He had covered it with gilded plates of bronze and added an inscription recording his generosity, so it was often referred to as the column of Constantine Porphyrogenitos.36 There were statues and monuments everywhere. Some honoured successful charioteers and inscriptions underneath celebrated their victories, like this one: Constantinus, having won four and twenty races in one morning, changed his team with his rival’s and, taking the same horses that he had formerly beaten, won twenty-one times with them!37 There were ancient statues too, including some of the most whimsical and intriguing in the entire city. There was a colossal Hercules, so gigantic that a man’s belt would fit comfortably around its thumb, the work of Lysippus of Sicyon, the famous sculptor of the fourth century bce. Some observers

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were rather perplexed by the statue, as Hercules was portrayed in a pensive mood, resting after his labours: Hercules, where is thy great club? Where thy Nemean cloak and quiver full of arrows, where thy stern glower? Why did Lysippus mould thee thus with dejected visage?38 There was an appropriately lovely Helen of Troy and, by way of contrast, some hideous sphinxes who had the bodies of women to their waists and those of animals below it. A plethora of animals complemented the usual gods and mythological figures. They included an elephant waving its trunk, an eagle which doubled up as a sun dial, and the wolf that suckled Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome. On a tower above the starting gates, stood four gilded copper horses yoked together to draw a chariot, ‘their necks somewhat curved as if they eyed each other as they raced around the last lap’, as one contemporary put it. Most celebrated of all was a frighteningly realistic bronze statue of the Calydonian boar, with bristles down its back, which according to legend was sent to ravage the lands of the king of Calydon after he neglected his sacrifices to Artemis.39 Some of the monuments in the Hippodrome had long histories behind them. The Serpent Column, a bronze sculpture of three intertwined serpents whose heads looked out in different directions, was on the central spine, between the two obelisks. It had originally been dedicated to the god Apollo at Delphi in Greece in 478 bce to commemorate the resounding defeat of the Persians by the Greeks at the Battle of Plataea. A bronze statue of an ass being driven by its keeper had originally been set up by the Roman emperor Augustus (31 bce–14 ce), close to the site of his victory over Mark Antony and Cleopatra at Actium in 31 bce. On the eve of the battle, Augustus had met with a man and his ass and on asking who he was and where he was going, received the answer ‘I am Eutychus (i.e. “Prosper”), my ass is called Nikon (i.e. “Victory”) and I am going to Caesar’s camp.’ With hindsight, Augustus decided that this must have been an omen from the gods and commissioned the statue as a thank-offering. Both artefacts had been moved to the Hippodrome from their original homes centuries before.40 Like the columns, the classical statues of Constantinople had accumulated their share of strange lore over the centuries. Much of it concerned those which no longer existed in 1200. It was said that there used to be a statue of the goddess Aphrodite outside a brothel which had a peculiar power. Whenever an unchaste woman walked past, her skirts would fly up, whereas virtuous women were unaffected. The statue had long since been smashed on the orders of a senator’s daughter who had been caught out as she passed by. Then there was an enormous bronze ox that used to bellow once a year and when it did, disasters were sure to follow. In the end, an emperor ordered it to be thrown into the sea.41 Those statues that still stood were also objects of awe, fascination and superstition, especially, for some reason,

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the Calydonian boar in the Hippodrome. One emperor came to believe that it was his alter ego and provided it with new sets of teeth and genitals in the belief that this would have a restorative effect on those parts of his own body. Another moved it into his palace during a period of civil unrest in the hope that it would protect him against the rioting mob.42 Intriguing though the Hippodrome was, for most visitors the most memorable sight of Constantinople was its cathedral of Hagia Sophia, also known as St Sophia or the Holy Wisdom. At thirty-two metres across and over fifty-five metres high, its immense single dome was higher even than the columns of Theodosius, Arcadius and Constantine, so that the building dominated the Augousteion and was visible to ships far out at sea. Inside the cathedral, the sense of size and space was even more striking. So vast was the area enclosed with no apparent means of support that the dome seemed almost to float in the air. Natural light was provided by forty small windows that ran around the base of the dome but when that failed, there were over a hundred chandeliers hanging from silver chains, each of which held some twenty-five lamps. Just as in the Holy Apostles, mosaic decoration covered the entire space of the dome, and columns of different coloured marble, red, purple and green, supported the gallery that ran around the nave. Sunlight suffused the building from different angles at different hours of the day, shining in from the upper windows and illuminating the gold mosaics and marble columns with dazzling light. A ‘golden stream of glittering rays’, as a poet wrote, ‘strikes the eyes of men, so that they can scarcely bear to look’. At ground level there was plenty of evidence of the conspicuous wealth for which Constantinople was famous. The altar was made of gold and studded with jewels and covered by a gilded canopy. The altar rail, sanctuary doors and pulpit were overlaid with silver and the numerous icons of the saints were mounted in frames of precious metal.43 In common with most of Constantinople’s churches, Hagia Sophia had its share of relics and they were of a significance to match that of the cathedral. Visitors could gaze upon the stone well cover upon which Christ sat when he conversed with the woman of Samaria and the table on which the Last Supper had been laid out. Locked away in its treasury were the swaddling clothes of the infant Jesus and the gold that had been offered to him by the three magi. The great entrance doors were said to be made from the wood of Noah’s ark.44 Quite apart from the relics, even the very fabric of the building was perceived to have some kind of supernatural power. The pillars that supported the galleries were supposed to have special healing properties when rubbed by afflicted persons, particular columns specializing in certain ailments. The bolt on one of the main doors was believed to have the power to cure dropsy when the sufferer placed it in his mouth.45 Emerging from the cathedral into the daylight and the broad space of the Augousteion, visitors in the year 1200 would then have sought out some of the other attractions in the area. They might visit the church of

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the monastery of St George in Mangana, a large and impressive imperial foundation or the monastery of the Hodegoi which housed an icon of Christ that had supposedly been painted by the evangelist St Luke.46 Even smaller and more obscure churches had some claim to fame. The Church of the Forty Martyrs was home to an icon of Christ whose frame was covered in gold and gems. It had once astonished an emperor by speaking to him and predicting the imminent end of his reign. The Church of St Romanos was the resting place of the Old Testament prophet Daniel and of St Niketas the Goth who was martyred for his Christian faith in 372.47 The churches, the relics, the icons and the statues would have preoccupied most visitors but for those who came or diplomatic business from friendly powers there was an extra dimension to the experience. Constantinople’s wealth was as much part of its myth as everything else and to perpetuate it, the emperors ensured that their important guests never departed emptyhanded. The gifts showered on Sigurd of Norway and his party were by no means unprecedented. The Turkish sultan Kilij Arslan II received ‘gold and silver coins, luxuriant raiment, silver beakers, golden Theriklean vessels, linens of the finest weave and other choice ornaments’ when he visited Constantinople in 1162. For the Norman prince Bohemond of Taranto, an entire room was filled with gold, silver and silk garments. An envoy from Italy had only to drop a hint to be presented by the emperor at once with a large cloak and a pound of gold coins.48 For those from regions where money did not circulate widely and gold coins were something that most people would never see, the Byzantine emperor’s ability to shower bagfuls of them on his guests must have seemed little short of a miracle much like the talking icon or the healing pillars. To medieval visitors then, time spent in Constantinople was not just a tourist visit but a kind of religious experience. The tales and superstitions were every bit as real as the physical grandeur that they saw around them and in some ways clearly much more important, for many travellers’ accounts are simply lists of the relics that they had seen and miracle stories that they had heard. Many came specifically to see the relics rather than the city itself and were often passing through as part of a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. The chances are that by nightfall, visitors who had entered through the Gate of Adrianople at dawn and made their way from there to the Augousteion would have visited several churches on the way and reverently kissed the relics that they were shown there on payment of the usual fee. They would also have been regaled with all kinds of stories about the monuments and statues that they passed. Even so, they had only experienced a fraction of the wonders of Constantinople. As one of them concluded, ‘Even though the visitor should day by day return, seeing all he could, yet always on the morrow there would be new sights to view.’49 It would have taken a lifetime to see them all.

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TEXT Box 1: A description of ­ Constantinople by an anonymous western visitor

T

his account was written in Latin in the late eleventh century by an unknown individual who seems to have spent time in the Byzantine capital with a view to learning Greek. Constantinople is a certain city, sited between Asia and Greece, the capital of the eastern empire, and the noblest city in the whole Roman world. Most people say and believe that a third of the gold and silver in the world is there. Some say half of it is in Constantinople and others two thirds, with a third left to the rest of the world. Which of all these might be the most accurate, however, is for those who want to inquire about such things to consider. For one such as me, who has travelled through many tracts of land and has seen many things in many regions, it seems that as far and as wide as the boundary of the west at Jerusalem, there is not as much gold and silver as there is in the city of Constantinople. Thus when I arrived there and looked around me, I was caught up in a stupor of the mind by the wonderful vision of so many amazing things. There I was seeing things that I had not seen [before], that is to say countless churches of marble decorated inside with gold, covered with lead on the outside; marble palaces, these too roofed with lead; images of four-footed and winged animals of every kind, wonderfully and skilfully made from stone or metal; and what exceeded each and every one of these things in admiration, the theatre that the Greeks call the Hippodrome and the Church of Hagia Sophia. There are to be seen many thousands of men dressed in garments made entirely of silk and also many people of different faith and speech. Here Greeks live, there Armenians, in this area dwell the Syrians, in that the Lombards. The English, who are also called Varangians, live in another place, the Dacians in another, further on are the Amalfitans. The French, the Jews and the Pechenegs also have their dwellings in the same city. However, the Greeks have the largest and best part of the city and the rule of it and all the other races that live there are subject to them. Thus this noble city is made wondrous above all other cities in the world with gold and silver, marble and lead, cloaks and silk and great worldly glory and it is made more glorious by the bodies of the saints which it possesses and especially on account of the sanctuaries of our Lord Jesus Christ of which there are believed to be more there than anywhere else in the world. (Continued )

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I will speak briefly and concisely about these things. It is said that the cloths in which the blessed child of salvation was wrapped are kept there, the gold also that the Magi offered which, when held to the ears, always makes a ringing noise and in a wonderful way because it is heard to whisper. These things are held in the treasury of Hagia Sophia. In the palace of the emperor, on the other hand, is held a large part of the True Cross of the Lord, a genuine nail with which the Lord was crucified, the Crown of Thorns with which he was crowned, the reed that he held in his hand, the sandals that he wore on his feet, the lance with which he was pierced, the stone that he had at his head in the tomb, the basin in which he washed the feet of his disciples and the letter which he wrote with his own hand and sent to King Abgar. Furthermore in a place in the city are said to be the twelve baskets together with the fragments of bread that were left behind by the five thousand people who were filled by the Lord Jesus with five loaves and two fishes … The right arm of the blessed John the Baptist is held there and at Epiphany water is blessed by it. The head of the blessed Paul, as the Greeks say, is held there and on the feast of the Martyrdom of the two Apostles [i.e. 29 June] it is taken from the palace, where it is served by priests, accompanied by a throng of people with the highest honour and chanting to the Church of the Apostles. There that same day is made a great gathering of all the people of the city, the patriarch celebrating a solemn, sacred Mass … In the same Church of the Apostles inside the altar lies the body of the blessed apostle Andrew and with him the body of the blessed Luke the Evangelist and of the martyr Timothy, the disciple of Paul the Apostle. Moreover in front of that holy altar the bodies of saints lie concealed in the earth, namely John Chrysostom and Gregory Nazianzus who is also called the Theologian. At the head of the church is a round chapel of marble which is called the chapel of Emperor Constantine, in which reposes the said Constantine along with his holy mother Helena in a huge and costly tomb of porphyry. The tombs of many not unworthy emperors and patriarchs are to be seen in that church. There is not time to discuss this church’s size and beauty. For it is second in size after Hagia Sophia which is unequalled among all the churches of the world. For there are among the many churches of the city of Constantinople three that are more costly and of greater worth among all the others, that is to say Hagia Sophia, the Holy Apostles and the Holy Mother of God which is called of Blachernae. Translated by the author from K. N. Ciggaar, ‘Une description de Constantinople dans le Tarragonensis 55’, Revue des Études Byzantines, 53 (1995): 117–40 at 119–22.

2 Founding fathers

No visitor to Constantinople in 1200, or at any time in the Byzantine period for that matter, could have gone for long without hearing a great deal about two of its greatest past emperors, Constantine (306–37) and Justinian (527–65). Their magnificent tombs could be seen at the Church of the Holy Apostles but their images were everywhere throughout the city. At the Augousteion, statues of Constantine and his mother Helena frowned down from the arch of the Milion, and mosaic portraits of Justinian and his wife Theodora gazed from the ceiling of the Brazen Gate to the Great Palace. Both emperors had their own columns: Justinian’s was outside Hagia Sophia and Constantine’s was in the Forum that bore his name, even if the statue on top of the column was no longer there. These two figures were central to the history and ideology of the city, especially Constantine who as the first Christian emperor was regarded as a kind of thirteenth apostle. His authority was adduced to explain or justify almost any practice or prohibition. The silk vestments that were kept in the sanctuary of Hagia Sophia, for example, were not to be touched except on holy days – because Constantine had said so.1 Why the memory of these particular two emperors should be preserved and revered above that of all others is explained in a mosaic panel above the so-called ‘beautiful door’ in the southwest vestibule of the cathedral of Hagia Sophia (Figure 3). It portrays them standing on either side of the Virgin Mary and the Christ child. Constantine is presenting the Virgin with a model of the city of Constantinople, Justinian with a miniature version of Hagia Sophia. For Constantine was the founder of the city of Constantinople, while Justinian had adorned and beautified the city by providing it with its greatest and most familiar monument. A host of stories and legends had grown up around them and guides were only too happy to recount them to visitors. Although the tales often represented a considerable distortion of the events and of the political realities of centuries before, they tell us a great deal about how the Byzantines saw themselves

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Figure 3  Tenth-century mosaic of Constantine and Justinian in Hagia Sophia (Tolga Tezcan/Shutterstock.com).

and their city in 1200 and about how they used myth and legend to obscure, distort or justify contemporary reality. * Foreigners who enquired about Constantine would probably have been told something like this. There was once a Roman general named Constantius Chlorus. He had been sent by the emperor to Persia to negotiate a peace treaty and was travelling back with his companions through Asia Minor when he stopped off at an inn for the night. The innkeeper noticed that his important guest seemed to be rather lonely, far from home as he was, and obligingly suggested that Constantius console himself by taking his daughter Helena with him when he retired to bed. This Constantius willingly did, only to be disconcerted in the middle of the night when a bright light shone around the room. The next day, Constantius presented Helena with an embroidered mantle, dyed in imperial purple, and instructed her father to look very carefully after any child that might result from the previous night’s exertions, for he had an inkling that the unusual light that had shone over the bed was an omen of future greatness. He then went on to Rome and in the fullness of time became emperor. Meanwhile Helena gave birth to his son and she called him Constantine. The boy was raised at the inn and it was only when he was in his early teens that his father discovered his existence. Even though he was by now married and had several other children, Constantius gave orders for his newfound son to be brought to join him at court.2

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The move to the centre of power was not quite the career enhancement that Constantine might have hoped for. The Byzantine version of events emphasized the fact that Constantine had been born in pagan times, when the Roman Empire had still been given over to the worship of the gods of Mount Olympus. Constantine though had shown a marked preference for the Christian faith from a very early age even though this new religion was then regularly being persecuted by the pagan emperors. At the Roman court, so the story went, Constantine was in some danger because the soothsayers and priests in the imperial retinue soon had a foreboding that one day Constantine would achieve supreme power and overthrow the worship of the pagan gods. They therefore plotted to kill him. God, however, forewarned Constantine of the danger and he fled to Britain where his father was on campaign. When he arrived in the city of York, he discovered that Constantius had been taken ill and was on his deathbed. The dying emperor had by now realized the folly of paganism and had started to believe in Christ. He therefore summoned his son to his side and invested him with the emblems of the imperial office, the sceptre and the purple cloak, and named him as his successor.3 So it came about that in the year 306 ce, Constantine became the first ever Christian Roman emperor, which was his first and foremost claim to fame. By doing so, he put the Christian church on course for the dominance which it was later to enjoy and himself on a fast track to sainthood. Having accounted for Constantine’s accession, the story went on to describe how he soon found himself at loggerheads with other rulers of the Roman Empire who were by no means as pious and benevolent. Rome had been seized by a relative of his called Maxentius, a pagan tyrant who condemned many people to death on account of their Christian faith and who regularly seduced the wives of the senators. He was also supposedly given to cutting up babies in order to use their entrails for the purposes of divination. Hearing about this state of affairs, in the summer and autumn of 312 Constantine marched east with an army to confront the dastardly Maxentius. Having crossed Gaul and marched down through northern Italy, he encamped with his troops close to the River Tiber in readiness to make an attack on Rome. The outlook was not bright. Maxentius had the bigger army and he was entrenched behind formidable fortifications. Constantine retired to his tent to ponder the next move but at about midday he suddenly experienced a vision. Looking out at the sky he saw the noonday sun change into the shape of a cross while letters beneath it proclaimed the message ‘In this, Conquer!’ The emperor was puzzled as to what this might mean, but as he slept that night, Christ himself appeared to him and commanded that Constantine should make a replica of the device that he had seen in the sky and place it at the forefront of his army in the battle to come. The very next day, Constantine did as he was told, replacing the army’s pagan standards with the new Christian device. Meanwhile in Rome, Maxentius had been busily preparing for a siege. He stocked up on food supplies and ordered that all the bridges across the

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Tiber be cut to impede Constantine’s progress. Good pagan that he was, he sought advice from the priests who guarded the Sibylline books, a collection of oracles kept in the temple of Apollo. After some deliberation the priests announced that the books indicated without a shadow of a doubt that on 28 October Rome’s greatest enemy would perish. Maxentius was delighted, for he interpreted the oracle as an unequivocal promise of victory. He decided that rather than wait in Rome, he would march out and confront Constantine in open battle on that auspicious 28 October. He took his forces to the Milvian Bridge which spanned the Tiber some way upstream from Rome. Since the stone bridge there had been cut on Maxentius’s own orders, a temporary pontoon replacement was constructed to allow his army to cross. Once on the other side, the battle was joined with Constantine’s troops who were sporting their new Christian standards. Maxentius’s army outnumbered the opposing forces by up to two to one, but it was no match for Constantine’s battle-hardened soldiers. Finding that his troops were being pushed inexorably back towards the river, Maxentius ordered a retreat, no doubt hoping to revert to his original strategy of making a stand behind the walls of Rome. Unfortunately, the only escape route was across the pontoon bridge and such were the numbers of panicking soldiers who had crowded onto it that it collapsed, spilling the men into the river where the rapid current swept them away. On witnessing this disaster, those left stranded on the northern side gave up the fight and surrendered. Maxentius, knowing that he could expect little mercy if taken alive, tried to reach safety by swimming across the Tiber but he too was carried away and drowned. It never seems to have occurred to him that it was he who was Rome’s greatest enemy and his downfall that the oracle had foretold. In the aftermath of the victory, which Christian writers could not resist comparing to Pharaoh and his army being drowned in the Red Sea, Constantine entered Rome in triumph and was baptized there by Pope Sylvester.4 In the years that followed, divine favour continued to bring success and victory to the pious Constantine. He took on various other pagan usurpers who had seized power in the eastern provinces and finally, by 324, he had brought the whole of the Roman Empire under his own sole rule. Now unassailable, Constantine turned to another project which would become his second claim to fame, the foundation of Constantinople. As with everything else that Constantine is supposed to have done, the hand of the Almighty guided him from the beginning. At first he planned to build a new city on the site of ancient Troy on the Asian side of the Dardanelles. God, however, made it abundantly clear that he should choose another spot. There were different versions of how this message was relayed to Constantine. Often it was a simple dream that alerted the emperor to his error but in one variant the workmen who had started work at the Trojan site awoke one morning to find that their tools had all miraculously disappeared. Search parties were sent out to apprehend the thieves and one eventually reached the tongue of land to the north between the Golden Horn and the Sea of

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Marmara, on the European side of the Bosporus. There, close to the city of Byzantion, the tools were all found in one large pile, a heavy hint that could hardly be ignored.5 After Constantine had inspected the site and found it well suited to his purpose, further divine assistance was provided. He walked with his entourage as far as what was to become the Forum of Constantine and was then advised by his architects that that was as far as the city limits should extend. To their discomfiture, the emperor carried on walking, saying that he would not stop walking until the man in front of him did. His officials had not the remotest idea what he was talking about because they could see no one but they stumbled along after the emperor as best as they could. The figure that Constantine was following turned out to be an angel sent by God and when the divine messenger stopped and planted his sword into the ground, there the boundary wall of the new city was built.6 Over the next six years, streets, squares and harbours were laid out as well and on 11 May 330, the city was inaugurated in a colourful ceremony. No longer Byzantion, it received a new name in honour of its founder: Constantinople, the city of Constantine.7 According to the later legend, there were two points about the new city about which Constantine was most particular. In the first place, it was designed from the very beginning to be a Christian metropolis. Constantine was said to have forbidden the construction of pagan temples anywhere in his new foundation and those that were already there, he demolished. Instead, he was credited with erecting numerous churches, such as that of St Irene and on the site of a dismantled temple, he laid out the foundations of the first cathedral of Hagia Sophia, at this stage a rectangular basilica with a wooden roof.8 The church most closely associated with him in the minds of later Byzantines was the Holy Apostles, which was situated close to his city wall, for the emperor had earmarked it as his burial place. Constantine’s church was a much more modest building than the five-domed structure that was there by 1200, but he had the ceiling overlaid with gold and had the main church surrounded by a spacious porticoed courtyard. He personally designed the mausoleum where his remains were to be interred, decreeing that his sarcophagus should be in the centre with six others on either side. He hoped that the bodies of the twelve apostles could be located in other parts of the empire and brought to fill the empty tombs, believing that they would be ‘a beneficial aid to his soul’.9 Moreover, just as Constantine laid the basis for Constantinople’s later reputation for its many churches, so he began the process by which it acquired its unrivalled collection of holy objects and relics connected with the faith. When he laid out the forum that was to bear his name, he had constructed two vaults at the base of the column. In these he is said to have placed a number of sacred objects. These vary between the different accounts, but they included the crosses on which the two thieves were crucified alongside Christ, the twelve baskets of leftovers from the feeding of the five thousand, the axe with which Noah made the Ark and a vessel containing the myrrh with which Christ was anointed. Constantine’s

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mother, Helena, who was by now also a pious Christian, helped out in this laudable work. She had had part of the True Cross on which Christ had been crucified shipped in from the Holy Land and installed in the Great Palace, laying the basis for the relic collection in the Pharos chapel.10 The second point about which Constantine was most particular, the guides would have assured their listeners, was that his new foundation was not going to be just any city. It was to be the greatest city in the empire, replacing Rome as its capital. That meant that it would need all the trappings of a capital. The old Rome had a senate house, so Constantinople was provided with one too. Rome had a palace for the emperors on the Palatine Hill, so Constantine laid out the first buildings of what was to become the Great Palace. In Rome, chariot races were run at the Circus Maximus, so Constantinople received a similar stadium, the Hippodrome. As in Rome, there was to be a forum, the Forum of Constantine. To make the point absolutely clear, Constantine designated the city as a ‘new Rome’.11 Constantine also needed to populate the city and did everything to encourage noble Roman families to settle there. According to one story he went about this in a rather devious way. He sent off twelve prominent Romans to fight a campaign against Persia. When they returned victorious, he gave a banquet in their honour in the Great Palace at Constantinople. Afterwards, Constantine took them out into the city and revealed to them that during their absence he had built for them replicas of their houses in Rome. He had even fetched their wives and children and installed them in the new residences. The story makes clear that the twelve recipients of this unexpected generosity were not particularly happy but they accepted the fait accompli and stayed.12 Later generations of Byzantines laid great stress on this part of the story because they regarded Constantine’s action in bringing these prominent citizens from Rome to Constantinople as a transfer of imperial power from one city to the other, the so-called Translatio Imperii. No one was left in Rome, they claimed, apart from ‘food-peddlers, bird hunters, bastards, plebeians, and slaves’.13 Henceforth, the emperor of the Christian world was to reside in Constantinople and nowhere else. That almost concluded the Byzantine version of the life of Constantine. His remaining years were spent establishing Christianity throughout the empire and in combating heresy. He died at Nikomedeia in Asia Minor in 337 and his body was carried back to Constantinople for burial in his mausoleum of the Church of the Holy Apostles where his mother Helena had already been interred. His tomb was supposed to have miraculously cured a number of sick people, a clear sign that he should be numbered among the saints and his feast day was duly celebrated every 21 May.14 * That then was the official version of the life of Constantine and the founding of Constantinople as told and retold to visitors: a new, Christian city created by a saintly Christian prince to be the new capital city of the Roman Empire.

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Text BOX 2: A later Byzantine description of Constantine

T

his anonymous biography of Constantine, written in the mid to late ninth century, reflects the status that he enjoyed in the historical memory of later generations of Byzantines: The saintly Constantine was indeed a man distinguished in every way for the courage of his spirit, the keenness of his intelligence, the erudition of his discourse, the uprightness of his sense of justice, the readiness of his benevolence, the propriety of his appearance and the bravery and fortitude he showed in war; he was of great reputation among barbarians and unequalled among those of his own race, firm and unshaken in honesty. Furthermore in looks and elegance of beauty, he was both the most seemly and the most handsome, with a pleasing expression, the height of his body being of good stature, that is to say neither tall nor short; he was rather broad across the shoulders and his neck was thick, and his complexion was ruddy; the hair of his head was not bushy, and he kept his chin quite bare, and he was inclined not to allow hair to grow on many parts of his face; his nose was hooked and his countenance was keen-eyed almost like a lion’s; his hair was naturally tawny; against all his enemies, it was by prayer that he brought victory within his grasp. Translated by Frank Beetham, in S. N. C. Lieu and D. Montserrat (eds), From Constantine to Julian: Pagan and Byzantine Views, London and New York: Routledge, 1996: 115, reproduced by kind permission of Taylor and Francis Group.

It was a version of events which, while by no means entirely fictional, does not always hold water when set against the evidence from Constantine’s own time and earlier. It tended to distort three aspects of the story. First it largely passed over the fact that the ancient Greek city of Byzantion had existed for nearly a thousand years before Constantine was born and had an important history in its own right before it became Constantinople. The legend also overplayed Constantine’s Christianity as the driving force behind his actions. Perhaps most significantly of all, it laid too much stress on the idea that the foundation of Constantinople was designed to replace Rome as the capital of the empire. The Byzantines of later centuries were perfectly well aware that Byzantion had long existed on the site of what was to become Constantinople but they were generally confused and uninterested in their city’s prehistory. Some claimed that Byzantion had been founded by a certain Byzas and others by

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Zeuxippus. Still others identified two founders, Byzas and Antes, in whose joint honour the city had been named, though this is probably no more than a fanciful play on the city’s name. A fourth tradition credited just Byzas but recorded the great debt that he owed to his wife, Phidaleia. For no sooner had Byzas established his city than Odryses, the ruler of the Scythians, bore down on it with a vastly superior army. Phidaleia responded to the crisis by gathering up all the snakes she could find and hurling them at the Scythians from the walls, causing them to retire in confusion. Her heroism was commemorated in a statue of Byzas and Phidaleia that still stood in Constantinople centuries later.15 Myths and legends aside, it is clear from ancient sources that Byzantion must have started life as long ago as the eighth or seventh century bce. It was founded by a band of colonists from Megara, a city situated not far from Athens, in the days when the Greeks ranged far and wide in their ships in search of new lands to settle.16 Never a major player in its own right, Byzantion maintained a precarious independence as a city state over the centuries while great empires contended for power in the region. First there had been the Persians, who captured Byzantion in about 512 bce. Persian rule came to an end in 478 bce when a combined Greek fleet under the Spartan Pausanias had arrived on the scene. Then there had been Athens, whose maritime empire dominated the region in the fifth century bce. The Byzantines had fallen in with what seemed to be the predominate power, but in 411, sensing the way the Peloponnesian war was going, they had switched allegiance to Sparta.17 They acted in much the same way when faced with the growing power of Rome. In about 150 bce, the Byzantines made a treaty with the Romans, which allowed them to retain their independent status on payment of tribute.18 The decision turned out to be the right one, for the treaty gave the Byzantines many years of peace and prosperity under the Pax Romana, until the early third century ce, when the city chose the wrong side in a civil war and was besieged and captured by Emperor Septimius Severus (193–211). Severus was magnanimous in victory and later provided Byzantion with new public baths and its first Hippodrome, although he was recalled to Rome before he could complete the stadium. Thus the Hippodrome constructed by Constantine was, in fact, a completion and extension of this earlier one, a reminder that Byzantion had been a prosperous and successful city long before 324.19 Another dubious element of the Byzantine myth was Constantine’s Christianity. There is no contemporary evidence that he was a Christian from his earliest youth as his later hagiographers claimed. The coins first issued by Constantine in Britain after his accession in 306 carry effigies of the gods Mars and Apollo. Moreover, the story that Constantius Chlorus bequeathed the empire to Constantine, in spite of having legitimate sons with a better claim, solely because Constantine was a Christian, is very shaky indeed and probably evolved to cover the fact that Constantine’s accession was illegal. In the early years of the fourth century, the Emperor

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Diocletian (284–305) had introduced a system known as the Tetrarchy or rule by four. There would be two emperors, one in the western half of the empire and one in the east. Each emperor would have a junior colleague or Caesar, who would assist the senior emperor and replace him if he died. Constantius Chlorus was the senior emperor in the west and when he died in 306, he should have been replaced by his Caesar, Severus. By allowing himself to be proclaimed emperor by his father’s troops in preference to Severus, Constantine was technically a usurper. Not until after his victory over Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge in 312 is there any contemporary evidence for Constantine taking any interest in the Christian church. In 313 he issued an edict of toleration which brought the persecution of Christians to an end, after which he entered into friendly correspondence with Christian bishops and began to subsidize the church with public funds. Nevertheless, he continued to hedge his bets. The legend that he received baptism from the pope in 312 is demonstrably untrue, as contemporary evidence shows that it was not until he was on his deathbed that he was finally baptized. Moreover, whatever the later legends might have said, Constantinople was not a purely Christian city from the moment of its foundation. Constantine seems to have built at least two pagan temples there, one dedicated to Rhea, the mother of the gods, and the other to the Fortune of Rome. While he may have brought Christian relics to Constantinople, he also brought pagan ones, such as the tripod from the shrine of Apollo at Delphi, from which the priestess of Apollo used to pronounce oracles. Christians at the time asserted that Constantine did this to hold the tripod up to public ridicule, but it was a curious action for someone who supposedly wanted to purge his city of pagan associations.20 Finally, it is by no means certain that Constantine planned Constantinople as a new capital of the Roman Empire, as the legend claimed. Those recording these events nearer the time gave other explanations for his decision, especially pagans who deeply deplored the favours bestowed by Constantine on the Christian church and who considered him and his successors to have ruined the empire by abandoning the worship of the Olympian gods. These highly partisan and jaundiced writers claimed that pure vanity was behind the expenditure of vast sums to beautify the new city with many of the hastily constructed buildings soon becoming so dilapidated that they had to be demolished. According to this view Constantine founded Constantinople and shipped thousands of people in to populate it just in order to provide himself with a ready-made claque to applaud him in the Hippodrome on special occasions. Another pagan view was that the emperor acted out of guilt. He had killed his own son, Crispus, because he suspected him of having slept with his stepmother, Constantine’s second wife, Fausta. When Fausta openly grieved over Crispus’s death, Constantine decided to get rid of her too. This he accomplished by having her locked in an overheated bath until she died. Suffering pangs of guilt over this double murder, Constantine converted to Christianity, as it was the only religion

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that promised to absolve him of so heinous a crime. He found, however, that it was impossible to stay in Rome where everyone viewed him reproachfully, and decided to found Constantinople as a new residence for himself, far from accusing eyes. Later generations of Byzantines were aware of the story but claimed that Constantine wept bitterly with remorse after the executions and put up statues of Fausta and Crispus to atone for their deaths.21 This pagan legend need not be taken too seriously. It is apparent from other evidence that Constantine had begun to build Constantinople before he executed Crispus and Fausta, so his feelings of guilt can hardly have been a motive. The later Christian tradition, on the other hand, is equally suspect, for Constantine’s actions do not seem to amount to a complete replacement of Rome by Constantinople. While he did lay his new city out on a grandiose scale and provided it with a senate house and other buildings similar to those in Rome, he still seems to have viewed his foundation as second to Rome. For all his efforts to entice members of the senate to move to Constantinople, those who did so were only to be designated by the honorific title of clari (distinguished) while those of Rome were clarissimi (most distinguished).22 There might well have been another motive. For some time the empire’s long and vulnerable borders had been under severe strain. To the north, the Rhine and Danube frontiers were vulnerable to incursions by Germanic tribes. In the east, a resurgent Persian Empire was constantly threatening to invade and attack the wealthy cities of Roman Syria. In this situation, the emperors could no longer reside permanently in Rome, as they had in previous centuries, because the capital was too far away from the threatened frontiers. Instead, by the early fourth century, they were tending to operate from Milan, Ravenna or Trier in the western half of the empire, and from Antioch or Nikomedeia in the east. Constantine’s new city had certain undeniable strategic advantages. It lay at one of the narrowest crossing points between Europe and Asia, where the Bosporus was only some 500 metres across. It was an advantage that had been well appreciated in ancient times, notably by the Persian king Darius who, in the fifth century bce, had built a bridge of boats across the strait close to Byzantion, in order to convey part of his army from Asia to Europe. It also commanded the passage to the Black Sea.23 Constantine may simply have wanted to have a forward base from which he could march swiftly to both the Danube and eastern frontiers, or sail along the northern coast of Asia Minor to Armenia. It is a rather more prosaic explanation than the legend of the new Christian capital, but it fits a great deal better with the contemporary evidence. It was only in the century after Constantine’s death in 337 that Constantinople became an indisputably Christian city, rose to be the seat of government of the eastern half of the Roman Empire and began to take on the magnificent appearance that would characterize it ever after. As far as its Christianization went, this development ran in parallel to that of the empire in general. After Constantine all the emperors, with the exception of the short-reigned Julian (361–3), were Christians, and that inevitably

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encouraged conversions. As the fourth century progressed, Christianity gradually became the official religion of the empire, and by the end of the century most pagan temples had either been forcibly closed down or had fallen into decay. As far as Constantinople was concerned, the population was overwhelmingly Christian by the mid-fourth century. One visitor complained that it was impossible to buy a loaf of bread in the market there, without the person who sold it to you giving you a lecture about the relationship between the persons of the Trinity.24 The Christian emperors now felt secure enough to demolish the remaining pagan temples in the city or to convert them for other purposes. At the same time, the city was becoming an important centre of ecclesiastical administration, as the church recognized its growing political significance. The Second Ecumenical Council of the Church was held there in 381 and it was decided by the assembled prelates that henceforth the bishop of Constantinople should ‘have the primacy of honour’ after the pope of Rome, because Constantinople was the New Rome. From about 450 onwards, the bishop of Constantinople bore the title of Patriarch, an honour he shared with the incumbents of only four other sees, Rome, Antioch, Alexandria and Jerusalem. Nevertheless, Constantinople had a disadvantage when compared with these other patriarchates in that, saintly though Constantine was, his city could not claim any association with one or more of the Apostles. The churches of Jerusalem and Antioch had been founded by St Peter, and that of Alexandria allegedly by St Mark. Rome could claim two Apostles as its founders, St Peter and St Paul. In later centuries, the Byzantines got around that in typical fashion by developing another legend. The Apostle St Andrew, it was said, had paid a visit to Byzantion and had founded its church, thus putting Constantinople on the same footing as the four other great centres of the Christian church.25 Similarly, whatever his original intentions, the years after Constantine’s death saw his city rapidly turn into a capital. During the fourth and fifth centuries, rule of the empire was usually divided between two or more emperors. For example, from 395 the son of Theodosius I, Arcadius, ruled in the east while his younger brother, Honorius administered the western half of the empire from Ravenna. Those who had the eastern half tended to base themselves and their court permanently in Constantinople, and many of them spent their entire reigns there without feeling the need to travel to any other part of the empire. The presence of the emperor and court inevitably attracted settlers to the city, eager to take advantage of the opportunities for patronage and trade, and the population grew apace. From the 90,000 who may have been living there in 337, by the second half of the fourth century Constantinople probably had a population of between 200,000 and 300,000. By about 450, it may have had as many as half a million inhabitants.26 The pagan Zosimus recorded this rapid expansion in typically acerbic fashion: The size of Constantinople was increased until it was by far the greatest city, with the result that many of the succeeding emperors chose to live there and attracted an unnecessarily large population which came from

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all over the world – soldiers and officials, traders and other professions. Therefore they have surrounded it with new walls much more extensive than those of Constantine and allowed the buildings to be so close to each other that the inhabitants, whether at home or in the street, are crowded for room and it is dangerous to walk about because of the great number of men and beasts. And a lot of the sea round about them has been turned into land by sinking piles and building houses on them, which by themselves are enough to fill a large city.27 It was not only the presence of the emperor and the size of its population that made Constantinople seem increasingly like a capital city. The emperors who reigned there also went out of their way to make it look like one by adorning it with fine buildings. Constantine had laid the foundations but much of the city must still have been a building site at the time of his death. The city’s cathedral of Hagia Sophia, for example, was started by Constantine but it was not completed and consecrated until February 360, under his son and successor, Constantius II (337–61). The Holy Apostles, where Constantine was buried, was only completed and consecrated as late as 370.28 It was under a later emperor that Constantinople began to develop the appearance that still characterized it in 1200. Originally from Spain, Theodosius I had spent the first part of his career soldiering in the western half of the empire and he had probably never set foot in Constantinople before he arrived there as eastern emperor in November 379. Nevertheless, he recognized the importance of giving the new capital an appearance to match its political role. It was he who laid out the Forum of Theodosius, Constantinople’s largest public square, between about 386 and 393, providing it with its tall column, triumphal arch and equestrian statue, and he is credited with setting up another triumphal arch which was later incorporated into the Land Walls as the Golden Gate. Theodosius left an enduring mark on the Hippodrome too, adding the Egyptian obelisk to the central spine (Figure 4). The obelisk had originally been commissioned by the pharaoh Thutmose III (1549–1503 bce) to commemorate his victories in Syria and had stood for centuries at Deir el Bahri opposite Thebes. The 800-tonne monument had been shipped from Egypt on the orders of the Emperor Julian, although it somehow lost about a third of its length on the journey. Theodosius had what was left brought from the southern shore of Constantinople where it had lain for some years, and placed it on a marble plinth carved with figures of himself and family watching the chariot races from the Kathisma. Like Cleopatra’s Needle in London and the Obelisk of Luxor in Paris, Theodosius’ Egyptian curiosity was designed to signal that the arriviste capital was now of an importance to vie with the great civilizations of the past. A pious Christian, with none of Constantine’s ambivalence on religious matters, Theodosius was not so obsessed with worldly glory that he forgot to provide for Constantinople’s religious life. He also built a new church,

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Figure 4  The obelisk of Theodosius in the Hippodrome (Waj/Shutterstock.com).

that of St John the Baptist, in the suburb of Hebdomon that lay to the west, just outside the city proper.29 It was after Constantine’s time too that some of Constantinople’s most famous classical statues arrived as his successors systematically denuded cities across the empire of their cherished artworks to adorn their capital. Rome lost the colossal bronze statue of the pensive Hercules by Lysippus which had stood on the Capitoline Hill since 209 bce and which eventually ended up in the Hippodrome.30 The elephants on the Golden Gate and the four bronze horses over the Hippodrome gate arrived during the reign of Theodosius II (408–50). It was presumably during this period that the Athena and Hera in the Forum of Constantine and the other statues in the Hippodrome arrived in Constantinople, their purpose being, like that of the obelisk, to impart the prestige of antiquity which as a recent foundation Constantinople conspicuously lacked.31 Whatever Constantine’s original intentions might have been, by 450 Constantinople was a Christian city and, as Rome became increasingly impoverished and vulnerable, the capital city of the eastern Roman Empire. Moreover, it looked the part and one of Theodosius I’s courtiers boasted

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that Constantine would scarcely have recognized it. No doubt he was exaggerating to curry favour with his imperial master but he was right that Constantine only began the process by which Constantinople became the greatest city in the Christian world.32 * Returning to the two emperors portrayed in mosaic in Hagia Sophia, Justinian may have been a lesser figure than Constantine but his rebuilding of Hagia Sophia ensured him a very honourable place in the web of legends that surrounded the Byzantine capital. Constantine’s original cathedral had burned down in 404 and had been replaced with another to a similar design.33 When that in turn went up in flames in 532, Justinian did not simply rebuild it. Instead he chose a new and revolutionary design offered by his architects Anthemius of Tralles and Isidore of Miletus who proposed to replace the old basilica with a square structure, topped by an enormous dome, a radical departure from previous styles. Building went ahead at great speed and when after five years and ten months of work the cathedral was completed, it was, from the first, hailed as a masterpiece, that ‘soars to a height to match the sky’. As the years went by and people lived with Hagia Sophia from day to day, they found it increasingly difficult to believe that such a vast and unequalled building with its soaring dome could possibly have been put up by human hands alone. What amazed visitors most of all was the way that the dome seemed almost to float in the air. It had no apparent means of support. No one could accept that such a large dome could have been induced to stay up without divine assistance and that it must somehow be suspended from the heavens.34 Thus it was that the inevitable legends grew up. Emperor Justinian, the guides would recount, set to work at once to clear the site, buying up houses and properties in the vicinity to accommodate the larger building. One householder, a widow called Anna, refused to sell at any price. The emperor himself, who loved justice and hated evil, had to come in person and beg her to yield her property, promising her that she would be buried in the cathedral when she died. No expense was spared: columns of coloured marble were imported from all over the empire and silver and gold were lavished on the lamps and communion vessels. Like Constantine, Justinian imported relics to adorn his new foundation, such as the well head from which Christ had spoken to the Samaritan woman. Like Constantine before them, Justinian and the architects had divine help, the design being imparted to the emperor by an angel, perhaps the same one that guided Constantine to the limit of the walls. When during construction there was disagreement between the emperor, architects and builders over how many glazed windows there should be, again it was an angel who turned up to resolve the issue. On another occasion, the workmen had gone off to lunch, leaving the fourteen-year-old son of the foreman to guard the

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tools at the deserted building site. As the boy obediently waited, an angel suddenly descended and asked why work had stopped. On hearing that the workforce was on its lunch break, the impatient visitor told the boy to run and fetch them. This the lad was reluctant to do, because he had promised to guard the tools. The angel therefore made a solemn promise that he would never leave that spot until the boy returned. When the foreman and his men received his breathless message, they at once took the boy to Emperor Justinian, who decreed that he must not return to the cathedral. That way, Hagia Sophia would have its own guardian for the rest of time for angels do not break their promises. Guides were fond of pointing out the place, just to the left of the altar, where the angel was still supposed to be mounting his eternal vigil. After God and his angels, most of the credit was given by the later tradition to Justinian himself rather than to his architects. Indeed, the emperor was supposed to have been so ecstatic when he saw the building going up that he prided himself on having excelled Solomon, builder of the Temple in Jerusalem in Old Testament times. In case those words should be interpreted as hubris though, when the new cathedral was dedicated on 26 December 537 and Justinian rode across the Augousteion in a chariot drawn by four horses, he first spent 3 hours distributing grain to the poor and needy. So although Justinian was never considered to be a saint, he was certainly revered by later generations as a pious and well-intentioned emperor who left a magnificent legacy.35 * Needless to say, as with the foundation of Constantinople, the actual process by which the new Hagia Sophia came into being was a great deal less edifying than the stories told by the guides. Like Constantine, Justinian reached the summit of power by a rather irregular route. Originally from a poor peasant family in Thrace, he was summoned to the Great Palace by his uncle Justin, the commander of the palace guard, who had become emperor in 518. Justin was advanced in years at the time of his accession and found the challenges of his new role quite overwhelming, not least because he was illiterate. He could not understand the documents that his officials placed before him and could only sign them by using a specially made stencil. He therefore sent for his clever nephew to assist him. When Justin died in 527, it was only natural that Justinian should step into his shoes, as he had, to all intents and purposes, been running the empire for some time already. Like Constantine again, Justinian received mixed reviews in his own time that sit oddly with his later reputation. One contemporary described him ‘insincere, crafty, hypocritical, dissembling his anger, double-dealing, clever, a perfect artist in acting out an opinion he pretended to hold’. The most frequent charge made against Justinian, and his wife Theodora, was that of greed which led them to squeeze their subjects for money using any pretext that they could come up with. They were alleged to have accused wealthy landowners of crimes that they had not committed so that they could

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seize their property, or to have ‘persuaded’ their victims to hand over their assets as a gift. On one occasion, Justinian appointed a nobleman called Zeno to be governor of Egypt in the hope of helping himself to the absent man’s property. Zeno, however, decided to take all his movable goods with him and loaded a ship with his gold, silver and precious stones. Not to be outsmarted, Justinian bribed some of his henchmen to unload the cargo and to drop firebrands into the hold. Zeno arrived at the harbour the next day to be told that a fire had broken out and the ship and its cargo had been lost. When Zeno died shortly afterwards, Justinian and Theodora triumphantly produced a will which named them as joint heirs, though many doubted the authenticity of the document. No doubt some of the stories of Justinian’s avarice were somewhat exaggerated but he was certainly very eager to get his hands on large amounts of money, for the policies that he was following were extremely expensive. Things had changed drastically since Constantine’s day. During the early years of the fifth century, the western frontiers of the Roman Empire had broken down and numerous Germanic tribes had crossed the River Rhine and begun to settle on Roman territory. The Visigoths occupied Spain, the Franks encroached into northern Gaul, the Angles and Saxons invaded Britain, the Ostrogoths took over Italy and the Vandals settled in North Africa. Justinian was determined to reverse these events and during the 530s, he sent his armies westwards to recapture North Africa, Sicily, Italy and part of south-eastern Spain. Unfortunately, although initially successful, the planned reconquest proved rather more difficult than Justinian had hoped. The wars in North Africa and Italy dragged on for twenty years, and while the Byzantine army was thus preoccupied, the Persians took the opportunity to ravage the eastern province of Syria. At the same time, an outbreak of plague and a series of natural disasters struck the empire, depopulating some of its wealthiest provinces. When Justinian died in 565, he bequeathed to his successors an empty treasury, and borders that were becoming impossible to defend. ‘Such’, concluded his chief critic, ‘were the calamities which fell upon all mankind during the reign of the demon who had become incarnate in Justinian.’36 It is all a far cry from the man who is supposed to have begged the widow to let him buy her house. As for the rebuilding of Hagia Sophia, that came about not so much as a pious response to the promptings of the deity but as the result of a series of events out of which Justinian emerged with little credit. Constantinople’s exponential growth over the previous two centuries meant that it was still suffering from chronic overcrowding, and mob violence was common. It often took the form of pitched battles between the supporters of the rival chariot teams that competed in the Hippodrome, the Blues and the Greens. In January 532, matters took a serious turn for the worse when, in protest against the high taxation levied by Justinian’s ministers, the Blues and the Greens stopped fighting each other and joined forces to challenge imperial authority. The first sign of trouble came as the emperor took his seat in the Kathisma of the Hippodrome before the races. He was greeted by the Green

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faction not with the usual respectful acclamations but with taunts and catcalls. When an attempt was made to arrest some of the troublemakers, a riot erupted and the crowd stormed the prison, releasing everyone they found there. Days of street fighting followed, during which law and order broke down completely. The mob surged through the streets, shouting their watchword ‘Nika!’ (Victory!) and killing any government officials they could lay their hands on. Amid the confusion, fires broke out and, with no one daring to try to put them out, they raged out of control. Watching developments from his vantage point in the Great Palace, Justinian concluded that things had reached the stage where flight was the only option. The emperor gave permission to his courtiers to leave the palace so that they could guard their own houses and sat down with his closest counsellors to plan their own getaway. It was at this point that Justinian’s wife, Theodora, intervened in the debate and majestically announced her determination never to leave Constantinople, declaring that she considered royalty to be a good burial shroud. Those words marked the turning point. Justinian and his advisers ceased to contemplate flight and began to discuss ways of fighting back against the factions. The empire’s ablest general, Belisarius, who had just returned with his army from the Persian wars, was ordered to bring his troops into the city to restore order. Belisarius waited until a large crowd had gathered in the Hippodrome and having surrounded the place and sealed off all the exits, his soldiers burst in with drawn swords, causing the crowd to stampede in panic over the banks of seating. In the ensuing massacre some 30,000 rioters perished.37 Normality had been restored on the streets, but the scars left by the upheaval could be seen everywhere. Large swathes of Constantinople’s monumental centre lay in charred ruins, particularly the area around the Augousteion and adjoining the Great Palace. The senate house, the porticoed colonnades, the Brazen Gate of the Great Palace, numerous private houses and, of course, Hagia Sophia, were gone. Justinian really had no choice but to rebuild on a grand scale: the challenge to his authority and his own dithering response to it required that he make good the damage as soon as possible. Hence the frenzied work and the colossal new cathedral. So frenzied in fact that the new building turned out to be unstable. Twenty years after its completion ominous cracks started to appear in the base of the dome. Then on 14 December in the year 557, while the architects were still scratching their heads and wondering what to do about the cracks, a severe earthquake struck Constantinople, not an unusual occurrence given that the city sits close to the North Anatolian fault. The cathedral was severely shaken and work began at once to shore it up. Six months later, while the workmen were beavering away trying to repair the cracks, terrifying rumbling noises sent them fleeing down their ladders, before the eastern section of the dome caved in and came crashing down. Undeterred, Justinian ordered immediate repairs. A new architect, Isidore the younger,

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was brought in and he strengthened the dome by making it narrower and slightly higher and by adding buttressing to the exterior.38 And so Justinian’s splendid monument was preserved. The dome was now considerably more secure, and almost as breathtaking as it had been before. It still amazed everyone that it stayed up at all. The secret lay not in divine assistance but in the four so-called pendentives or supporting arches which the architects had built into the walls of the cathedral to provide a cradle for the weight of the dome. To the Byzantines of 1200, who looked on that dome almost every day, the pendentives were invisible. They had long since forgotten all the extortion and disasters of the later years of Justinian’s reign and saw only his extraordinary and apparently miraculous legacy. * That legacy was in fact much greater than just the new cathedral of Hagia Sophia. Over the whole course of his reign, Justinian’s building programme touched almost every major church and monument in Constantinople. The city’s second largest church, the Holy Apostles, was still much as it had been when it was completed in 370 but Constantine’s ambitious plan for his mausoleum alongside it had never come to fruition. The founder of Constantinople had hoped that the bodies of all twelve of Christ’s apostles would be found and laid to rest in a circle around his own tomb but he had not appreciated the sheer difficulty of locating them after the lapse of so many centuries. A diligent search was made during the reign of Constantius II and the bones of one apostle, St Andrew, were located and brought to Constantinople but the other eleven eluded the searchers. The bodies of St Luke the Evangelist and St Timothy were also brought to the Holy Apostles but that did leave a great deal of unused burial space in the mausoleum. Thus it was that the Holy Apostles became by default the imperial burial church. Constantius II joined his father in the mausoleum in November 361. The western Roman emperor Valentinian I (364–75) died in Gaul but his body was laboriously transported across the miles so that it could finally be laid to rest in the Holy Apostles. Even the pagan emperor Julian ended up there, though in the north end of the church itself, not in Constantine’s mausoleum.39 The Holy Apostles had survived the Nika riot unscathed but by the 530s the structure was looking decidedly dilapidated and people were reluctant to attend services there for fear that the church might fall on their heads. So Justinian decided to knock the old building down and to put up a completely new one. As in the case of Hagia Sophia, the new church was to look very different. Instead of having a pitched roof as in the past, it would be topped by multiple domes. There would be five of these domes, with the central one taller and wider than the others, covering a square, crossshaped structure. Later tradition credited Theodora with being the driving force behind the rebuilding and claimed that she had some supernatural

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assistance just as her husband had. She certainly needed it because with so much being spent on Hagia Sophia, money for the Holy Apostles began to run short. Besides, Justinian was apprehensive that his wife might produce something to rival his own project and was not disposed to cooperate. The difficulty was overcome when all twelve apostles visited Theodora in a dream and announced that she should go out of one of the gates in the Sea Walls along the Golden Horn. This she did and there she found twelve pots of gold, each bearing the name of an apostle. With the financial constraints overcome, work proceeded apace. The new church was dedicated in 550 when the relics of Saints Andrew, Luke and Timothy, which had been moved during the renovations, were carried back and reinterred. In 565, when Justinian died, he joined them, being laid to rest alongside Theodora in a separate, cross-shaped mausoleum that he had built.40 It was Justinian and Theodora’s church that visitors to Constantinople would have seen in 1200. Another of Justinian’s churches that was to be commented on frequently by visitors in the future was that of the Mother of God at Blachernae. As with Hagia Sophia and the Holy Apostles, there was already a building on the site when Justinian came to the throne. Leo I (457–74) had originally constructed it in the 470s in the suburb of Blachernae, which was then outside the city walls, to house a precious relic that had recently been brought from the Holy Land, the Virgin Mary’s Maphorion or robe.41 The presence of the relic was enough to guarantee the church’s importance and Justinian felt he needed to upgrade it. He remodelled it on the outside but also transformed the interior by the use of marbles of different colours, inserting pillars of green jasper on white bases to support the roof.42 Sadly, later visitors could not see the church exactly as Justinian left it because it was seriously damaged by fire in 1069 but the reconstructed version replicated the striking marble interior.43 Many other churches that had benefited from Justinian’s attention were still standing in 1200, from St Irene which stood just behind Hagia Sophia to Saints Sergius and Bacchus which was on the slope below the Hippodrome.44 Indeed, his legacy could be seen everywhere, especially in the Augousteion. To the north was Justinian’s cathedral of Hagia Sophia, with the statue of the emperor on horseback on the column outside. To the east was the tall, domed Brazen Gate of the Great Palace, rebuilt after the Nika riot, its interior decorated with mosaics celebrating the emperor’s victories in Italy and North Africa. Some also gave him the credit for rebuilding the arch of the Milion. Moreover, in his decision to replace the old rectangular basilicas with the square-domed design, he had revolutionized Constantinople’s skyline which was dominated ever after by domes and columns.45 Hence the pride with which guides conducted visitors to Constantine’s and Justinian’s tombs at the Holy Apostles in later centuries and told the stories of their deeds over and over again. Between them these two emperors had laid the basis for everything that characterized the capital of Byzantium.

3 The God-guarded city

The deeds of Constantine and Justinian were not the only ingredients in the potent myth of the Queen of Cities. Another boast that the Byzantines of 1200 were proud to make to visitors was that the city had never been taken by a foreign army and that it never would be until the end of the world. The boast was not an idle one for Constantinople did have an extraordinary record of survival. The Roman Empire had been a world of cities but one by one they had all suffered the same fate: captured or destroyed by the empire’s enemies between the fifth and eighth centuries. Rome itself had been sacked by the Goths in 410 and again by the Vandals in 455. During Justinian’s reconquest of Italy it was besieged and captured several times, leaving it as little more than a collection of villages, huddled around the ancient ruins and the Christian basilicas. Antioch in Syria had once been one of the most splendid and prosperous cities in the empire. Then in 540 the Persians had captured and looted it and it had still not recovered when it was conquered by the Arabs in around 639. Jerusalem was sacked by the Persians in 614 and finally lost to the Arabs in 638. Alexandria, a city of over 200,000 souls was captured by the Arabs in 642. Some of the empire’s outposts in the west held out longer, but Carthage was taken by the Arabs in 697 and Ravenna by the Lombards in 751. Of all the great cities of the ancient world, Constantinople alone avoided takeover or destruction. That was not for want of anyone willing to try. Over the centuries, a succession of powerful enemies had laid siege to Constantinople. Every time, they had been forced to retire empty-handed. To explain this long immunity, the Byzantines turned as always to the metaphysical. Constantinople enjoyed special divine protection and the ‘God-guarded city’ became yet another of its many epithets.1 When it came to the guarding though, it would appear that God delegated the task to the figure whose cult in Byzantium was second only to that of Christ himself, the Virgin Mary. As one contemporary put it: About our city you shall know: until the end she will fear no nation whatsoever, for no one will entrap or capture her, not by any means, for

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she has been given to the Mother of God and no one will snatch her out of Her hands. Many nations will break their horns against her walls and withdraw with shame.2 Chroniclers recorded how the personal intervention of the Virgin had often saved the day in times of crisis. As the enemy drew near, fervent prayers had been offered in her churches and pictures of her holding the infant Jesus had been hung from the city walls. She did not let her people down, raising a storm to sink the enemy ships and occasionally even appearing in person on the city walls. To celebrate her role, at the Feast of the Annunciation and throughout Lent, congregations would sing a hymn known as the Akathistos, in which the Virgin was extolled as the general who brought victory to the empire.3 The inhabitants of Constantinople jealously preserved a number of visible tokens of their protector. One was her belt or girdle that was kept in the Church of the Mother of God in the Copper Market or Chalkoprateia.4 Then there was her Maphorion, her robe, which was housed in the Church of the Mother of God at Blachernae that had been rebuilt by Justinian and again after the fire of 1069. It was believed that the Maphorion had saved Constantinople from harm on numerous occasions. When a Russian fleet had attacked in 860, the patriarch of Constantinople had brought the precious relic out of the church and had taken it up onto the Sea Walls whereupon the winds rose to scatter the enemy ships. In later years, the emperors used to take it with them when they led their armies out of Constantinople to fight on the frontiers. One of them had it with him when he set off to negotiate peace with the powerful tsar of the Bulgars in 926.5 Then there were the numerous icons, pictures of the Virgin, scattered throughout the churches of the city, some of which were believed to have miraculous powers. The Church of the Mother of God in Blachernae had an ancient wall painting of her with the child Jesus that had been discovered during restoration work in around 1030. It was supposed to perform a miracle every Friday after sunset, when the curtain that covered it would gently rise all by itself.6 Then there were what might be called the warrior icons which emperors used to carry with them when they sallied forth from Constantinople on campaign. There were two in Blachernae, one known as the Blachernitissa and the other the Nikopeia or ‘Bringer of Victory’. Another, known as the Kyriotissa, resided in a convent near the aqueduct of Valens.7 One or other of these three accompanied Basil II (976–1025) when he marched into Asia Minor in April 989 to do battle with a rebel. When the two forces clashed, the emperor stood at the head of his troops with the icon clasped with his left hand and his sword in his right as the enemy charged towards them. In the ensuing mêlée the rebel leader mysteriously dropped dead from his horse, causing his soldiers to lose heart and flee. Clearly, the protectoress of the Byzantine emperors had once more come to their aid, and Basil showed his gratitude by having a special silver coin minted to commemorate the

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victory. The obverse showed the Virgin and Child and the reverse carried the inscription: ‘Glorified Mother of God, the one who trusts You does not fail.’8 There was one icon that seems to have taken precedence over all the others. That was because it was popularly believed to have been painted from the life by no less a person than St Luke the Evangelist. The Virgin was depicted holding Christ on her left arm and gesturing towards him with her right. The icon therefore became known as the Hodegetria (‘She who Shows the Way’), since the Virgin was pointing out the way of salvation. Allegedly brought from Palestine to Constantinople in the fifth century, the Hodegetria was never carried on distant campaigns like the others, probably because it was much too large and heavy. It always remained safely within the walls of Constantinople, usually in the monastery of the Hodegoi, which lay close to Hagia Sophia at the very tip of Constantinople’s promontory. By 1200, it was cared for by a special confraternity who organized a procession every week, when twenty men in red outfits carried the icon from its monastery to the Church of the Pantokrator. On important feast days, it was processed around the cathedral of Hagia Sophia.9 Whenever danger threatened the city though, it was brought out from its monastery and paraded on the city walls. This had occurred as recently as 1187, when a rebel general had laid siege to Constantinople with his army. It was always the Virgin herself who was credited with the subsequent discomfiture of the enemy, so much so that in any victory parade it was the Hodegetria that rode at the front in the gilded chariot while the emperor humbly followed along behind.10 * As with everything else in Byzantium, there was the legend and there was the everyday reality. While the Byzantines themselves might have attributed their capital city’s invulnerability to the intervention of the Virgin Mary, there were two much more down-to-earth explanations. The first was geography, the physical and material advantages of the city’s position. The second was sophisticated military technology which enhanced the advantages of geography and made Constantinople virtually impregnable. Geography had probably dictated Constantine’s choice of Byzantion as the site for his new city. Not only did it lie on the crossing point between Europe and Asia, giving relatively swift access to both the vulnerable Danube and eastern frontiers: it had further advantages when it came to defence. Since it was a narrow promontory, almost triangular in shape, the sea provided a natural barrier on two sides. To the north, lay the Golden Horn, itself one of the finest natural harbours in the world, while the Bosporus and the Sea of Marmara bordered to the east and south. A land army would therefore have no choice but to approach from the west along this easily defended promontory. These strategic advantages had not gone unnoticed in the past and they had given rise to a legend about the founding of Byzantion, centuries before Constantine was born. Back in the eighth

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century bce, before setting out to colonize new lands, some Greeks from Megara had piously paid a visit to the oracle of the god Apollo at Delphi to ask where they should found their city. As usual, the god gave an ambiguous answer, advising the colonists to choose a site ‘opposite the blind’. Later these mystifying words were to become abundantly clear, for as they sailed north up the Bosporus, the intrepid Greeks passed the city of Chalcedon. Across the strait, directly opposite, lay the promontory and the magnificent natural harbour of the Golden Horn, which the founders of Chalcedon appeared not even to have noticed when they had arrived seventeen years earlier. The Megarans had therefore founded Byzantion opposite those blind Chalcedonians, taking full advantage of the sheltered anchorage and easily defensible promontory.11 It was only at the end of the second century ce that these advantages were seriously put to the test. In 193, a contest for the imperial throne broke out between the governor of Syria, Pescennius Niger, and the governor of Pannonia Superior, Septimius Severus. When Pescennius arrived in Byzantion and made it his headquarters, the citizens declared themselves loyal to him. The contest was decided at the Battle of Issus in Asia Minor when Pescennius was defeated and killed. Severus sent his rival’s head to Byzantion in the expectation that the city would now surrender to him and accept him as emperor. Somewhat to his surprise, the Byzantines defied him and so he kept the city under close siege by land and sea. In spite of all his efforts, it held out against his armies for three long years. It was able to do so partly because it was very well fortified. It was surrounded by a defensive wall with jutting towers which gave the defenders an excellent field of fire against anyone trying to attack them by land. On the seaward side, a number of harbours were built into the wall and these were closed off against attack by heavy metal chains strung across their mouths. That kept the defenders’ ships, of which they had some five hundred, safe from attack by Severus’s fleet and provided a base from which they could sally forth to attack the enemy by sea. This command of the sea meant that supplies could still be brought in. Indeed some merchant ships used to sail past Byzantion deliberately, in the hope that the Byzantine ships would come out and ‘capture’ them. Once inside one of the harbours, the merchants would then sell their wares at a high price and depart to collect more. As well as the man-made defences, the natural features of the site worked in the Byzantines’ favour during the siege. Quite apart from the narrow promontory and the excellent harbour, the prevailing tide was also to their advantage. The current in the southern Bosporus is very strong as the flow of water pushes down from the Black Sea towards the Sea of Marmara. It runs along the eastern shore at three to four knots, or more when the wind is strong, creating eddies and counter-currents in the inlets and bays. One such counter-current eddies into the Golden Horn at a speed of about half a knot, helping Byzantine ships to reach the safety of their harbours, but tending to force enemy ships onto the rocky outcrops below the city walls.

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In the end, of course, the Byzantines could not hold out indefinitely, for Septimius now had the entire resources of the Roman Empire at his disposal and could wait as long as he wanted. As food became increasingly scarce much of the population boarded ships and attempted to sail away up the Bosporus. Severus’s ships easily intercepted the overladen Byzantine vessels and sank most of them. The sight of hundreds of corpses floating back with the current was too much for the remaining defenders and in 196 they finally capitulated. Not surprisingly, Septimius Severus was in a vengeful mood. He punished the renegade city by demolishing its defensive walls and by depriving it of its independent status and handed it over to the citizens of nearby Perinthos. In spite of this final defeat, the lessons of Byzantion’s long defiance did not go unlearned. The senator Cassius Dio, who saw the ruins of the city walls after they had been demolished, was of the opinion that Severus had been most unwise in pulling them down since in doing so he had destroyed ‘a strong Roman outpost and a base of operations against the barbarians from Pontus and Asia’. Severus himself does seem to have realized Byzantion’s potential. Towards the end of his reign, he relented and rebuilt the city on a larger scale, providing it with a Hippodrome and even reconstructing its walls. Under Severus’s son and successor, Caracalla (211–17), the city’s independence was restored. It was much too valuable a site to waste.12 So when Emperor Constantine decided to build his new city at Byzantion in 324, he was well aware of the defensive advantages conferred by nature on the site. Since his city was going to be much larger, he constructed a wall across the middle of the promontory, some three kilometres from the old one, enclosing a much wider tract of land in which to expand the builtup area. Access to the city was provided by the imposing marble Gate of the Forerunner, which was wide and high enough to admit a ship and its masts. Constantine also repaired the original fortifications and linked them to his new ones, presumably by continuing his wall along the coastline.13 This Constantinian wall was never seriously put to the test but it did prove its worth in the aftermath of the catastrophic Byzantine defeat by the Tervingi Goths at the Battle of Adrianople in 378. The victorious Goths at once headed for Constantinople since there were no Roman armies to bar their way. When they drew near though, one look at the strength of the fortifications persuaded them to give up any attempt to capture the place and they withdrew.14 Thirty years later, the security offered by Constantine’s wall was less reassuring. By then, the population had grown to such an extent that much new development had spilled over onto the open land beyond the defences, leaving these suburban areas vulnerable to attack. Early in the reign of Theodosius II, news arrived of the fate of Rome at the hands of the Goths. It was clear that something would have to be done at once if Constantinople was not to go the same way. Since the emperor was still a minor, in 413 the regent for the young ruler, Anthemius, gave the order for the construction of

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TEXT Box 3: Cassius Dio on the Bosporus and the Golden Horn

T

he senator and historian Cassius Dio (c. 164–c. 229) is here describing the geography of the area in the context of Septimius Severus’ siege of Byzantion in 194–7 but his words apply just as well to Christian Constantinople. [Byzantion] is most favourably situated in relation both to the two continents and to the sea that lies between them, and possesses strong defences both in the lie of the land and in the nature of the Bosporus. For the city is built on high ground and juts out into the sea; and the latter, rushing down from the Euxine [i.e. the Black Sea] like a mountain torrent and hurling itself against the headland, is diverted in part to the right, forming there the bay and the harbours, but the greater part of the water flows on with great speed past the city itself towards the Propontis [i.e. the sea of Marmara]. … The dangerous character of the Bosporus proved wonderfully effective allies for the Byzantines. The harbours within the walls had been closed with chains and their breakwaters carried towers that jutted far out on either side, making approach impossible for the enemy. In a word, the Bosporus is of the greatest advantage to the inhabitants; for it is absolutely inevitable that, once anyone gets into its current, he will be cast up on the land in spite of himself. This is a condition most satisfactory to friends, but most embarrassing to enemies. Cassius Dio, Roman History, trans. E. Cary and H. B. Foster, 9 vols, Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 1914–27: ix. 183–7.

a new wall some two kilometres further west than that of Constantine and spanning more than seven kilometres distance north–south from the top of the Golden Horn at Blachernae to the Sea of Marmara. It was a single span of wall, standing about twelve metres high, and was about five-and-a-half metres thick. It was constructed of limestone blocks, divided at intervals by layers of bricks, and was punctuated by gates. There were five military gates and four for everyone else, those of Adrianople, St Romanos, Rhegion and Pege, along with a fifth, the Golden Gate, which was usually kept shut except when a victorious emperor returned from campaign. To make the wall easier to defend, ninety-six towers were sited at intervals along its entire length, providing broad platforms for ballistae and catapults. In front, running parallel with the wall, was a wide, brick-lined ditch, between fifteen and

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twenty metres across and between five and seven metres deep with a stockade made of brick and wood on the city side. The new wall must have looked even more imposing and intimidating than its Constantinian predecessor.15 Unfortunately the first threat that the wall had to contend with was not a human one but a particularly strong earthquake that struck on 26 January 447. It brought fifty-seven of the towers crashing down and left gaping holes in the walls through which an army could have walked quite comfortably. Unnerved by what appeared to be a visitation of divine wrath, the whole population from the emperor down took part in vigils and litanies, standing barefoot for hours in fervent prayer.16 Everyone knew though that practical action was needed, as well as prayers, since there was a real danger that the dreaded leader of the Huns, Attila, might soon march on Constantinople. The walls had to be rebuilt at once and the task was given to a certain Constantine who held the office of eparch or prefect of Constantinople. Incredibly he succeeded in doing so in just sixty days and placed inscriptions in Latin and Greek over one of the gates to commemorate his achievement.17 He certainly deserved the publicity because while he was at it, Constantine had not just rebuilt the wall but had considerably improved it. Between the ditch and the main wall, he had inserted a new, outer wall. This outer wall was slightly lower than the inner wall and was punctuated by a further ninety-two towers. Taken together, the inner and outer walls, along with the ditch, now provided a three-tier defence that was impossible to penetrate. Any assailant would have first to cross the ditch and stockade while being exposed to withering fire from the outer and inner walls. Even if they did get across and managed to capture the outer wall, they would find themselves trapped in the five-metre

Figure 5  The Land Walls of Constantinople (Viacheslav Lopatin/Shutterstock.com).

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wide corridor between it and the inner wall, an easy target for the archers in the towers above. In practice though no besieging army ever got that far.18 These Theodosian or Land Walls (Figure 5) guarded the landward approach to Constantinople but they were also part of a defensive ring for the whole city. At their southern and northern ends, they were linked to the Sea Walls which had been constructed in 439 and ran along the whole of the coastline along the Golden Horn, the Bosporus and the Sea of Marmara. The Sea Walls were not as formidable as their land counterparts but for much of their length they did not need to be because the prevailing current made it impossible for ships to be brought close enough inshore for those on board to mount an assault for the entrances to the small havens along the southern shore, such as the harbour of Theodosius, would have been closed by chains.19 The only area of Constantinople’s coast where ships could safely land was the stretch along the Golden Horn. Any possibility that enemy ships might try to take advantage of that by sailing into the Horn was closed off in times of crisis by a heavy iron chain, 300 metres long, which was strung from a tower within the city, known as the Kentenarion, to another, the Kastellion, in the suburb of Galata on the other side of the water. Wooden floats placed along the length of the chain kept it on the surface of the water so that the keels of unwelcome ships could not pass over it (see Map 1, p. 4).20 Of course, these defences had their weaknesses. Constantinople’s promontory and natural harbour may have made a superb place for a city but there was one serious drawback: the site had almost no freshwater. There was only one river that flowed inside the Land Walls, the Lykos, but that was really only a large brook and was in any case largely dry during the summer months. It was certainly not adequate to supply the needs of Constantinople’s burgeoning population. So water had to be carried in from outside on aqueducts. In 368, Emperor Valens (364–78) had ordered the restoration and enlargement of an aqueduct which entered through subterranean pipes near the Gate of Adrianople and then marched majestically over the rooftops to deliver water to a reservoir near the Forum of Theodosius.21 That was a solution that worked perfectly well in peacetime but was of little help during a crisis: the first thing that any besieging army would do would be to cut the aqueducts. So a series of underground cisterns was constructed beneath the streets, their vaulted roofs supported by columns to collect and store the precious water for when it was most needed. Some of these cisterns were modest affairs that supplied only a few buildings but some were gigantic. That of Aspar, built in 459, was large enough to contain a modern football pitch. The Basilika, built by Justinian I close to Hagia Sophia, was a masterpiece of architecture covering some 9,800 square metres, its roof held up by 336 columns.22 These storage facilities certainly ensured that Constantinople had enough water to last it for months and even years in the event of siege or drought. Nevertheless, much of the water stored in the cisterns still had to come in through the aqueducts and they constituted something of a weakness themselves,

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providing a possible conduit through the defences if an attacker had the element of surprise. In the summer of 705, the deposed emperor Justinian II staged a dramatic political comeback when he crept into Constantinople with a band of picked men through the aqueduct of Valens, causing his rival to panic and flee.23 That coup was not repeated though: the garrison on the Land Walls usually had the aqueduct pipes securely guarded. While something could be done to counter the lack of water with aqueducts and cisterns, there was little that the emperors could do about another natural, geographical disadvantage. The so-called Mesoteichion, meaning literally the ‘middle of the walls’, was the section of the Land Walls between the Gate of St Romanos and the Gate of Adrianople. At this point, the defences had to follow the lie of the land and dip down into the valley of the River Lykos. Consequently, it was impossible to construct a deep moat there as the water would drain away while attackers could position themselves on the higher ground further back and use the advantage of height to intimidate the defenders by hurling missiles over the walls.24 Attackers always concentrated their forces in this area. There was one final weakness which was not natural but of the Byzantines’ own making. When the new Land Walls had been constructed in 413, they provided protection for many of the new suburbs that had grown up since Constantine’s day. That of Blachernae, however, had been left outside probably because it was of minimal importance in the mid-fifth century. By the early seventh century, that had changed. More buildings had been erected there and Blachernae was now home to the Virgin Mary’s Maphorion which was housed in Justinian’s Church of the Mother of God. To some extent the Virgin could look after her own: it was believed that enemies were unable to harm the church even when they torched all the buildings round about. But it hardly seemed right to leave such an important relic and such a splendid church to the tender mercies of marauding armies. So in 627, the Land Walls were extended outwards at their northern extremity to enclose the church and the whole Blachernae area (see Map 1, p. 4). An important imperial residence was later built there, the Palace of Blachernae.25 That certainly gave due honour to Constantinople’s protectoress but it also had the effect of creating a bulge in the otherwise fairly straight line of the Land Walls. Because it protruded out beyond the line, the bulge was vulnerable to bombardment from catapults and to undermining. Moreover, the walls of the bulge were only one tier deep, lacking the outer wall and moat because they were difficult to construct on the sloping terrain. During the twelfth century, the Blachernae section was completely rebuilt and strengthened. It was made thicker than the existing Theodosian Walls, using larger blocks of stone, and its towers were placed closer together. That went some way towards reducing the danger but the Blachernae section remained a vulnerable point.26 As it happened though, none of these chinks in the armour was ever to cause the city to fall into enemy hands. *

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During the seventh and eighth centuries, Constantinople’s defences were put to a series of severe tests. The fortunes of the Byzantine Empire had been declining for some years. Justinian’s effort to reconquer the western provinces had left the empire financially exhausted and vulnerable to attacks on its borders. Within a few years of the great emperor’s death, most of Italy was lost to the Lombards, and his successors had to fight an increasingly desperate battle to hold the line elsewhere. Matters came to a head in 602 when the overthrow and assassination of the Emperor Maurice (582–602) signalled a period of internal civil strife of which the empire’s enemies quickly took advantage. The Slavs and Avars crossed the Danube and occupied most of the Balkans as far south as the Peloponnese, while in the east the Persians overran Syria, Palestine and Egypt. In this situation, it was only a matter of time before Constantinople itself came under threat. The test came in the year 626 when the empire’s eastern and western enemies united in an attempt to take its capital. In July of that year, taking advantage of the absence of the Emperor Heraclius (610–41) on campaign in Armenia, the Persian general, Shahrvaraz, brought his army across Asia Minor and encamped at Chalcedon, directly opposite Constantinople. Meanwhile, in the Balkans, the Avars and their Slav allies marched south through Thrace, arriving before the Land Walls on 29 July and encamping at the Mesoteichion. They set up catapults to hurl stones at the walls and twelve siege towers to bring up close and allow their men to get onto the battlements. None of these machines made any impression on the defences. The Avars then called upon their Persian allies to come across and assist them at the Land Walls but their armies were separated by the waters of the Bosporus, making it difficult for them to link up and concert their efforts, for neither possessed a fleet of ships. In desperation, the Avars tried to bridge the gap by launching small boats manned by Slav crews to bring the Persians across to the European side of the Bosporus. The attempt proved to be a disaster. The prevailing currents, that had so helped the Byzantines in their struggle with Septimius Severus, tended to drive the boats back to the European shore. Those that did make it to midchannel could easily be intercepted by Byzantine warships. With the link between them cut, the two armies were powerless and broke off the siege on 8 August, less than two weeks after it had begun.27 With the failure of the Persian–Avar siege, the empire recovered under the leadership of Emperor Heraclius who drove the Persians out of the eastern provinces during the 620s. The triumph was short-lived, however, for the territory that was recovered was soon lost again to the Arabs who invaded the empire in 634. In the spring of 674, this new enemy appeared before the walls of Constantinople. A large Arab fleet sailed through the Dardanelles, ravaged the coast of Thrace, captured the suburb of Hebdomon and spent the summer in pitched battles with Byzantine ships in the Sea of Marmara. In September, rather than retire for the winter, the Arab fleet seized the town of Cyzicus, across the Marmara from Constantinople, to use

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as a forward base. There the fleet was joined by a land army under Yazid, the son of the Umayyad caliph, so that unlike in 626, Constantinople was now threatened by both an army and a fleet of ships rather than the mere canoes which had been all the Avars could muster. In the spring, the Arabs were ready to attack again. But once again the siege failed. The Arab ships were unable to get past the chain into the Golden Horn and an attack on the Sea Walls at any other point was not feasible. The Arab army remained on the Asian side of the Dardanelles and did not attempt to cross over to make an attack on the Land Walls so that supplies could still be brought into the city from the west. So there was a kind of stalemate that lasted for four years. Then in 678 the Byzantines counter-attacked by sea and were able to break the deadlock by using a secret weapon. For some time they had been gathering ships in the harbour of Theodosius and mounting siphons on their prows. These were to shoot what was known as ‘Greek fire’, the nearest thing that the Middle Ages had to napalm. It was concocted from a mixture of ingredients which probably included sulphur, pitch and quicklime and perhaps even some crude oil, specially imported across the Black Sea from Armenia and the Caucasus where surface deposits were still to be found. Whatever the exact composition, Greek fire was a highly inflammable liquid which, when heated in an airtight bronze container, could be shot from the siphon onto an enemy ship. The liquid was ignited as it emerged from the siphon and once alight would defy all efforts to put it out. It would even burn on the sea and was quite capable of reducing an opposing warship to a blazing wreck in minutes. It cannot have been an easy task to manoeuvre close enough to score a direct hit, and misses must have been frequent, but that did not really matter. Quite apart from the physical damage that it could potentially cause, Greek fire was a demoralizing psychological weapon. It burst from the siphon with a noise like thunder, and was often fired from bronze figureheads in the shape of lions and dragons to heighten the terror that it instilled in the crews of enemy vessels. After one brush with Byzantine vessels armed with Greek fire, enemy ships were likely to make off at the very sight of the dragons’ heads, saving the Byzantines from the need to use up precious fuel. This terrifying weapon, combined with the evident impossibility of breaching the Sea Walls, persuaded the Arabs to withdraw, to the delight of the Byzantines who had enjoyed little success against them thus far. A court poet celebrated the victory in verse, sarcastically comparing the Arab ships to floating coffins.28 The rejoicing was premature for the Arabs were to return and to mount what was to be the most dangerous siege yet. In the summer of 717, a powerful army under the command of Maslama, the brother of the Umayyad Caliph, marched across Asia Minor to link up with a fleet that had sailed up the Aegean and into the Sea of Marmara, allegedly numbering 1,800 vessels. This time the Arab army did not remain on the Asian side but crossed the Dardanelles and marched across Thrace to the Land Walls. There Maslama

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constructed a series of earthworks parallel to the walls to prevent any help getting through while his fleet set up a blockade by sea. The strategy was clearly to starve Constantinople into submission rather than to attempt a breach of the Land Walls, although the fleet did make a stealthy attempt to get into the Golden Horn. Like all blockades, if it could be maintained for long enough, it was likely to succeed, for if the Byzantines ran out of food and water their formidable defences would be useless. As it happened, Constantinople was very well supplied. Water was stored in the underground cisterns so it made no odds that the Arabs had cut the aqueducts. Moreover, knowing that an Arab attack was imminent, the Byzantine emperor had been stockpiling grain for some time and he had evacuated from the city anyone who did not have personal supplies to last for three years. Additionally, in spite of the presence of the Arab fleet, Byzantine fishermen were still able to go out and fish in the waters around Constantinople. The Arabs in their long trench at the Land Walls were not nearly so well placed. They had destroyed most of the crops of Thrace so as to deny them to the Byzantines, leaving themselves dependent on supplies brought in by their fleet. On 1 September 717, as an Arab convoy moved up to supply the army at the Land Walls, nature came to the Byzantines’ aid, just as it had in 194 and 626. The ships found themselves becalmed in the middle of the current and then slowly blown backwards by the prevailing southerly wind. Seeing its chance, the Byzantine fleet bore down on them. Some twenty Arab vessels were set alight with Greek fire, some running aground under the Sea Walls, some sinking and some being blown burning across the Sea of Marmara. That and other consignments failed to reach the Arabs at the Land Walls and as the severe winter of 717–18 set in they found themselves running short of food. Before long they were reduced to eating first the camels that they had brought with them as beasts of burden, then roots dug up from the frozen ground and finally leaves. Although Arab reinforcements arrived the following spring, it was by then fast becoming clear that blockade was even less likely to take Constantinople than a direct assault. The siege was lifted on 15 August 718, the army crossed back over the Dardanelles and the fleet headed home. The Arabs never returned.29 These spectacular victories ensured that Constantinople’s reputation for impregnability was established but there were still plenty of attempts to take the city. The Bulgars, on whom the Byzantines waged war on and off throughout the ninth and tenth centuries, mounted several sieges but since they lacked a fleet, there was never a realistic possibility of their succeeding where the Arabs had failed. Their khan, Krum (c. 803–14), who had recently wiped out an entire Byzantine army, along with the emperor, brought his army before the Land Walls in 813. Having got there, he found that there was very little that he could do. So having burned those buildings, villas and palaces that he found outside the walls, Krum rode up and down from the Golden Gate to Blachernae to ‘exhibit his forces’ and then sued for peace.30 Another threat came from the Russians who sailed across the Black Sea

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against Constantinople on a number of occasions. In 941, their numerically superior fleet was worsted by just fifteen Byzantine vessels armed with Greek fire. Many of the Russian ships were set alight, although most of the casualties resulted when the panic-stricken mariners jumped into the sea and drowned in their heavy armour. The survivors returned with the excuse that the Byzantines ‘had in their possession the lightning from heaven, and had set them on fire by pouring it forth, so that the Russians could not conquer them’.31 Dramatic occasions such as this apart, those who wished to make war on the Byzantine emperor generally contented themselves with attacking his outlying provinces or making a show of force before Constantinople to extort concessions. All the more proof in the eyes of the Byzantines that their saintly protectoress was at work on their behalf. * Just as Constantinople’s long immunity from capture can be attributed to geography and military technology rather than to divine intervention, so the myth of the God-guarded city can be questioned in another way. It could be said that the city was not, in fact, immune at all. It had fallen on numerous occasions over the centuries, albeit not to armies led by the ruler of another state but by an ambitious Byzantine general out to overthrow the incumbent emperor and to take his place on the throne. This type of warfare was very different from the great Persian, Avar and Arab sieges. Potential usurpers who came from the west would march to the Mesoteichion and draw up their armies before the Land Walls. Pitched fighting was seldom entered into and casualties were kept to a minimum, as most of the inhabitants of Constantinople remained neutral and awaited the outcome, equally ready to cheer for whoever emerged victorious. What the usurper was hoping for was either to exploit the known weak points in the Land Walls, such as the aqueduct pipes, or to persuade someone on the inside to help him to gain entry to the city. This was what happened in 1047, when Leo Tornikios led an army to the Land Walls in the hope of unseating the Emperor Constantine IX Monomachos (1042–55). The emperor had recently suffered a bout of illness and rumours were circulating that he had died, so he judged it prudent to go in person to the Land Walls to encourage the troops that were facing Tornikios’s army, taking a seat on the battlements where he was in full view. Unfortunately, he could also be seen by the rebel army, and a mounted archer took the opportunity to loose off an arrow in his direction. Had it struck home, Tornikios would probably have found himself emperor, but Constantine happened to move his head to one side at the last moment. The arrow whistled past his ear and hit one of his young courtiers, who was standing behind, in the ribs. The weaknesses in the defences seldom delivered victory to a rebel army and the most likely way for it to take Constantinople was for a sympathizer

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on the inside to open one of the gates. Tornikios and his followers were clearly relying on this happening in 1047. Rather than make any attempt to assault the defences, they energetically harangued the soldiers on the battlements, deriding Constantine IX and his well-known self-indulgent lifestyle and urging the merits of Tornikios. They even staged some comic dances, full of ribald jokes at the emperor’s expense. Then they turned nasty and led their prisoners in front of the walls, threatening to put them to death if the gates were not opened. It was all to no avail. The gates remained firmly shut and the defenders unleashed a volley of stones from their catapults, though these all fell short of their targets. Faced with such intransigence, the rebel army eventually gave up and withdrew, with the revolt soon petering out.32 That was not always how things worked out. A similar situation occurred in the summer of 1057 when Isaac Komnenos revolted against Michael VI (1056–7). Isaac was based in Asia Minor and so he led his army towards the Bosporus rather than the Land Walls. His men easily saw off a force sent against them by Michael VI but the strait was as formidable a barrier as the Land Walls and Isaac could not cross it as long as the emperor in Constantinople controlled the fleet. Komnenos’s army therefore encamped near Nicaea and waited on events. Michael decided to negotiate and sent an embassy to Komnenos’s camp offering to adopt him as his heir so that he would succeed as emperor after Michael’s death. Komnenos accepted this compromise but before it could be carried into effect, news arrived that a popular revolt against Michael had broken out in Constantinople and Komnenos was being invited to sail across and enter the city. Thus on 1 September 1057 he entered Constantinople, effectively having captured the capital without the need for a siege, and he mounted the throne as Isaac I (1057–9).33 Popular support was only one of the ways to get the gates opened from the inside. Another was to purchase a switch in loyalty from the troops guarding a key section of the Land Walls. For a long time before 1200, the bulk of the empire’s armed forces had come to be composed of foreign mercenaries, largely from Russia, Scandinavia, Germany, France and England, although African palace guards are also reported.34 These imported troops included the famous Varangian guard who formed the emperor’s personal protection squad and who were distinguished by the heavy double-edged swords which they carried on their shoulders on ceremonial occasions. Some were exiles from political reverses at home, such as the English Varangians of the later eleventh century who had been forced to leave their homeland by the Norman Conquest of 1066. The Varangians had a reputation for unshakeable loyalty to the reigning emperor, a valuable commodity in the murky world of Byzantine politics, which was why they were preferred over native troops. Indeed, most contemporary Byzantines were quite happy to admit that the Varangians and other mercenaries were by far the most faithful and courageous soldiers that the empire had.35

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One of the most famous Varangians was Harold Sigurtharson, an ancestor of Sigurd Magnusson who was later also to visit Constantinople. After leaving his native Norway in 1030 following the Battle of Sticklestad when his brother, King Olaf Haroldson had been killed, Harold had wandered for some time in Russia, before heading for Constantinople and enrolling with his followers in the Varangian guard. His duties there were not restricted to staying in the palace and guarding the imperial person. Harold took part in Byzantine campaigns in the Aegean, in Bulgaria and in Sicily, during which he acquitted himself more than creditably. In recognition of his martial prowess, he was made leader of the Varangian guard and invested by the emperor with the sonorous title of Spatharokandidatos. By the time he left Constantinople in around 1044, he was a rich man from his accumulated salary, imperial gifts and the plunder from the campaigns. Back in his native Norway, Harold succeeded in becoming king, and his twenty years of ironhanded rule earned him the sobriquet of ‘Hardrada’ or ‘the Stern’. He had not, however, lost his taste for overseas adventure. In September 1066, he launched an invasion of England, but on this occasion his military acumen seems to have deserted him. His army was routed and he himself was killed at the Battle of Stamford Bridge. As far as the Byzantines were concerned, though, Harold had been an asset who had been worth every bit of the largesse lavished on him by the emperor.36 Not all the mercenaries were of the calibre of Harold Hardrada and the Varangians, of course, and would-be usurpers were able to take advantage of that. In the spring of 1081, a young general called Alexios Komnenos, nephew of Isaac, brought his army to the Land Walls to challenge Emperor Nikephoros III Botaneiates (1078–81). The rebels were greeted with the usual whistles and catcalls from the defenders, and there seemed to be no likelihood of a repeat of the popular rising that had given ingress to Alexios’s uncle in 1057. So the long wait began. Inevitably the besieged and the besiegers began to exchange conversation and Alexios thereby discovered which regiments were stationed on which towers along the Land Walls. These included the Varangians and the Immortals, the latter being composed entirely of Byzantine soldiers. Alexios was advised not to try to negotiate with either of them as they were likely to remain loyal to Nikephoros. Further along the line though was a tower guarded by the Nemitzi, a regiment of foreign, presumably German, mercenaries, and Alexios decided to make contact with them. A man was sent as close as possible to the wall, and the commander of the Nemitzi leant over the battlements to parley. Presumably some kind of financial deal was struck, with Alexios agreeing to better the salary paid by his rival, and it was agreed that the Gate of Adrianople would be opened at a prearranged time. At dawn on 1 April, Komnenos’s troops poured into Constantinople, enabling him to ascend the throne as Alexios I and to place the Komnenian dynasty in power for over a century.37 These transfers of power usually occurred with little bloodshed but on occasions, Constantinople and its inhabitants were treated very roughly

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indeed in the process. When the successful general Nikephoros Phokas seized power in 963, many of his soldiers took the opportunity to loot private houses while some Constantinopolitans took advantage of the confusion to settle old scores with their personal enemies. Isaac Komnenos did a better job of restraining his men in 1057, largely by paying them a very generous bonus but nevertheless the citizens breathed a collective sigh of relief when the troops withdrew. The worst excesses came in the wake of Alexios Komnenos’ coup in 1081 when his solders ran amok through the streets of Constantinople plundering churches as well as private houses. The new emperor Alexios was instructed by the synod and patriarch of Constantinople to perform penance for the outrage, sleeping on the ground for forty days. The Arabs may have been beaten off but the God-guarded city could be vulnerable to the very people who were supposed to defend it.38 * While it is not difficult to expose the flaws in the stories told by the Byzantines of 1200 about the invulnerability of their city, it would be unjust to think that they were deceiving themselves. They were perfectly well aware of the advantages that geography gave them such as those handy currents in the Bosporus. It was just that they interpreted them not as a chance natural phenomenon but as a manifestation of the will of God. When the unpredictable winds of the Bosporus had died down and becalmed the Russian fleet in 941, it was God turning the sea calm by stilling the winds. When Emperor Andronicus I (1183–5) attempted to flee north up the Bosporus by ship but was driven back to the shore, where his executioners were waiting for him, that was the strait punishing him for all the bodies of his victims that he had ordered to be thrown into it.39 The Byzantines applied the same logic to their sophisticated military technology. They would not for one moment have denied that everything possible should be done to maintain their technical lead over their opponents. Their first reaction in any crisis, when a siege was in the offing, was to inspect and repair their fortifications and to demolish any houses that had been built illegally alongside them. Any earthquake damage was quickly made good, whether there was an immediate threat or not. As for Greek fire, it was an article of faith among the Byzantine ruling classes that the secret was never to be divulged to an outside power, for obvious reasons.40 On the other hand, they were convinced that no amount of military hardware would keep Constantinople safe without the protection of God and the Virgin. Hence the inscription on one of the towers of the Land Walls imploring Christ to ‘preserve thy city undisturbed’.41 Technology was just another gift from God, often transmitted, like so much else, through the founder of the city, Constantine the Great. It was not only the line of Constantinople’s walls that was revealed to him by an angel, it was said, but also the secret of making Greek fire and the apparatus to discharge it. The use of mercenaries from northern Europe in the Byzantine army was also something with which

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Constantine was credited. After he had been crowned emperor at York in 306, he allegedly brought 30,000 Britons east with him and they constituted the first inhabitants of his new capital.42 In short, the Byzantines interpreted everything in a way that suited their own carefully cultivated myth. Even the frequent captures of Constantinople by rebel generals could be subtly adjusted to fit in with it. After all, if the usurper succeeded, it was clear that he had had the favour of God in overthrowing a wicked tyrant. If he failed, then it was equally obvious that the city’s superhuman protectors had come to its aid one more time. So important was this idea of the God-guarded city that it was even built into imperial protocol. It was laid down that whenever an emperor set out across the Bosporus by ship to campaign in Asia Minor, he was to wait until the vessel had cleared the harbour and then rise from his seat and look back at his retreating capital: ‘With his hands raised to heaven; and making the sign of the cross three times with his hand over the city, he prays to God and says: “Lord Jesus Christ, my God, I place in Your hands this Your city.”’43 Then he could march east, safe in the knowledge that his capital was protected by so much more than its fleet, its army and its towering walls.

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4 Palaces and power

Like everything else in Byzantine Constantinople, politics was approached through the prism of metaphysical ideology and that ideology had begun with Constantine. A contemporary of the great emperor, Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea (c. 260–339), seems to have appointed himself to the task of presenting Constantine as the ideal Christian ruler. In a speech written in honour of the thirtieth anniversary of Constantine’s accession in 336, Eusebius argued that a Christian emperor did not just accede to the throne, but was directly appointed to it by God. He was a sort of lesser image of the Almighty, governing Earth while God ruled in heaven. It was no coincidence, Eusebius pointed out, that the first Roman emperor, Augustus, had reigned at exactly the same time that Jesus Christ had been born into the world. It was plainly all part of God’s plan to unite much of the known world under one ruler to facilitate the spread of the Christian faith. He desired all Christians to be ruled by one pious Christian ruler, the Roman emperor. Whether Eusebius’s motive in this was to ingratiate himself with Constantine or to attach the somewhat ambivalent emperor more closely to the camp of the Christians is impossible to tell, but there can be no doubt that he set the pattern of Byzantine political thought for the rest of the empire’s existence. The idea that the emperor was appointed by God, that he was His representative on earth and that he was entitled to a rightful authority over the whole Christian world, stuck.1 The world had changed immensely since Constantine and Eusebius’ time. The authority of the emperor in Constantinople had shrunk considerably and only a very small part of the Christian world was under his rule. The empire had recovered from the crisis of the seventh century and had reconquered the Balkans and northern Syria but from the late eleventh century it had lost ground again. By 1200, the empire’s territory was restricted to Greece and the southern Balkans, the island of Crete and the western third of Asia Minor. That made no difference to the theory though. In 1174, a courtier told the emperor in a speech that he was divinely possessed and was an image of God. Another assured the imperial incumbent that he had come

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Pechenegs Zara

Cherson

Branchevo

Black Sea

Nish Sofia Bulgaria

Adriatic Sea Apulia

Dyrrachion Brindisi Epiros Thessalonica Avlona Corfu

Messina

Ionion Sea

Thebes

Anchialos

Trebizond

Adrianople Constantinople Thrace

Gallipoli

Euboea Athens

Corinth

Chalcedon Nikomedeia Nicaea Prousa Ankara Dorylaion

Theodosiopolis Sebasteia

ra tes

Cyprus Kingdom of Jerusalem Jerusalem

Mediterranean Sea

Damietta

MAP 3  The Byzantine Empire in 1200 ce.

Tigris

ph

Rhodes Crete

Edessa

Eu

Seljuk Sultanate of Konya Smyrna Philadelphia Konya Principality Ephesus of Laodikeia Antioch on the Lykos Attaleia Antioch Laodikeia Aleppo

Constantinople

Calabria

Philippopolis

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down as a munificent gift from on high. Any attempt to suggest that other Christian rulers held such favoured status was strenuously disputed.2 No visitor to Constantinople in 1200 could have gone far without encountering that theory in visible form. The imperial image was everywhere, whether carved in stone, founded in bronze or depicted in paint or mosaic. As well as the statue of Constantine on the Milion arch and Justinian on his horse in the Augousteion, a pantheon of emperors past and present adorned churches and other public spaces. Many of these representations were designed to reflect the theory. The successors of Constantine were often portrayed next to Christ or the Virgin Mary, as in the Church of the Virgin Peribleptos in the south west of the city, where mosaics of Emperor Romanos III (1028–34) and his wife Zoe were placed on either side of the Mother of God. Sometimes Jesus or the Virgin would be shown placing their hands upon the emperor’s crowned head in token of blessing and as an indication of the origin of the imperial power, an image that also appeared on coins. Moreover, all emperors and empresses, not only the sainted Constantine, tended to be shown with halos around their heads. That did not necessarily denote personal holiness but rather the sanctity of the office they held. To make the matter absolutely clear, such portraits were often accompanied by an inscription naming the emperor and describing him as ‘faithful in Christ emperor and autocrat of the Romans’.3 The theory was also manifested in tangible form in the emperor’s residence. By 1200 he had not one magnificent palace in Constantinople, but two: the Great Palace and the Palace of Blachernae. The Great Palace was

Figure 6  Gold coin (nomisma) of Emperor Romanos III with the Virgin Mary (Author).

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the older and more extensive of the two, situated next to the Hippodrome, the Augousteion and Hagia Sophia in the very heart of the city. Constantine had built his first residence there and Justinian had rebuilt its main entrance, the Brazen Gate.4 Subsequent emperors had added new buildings and demolished others. One of them was the Boukoleon which overlooked the Sea of Marmara at the southern end of the complex. The name derived from a statue of an ox (bous) being attacked by a lion (leôn) which stood on the harbour wall. The lion was depicted with its left foot on the ox’s horn and it was clearly twisting round its victim’s head to make a bite at its throat. The Boukoleon had its own harbour with a flight of marble steps leading down to the water where a vessel for the emperor’s use was moored.5 Another, which overlooked the sea on the south side of the city, was known as the Porphyra. It contained one room whose walls were lined with purple marble and purple silk hangings. Since the eighth century it had been reserved for the lying-in of Byzantine empresses, so that it could be said that the heir of a reigning emperor was Porphyrogenitos or ‘born in the purple’ and thus earmarked to succeed his father.6 Then there was the Dekanneakoubita or ‘the hall of the nineteen couches’. It was the emperor’s custom to entertain 228 guests there on each of the twelve days of Christmas, twelve diners reclining on couches at each of the nineteen tables and drinking from vessels of gold.7 With the Boukoleon, Porphyra, Dekanneakoubita and other buildings all competing for space on the site, by 1200 the Great Palace was a vast complex that sprawled over some five square kilometres and it is difficult to envisage what its ground plan would have been like at any one time.8

Figure 7  Remains of the Palace of Boukoleon, part of the Great Palace (Grannyogrimm/IStock).

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The Palace of Blachernae was situated at the other end of the city, close to the northern end of the Land Walls, on high ground overlooking the Golden Horn. A much more compact palace, it was built round a central courtyard with a number of tall towers. Blachernae was the favoured residence of the emperors of the Komnenos family, one of whom, Manuel I Komnenos (1143–80), had extended and redecorated it. By 1200 the emperor spent much more time there than he did at the Great Palace.9 Neither of these palaces was designed solely to be a comfortable home for the emperor but they were also intended to reflect his exalted office. So as in the streets and squares outside, the emperor’s image was ubiquitous. Inside the Brazen Gate of the Great Palace, mosaics of Justinian and Theodora greeted new arrivals. In one of its many buildings, mosaics of Basil I (867–86) and his family covered the ceiling, the children shown carrying Bibles to show how they were being educated appropriately. In another, John II Komnenos (1118–43) commissioned images of his father, Alexios I. It was the same at Blachernae where Manuel I did not forget to include himself in the decoration.10 Moreover, like the portraits, many of the palace buildings had a quasi-religious atmosphere. Above the Brazen Gate was a mosaic image of Christ that was supposed to perform miraculous healings. The Chrysotriklinos in the Great Palace was decorated as if it were a church, with Christ over the emperor’s throne, and attendant angels and saints all around. The Palace of Blachernae possessed no less than twenty

Figure 8  Tekfur Sarayı, part of the Palace of Blachernae (Designist/IStock).

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chapels and was deliberately sited near the Church of the Virgin where the Maphorion was kept. This blurring of any distinction between sacred and secular was designed to reflect the direct link between God and his earthly representative.11 The link was most eloquently expressed by one particular building in the Great Palace complex. It was a small chapel, dedicated to the Holy Virgin of Pharos, so called because of its proximity to the lighthouse or Pharos that stood at the apex of Constantinople’s triangle. Inside the chapel, the dome and ceiling were decorated with the usual mosaics depicting Christ and the Virgin, the altar was encrusted with jewels and even the hinges of its doors were made of silver.12 There was a very good reason for the lavish decoration, for the Pharos chapel housed a number of relics of the most precious kind: those closely associated with Jesus Christ himself. Foremost among them were two sections of the cross on which Christ had hung during the crucifixion on Mount Calvary, known as the True Cross to distinguish it from the many imitations.13 According to legend, the True Cross had been discovered by Helena, the mother of Constantine, while she was on pilgrimage in Jerusalem. With the help of the archbishop of Jerusalem, Macarius, she had organized an archaeological excavation at Calvary and, after having demolished the pagan temple of Aphrodite which stood on the site, had duly unearthed three crosses. To discern which was the True Cross from those on which the two thieves had hung, Archbishop Macarius brought them one after another to the bedside of a sick woman. When the shadow of the True Cross fell across her, the woman was immediately healed. The precious relic was then placed in a silver casket and kept in a church that was erected on the site, although Helena took part of the cross back with her to Constantinople. In the course of time, more of the True Cross was to end up in the capital. When the Arabs invaded Byzantine Syria in 634 and Jerusalem was once more threatened, Emperor Heraclius took the rest of it with him back to Constantinople to reunite it with the section taken there by Helena. There it had remained ever since.14 Another famed relic preserved in the Pharos chapel was the Mandylion of Edessa, a small cloth on which was imprinted what was held to be a miraculous image of the face of Christ. Numerous legends abounded as to how the Mandylion had come into being, but the most commonly believed was this. During the lifetime of Christ, Abgar, the ruler of the town of Edessa (now Urfa in eastern Turkey), had sent an emissary to Jesus begging him to come and heal him from arthritis and leprosy. Jesus had declined but instead washed his face in water and then dried it on a piece of cloth. The image of his face was left on the cloth and he gave it to Abgar’s emissary to take back to Edessa. On receiving the cloth, Abgar was healed of all his illnesses and, along with the entire population of Edessa, was converted to Christianity. The cloth or Mandylion was later credited with saving the city from a Persian attack in 544 and it was reverently preserved there until 944 when a Byzantine army laid siege to Edessa. The city’s Muslim rulers

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decided to buy security by giving up the Mandylion. The precious relic was then carried back to Constantinople in triumph, which was only fitting, according to the Byzantine emperor of the day, because the Queen of Cities had ‘the undoubted right to rule all’. The Byzantines later acquired the autograph letter supposedly written by Christ to Abgar, though sadly this was lost or destroyed in a riot in 1185.15 Also in the chapel were Christ’s sandals, the tunic which he had worn at the time of his passion, the Crown of Thorns, the lance which pierced his side, and a small phial containing what purported to be some of his blood. Oddest of all, perhaps, was the Keramion or Holy Tile, a ceramic slab on which the face of Christ had been miraculously imprinted. There were also relics of major saints such as the right arm of John the Baptist and the head of St Paul. The possession of these objects added enormously to the prestige of the Byzantine emperor. Visiting kings were unfailingly taken to visit the chapel so that they could see for themselves these ‘signs of divine protection’ and draw the appropriate conclusion.16 The same applied to the elaborate ceremonial for which the two palaces provided a setting. These rituals were designed to be, as one emperor put it ‘a cause of wonder both to foreigners and our own people’. The emperor received foreign dignitaries and ambassadors in the hall known as the Magnavra in the Great Palace. They were led in to the strains of organ music by an official holding a golden staff and as they entered two bronze lions that stood next to the throne would suddenly start to roar and metallic birds in a gilded tree would burst into song, animated by some kind of compressed steam power. The same contrivance caused the emperor’s throne to rise up automatically so that he could gaze down on his lowly visitors who were expected to prostrate themselves three times on the floor before the throne. The only concession was made to visiting monarchs, who were not expected to grovel on the ground but were given a seat that was deliberately on a lower level than the throne of their host, to emphasize the latter’s superior status.17 There was an endless round of ceremonies throughout the year, with ritual actions and greetings prescribed for particular locations, much of which have taken up a great deal of the emperor’s time. On Holy Saturday, for example, he would process from the Great Palace to the Cathedral of Hagia Sophia. Inside the church the procession would pass the Holy Well and enter the sanctuary followed by a eunuch carrying a bag containing one hundred pounds of gold. An official would then take the bag from the eunuch and hand it to the emperor who would then lay it on the altar and swing an incense burner over it.18 Tedious and occasionally rather silly as such ceremonies might seem, they were carefully adapted for their purpose of impressing the audience and, in general, they seem to have worked. An Arab visitor to Constantinople who witnessed an imperial procession as it wound from the Brazen Gate to the cathedral of Hagia Sophia wrote a vivid account of the splendours that he had seen. Not everyone was as impressed. An ambassador from Italy who witnessed a similar ceremony in

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968 recorded it with a much more jaundiced eye, dismissing the spectacle as ‘a copious multitude of merchants and common people, decked out with quite thin little shields and cheap spears’.19 Individual reactions make no difference to the main point of all this pageantry though. The Byzantines were constantly exerting themselves to promote Constantinople’s myth,

TEXT Box 4: An outsider’s view of Byzantine ceremonial

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aken prisoner on Byzantium’s eastern frontier sometime in the tenth century, Harun-Ibn-Yahya was taken to Constantinople to await the payment of his ransom. He was not closely confined and was allowed to roam freely around the city. In the course of his explorations he witnessed a procession crossing the Augousteion from the Brazen Gate towards Hagia Sophia: [The emperor] commands that on his way from the Gate of the Palace to the Church for the common people, which is in the middle of the city, be spread mats and upon them there be strewn aromatic plants and green foliage, and that on the right and left of his passage, the walls be adorned with brocade. Then he is preceded by ten thousand elders wearing clothes of red brocade; their hair reaches their shoulders, and they wear no upper cloak. Then behind them come ten thousand young men wearing clothes of white brocade. All go on foot. Then come ten thousand boys dressed in clothes of green brocade. Then come ten thousand servants wearing clothes of brocade the colour of the blue sky; in their hands they hold axes covered with gold. Behind them follow five thousand chosen eunuchs wearing white Khorasian clothes of half silk; in their hands they hold golden crosses. Then after them come ten thousand Turkish and Khorasian pages wearing striped breastplates; in their hands they hold spears and shields wholly covered with gold. Then come a hundred most dignified patricians wearing clothes of coloured brocade; in their hands they have gold censers perfumed with aloes. Then come twelve chief patricians with clothes woven with gold; each of them holds a golden rod. Then come a hundred pages wearing clothes trimmed with borders and adorned with pearls; they carry a golden case in which is the imperial robe for the emperor’s prayer. From A. A. Vasiliev, ‘Harun-Ibn-Yahya and his description of Constantinople’, Annales de l’Institut Kondakov, 5 (1932): 149–63, at 158–9, reproduced by kind permission of the Institute of Art History of the Czech Academy of Sciences.

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whether through imperial portraits in mosaic, grandiose palaces or by ostentatious public display. * The reality of Byzantine political life was, of course, by no means as idealistic as the theory and the ceremony were designed to suggest. The most glaring discrepancy was between the notion that emperors were appointed by God and the often violent and bloody process by which they reached the throne. Of the seventy or so emperors who reigned in Constantinople between 330 and 1204, fewer than half died in their beds at a ripe old age, still in office, and passed the crown to a son or designated successor. Emperors were frequently overthrown by those closest to them. Michael II (820–9) reached the throne by murdering his old comrade-in-arms, Leo V (813–20), who was stabbed to death while praying in church with his body dumped in a cesspit. John I Tzimiskes (969– 76) became emperor by sneaking into the bedroom of his uncle, Nikephoros II Phokas (963–9), with a gang of followers who then hacked Nikephoros to pieces with their swords. The emperor’s wife, Theophano, was one of the conspirators and had seen to it beforehand that the door of the chamber would be unlocked. When attempts on the throne such as this went wrong, on the other hand, the losers could expect little mercy. The rebel Bardas Phokas died in battle against Basil II in 989 and so escaped retribution, but his head was paraded on a spear through the streets of Constantinople, and one of his associates who was taken alive, was put to an agonizing death by impalement.20 Deposed emperors or unsuccessful would-be usurpers were not always murdered. Some got away with being forcibly tonsured and made to take monastic vows. They were then immured for the rest of their lives behind the high walls of a monastery. What has made Byzantine politics truly notorious, however, is the regularity with which the losers in the endless round of plots and coups were subjected to some kind of physical mutilation as it was deemed to be a disqualification for imperial office. In the past, political failures had had their noses split open. Then, in 705, the deposed emperor Justinian II, whose nose had been given the standard treatment, managed to seize back the throne and to reign for a further seven years in spite of this very visible mutilation, earning the sobriquet of Rhinotmetos or ‘the noseless’. Consequently, it became more common to inflict blinding by having a red hot iron held over the eyes to damage the cornea irreparably. This fearsome punishment had the added advantage of physically incapacitating the victim and permanently removing him from the political race. It was also regarded as providing a humane alternative to killing the victim but it was a brutal business. The blinding of Romanos IV Diogenes (1068–71), who was ousted by his stepson Michael Doukas in 1071, was carried out so ineptly by his captors that he died not long afterwards. Most shocking of all, Constantine VI (780–97) was blinded and deposed on the orders of his own mother, Irene. There were examples of individuals being spared at the last moment, merely having their eyelids singed as a warning, but such leniency could seldom be afforded and the deed was usually carried out without mercy.

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After all, it seems to have worked. Leo Tornikios, who rebelled against Constantine IX in 1047, was blinded, along with one of his associates, but all the other rebels were spared, thus ensuring that the revolt petered out. Nikephoros Diogenes, who was blinded in 1094 for plotting against Alexios I, retired from Constantinople to his estates and caused no more trouble. He passed his remaining years in the study of classical literature, using secretaries to read the texts to him. Not until 1203 did a victim of blinding, former emperor Isaac II, return to active political life.21 This long record of plot, counter-plot, murder and mutilation did not escape adverse comment from outside observers. A German monk noted with distaste the tendency of the Byzantines to ‘butcher or blind their own kings’.22 The internal politics of the Byzantine Empire have attracted an unsavoury reputation ever since. ‘The most profligate debaucheries’, wrote Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–78), ‘the most abandoned villainies, the most atrocious crimes, plots, murders and assassinations form the warp and woof of the history of Constantinople.’23 That is not entirely fair, since many other medieval societies have displayed a similar propensity for frequent bouts of assassination and intrigue. In 1036, Alfred, son of the English king Ethelred Unraed, was blinded to prevent him claiming his father’s throne.24 What was unique to Byzantium was the wide gulf between the religious theory that underpinned the office of the emperor and the rather sordid reality. The heir of Constantine the Great who ruled the Byzantine Empire was Alexios III (1195–1203). He was the second emperor of the Angelos dynasty and a monarch about whom posterity has had little good to say. His contemporary, the palace bureaucrat Niketas Choniates (c. 1155–1217), presents him as a far cry from the ideal emperor, a spendthrift who neglected the interests of the empire while busying himself with trivial pursuits, such as building new bath houses and planting vineyards at a time when he should have been attending to the defences of Constantinople. Most unedifying of all was the way in which Alexios III had come to the throne.25 Alexios was not a Porphyrogenitos. He had not been born in the Purple Chamber in the Great Palace and his father had not been a reigning emperor. He was a scion of a wealthy Constantinopolitan family, one of six sons of veteran soldier Andronicus Angelos and his wife Euphrosyne. These were, however, troubled times. On 24 September 1180, after a reign of thirty-eight years, the redoubtable emperor Manuel I Komnenos had died, leaving as his heir an eleven-year-old boy, his son Alexios II (1180–3). A council of regency therefore had to be formed under the child’s mother, Maria of Antioch, with real power in the hands of a nephew of the late emperor, Alexios Komnenos, who held the title of protosebastos. The regency of Maria and Alexios soon proved unpopular in Constantinople, and in 1182 another of Manuel I’s kinsmen, Andronicus Komnenos, staged a revolt and led an army across Asia Minor towards Constantinople. As a prominent nobleman, Angelos senior could not avoid becoming involved in these events. He was sent by the regency with a force to crush

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the rebel but he ended up switching sides and fleeing with his family to the opposing camp. The Angelos family were to regret that move. Once Andronicus Komnenos had captured Constantinople and installed himself as the new regent to the young emperor, he instituted a reign of terror in which prominent aristocrats were his main victims. Realizing that he might be the next target, Andronicus Angelos entered into a conspiracy against the regent. When it was betrayed, most of the plotters were rounded up and executed, but Angelos and his sons, including Alexios, escaped their pursuers when they reached the coast and found a boat full of empty wine jars. Heaving the jars into the sea, they crowded aboard and succeeded in eluding Andronicus’s soldiers. Having reached a safe distance, father and sons scattered to maximize their chances. Alexios went to Syria where he was given asylum at the court of the Ayyubid Sultan, the famous Saladin.26 Not all the brothers fled so far. Theodore and Isaac Angelos ended up in Bithynia in Asia Minor where they found refuge in the cities of Nicaea and Prousa whose inhabitants had refused to accede to Andronicus Komnenos’s coup. Determined to crush all opposition, Andronicus set out to besiege these towns. Nicaea held out at first and the regent was forced to bring up siege engines to attack the walls. He even had Isaac Angelos’s mother, Euphrosyne, brought from Constantinople and used the frail old lady as a human shield by placing her in front of a battering ram as it was hauled towards the walls. The stratagem failed. The Nicaeans carefully shot their arrows around Euphrosyne, killing the soldiers who were guarding her, and then sallied forth to rescue her. When the leader of the rebellion was killed in a skirmish, however, the spirit of the defenders flagged. Isaac Angelos negotiated peace with Andronicus. The town opened its gates and Isaac was pardoned and sent back to Constantinople to live peacefully in the family mansion there, though several other prominent men among the defenders were executed. This latter action prompted the people of Prousa to put up a stiffer resistance. The city had to be taken by storm and large numbers of its inhabitants were massacred. Theodore Angelos was taken prisoner and Andronicus gave orders that he should be blinded. Clearly, already Andronicus feared that some member of the Angelos family might be planning to replace him. The unfortunate Theodore was then placed on an ass which was sent trotting off to wander where it would. Theodore would doubtless have starved had not some Turks from the neighbouring sultanate of Konya found him and taken pity on him. Back in Constantinople, Andronicus Komnenos by now had himself crowned as Emperor Andronicus I and had disposed of the young Alexios II by having the unfortunate lad strangled with a bow string. His corpse was brought to Andronicus so that he could kick it before it was dumped in the Bosporus. But donning the imperial purple still did not set Andronicus’s mind at rest. He saw conspiracies everywhere and scarcely a day went by without some unfortunate wretch being arraigned and executed. Inevitably,

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his suspicion fell on Isaac, the only member of the Angelos family within his reach. On the evening of 11 September 1185, a number of armed men arrived at the Angelos mansion bearing orders to arrest him. As they pounded on the doors, Isaac cowered inside, but then, reasoning that he was likely to die anyway, he crept to the stables and saddled a horse. His pursuers were taken completely by surprise as Isaac charged out sword in hand and had no time to react before he killed their leader with a single blow to the head and cut off the ear of one of the others. Isaac then galloped down the Mese towards Hagia Sophia to take sanctuary. News of these dramatic events soon spread and popular demonstrations broke out against the by now universally detested Andronicus. Sensing that all was lost, Andronicus left Constantinople by ship in the hope of sailing across the Black Sea to safety in Russia. Unfortunately, the current carried the ship back to shore before it could make much headway. Andronicus was taken prisoner, dragged back to Constantinople and lynched in the Hippodrome by the furious crowd. Isaac Angelos now found himself emperor as Isaac II (1185–95).27 Naturally, one of Isaac’s first moves was to recall the scattered members of his family to the capital. His father, Andronicus Angelos, seems by this time to have died, but Alexios was brought back from Syria and given the prestigious court title of sebastokrator. Isaac had a particular affection for Alexios because he was the only one of the six brothers who had escaped completely unscathed during Andronicus’s reign of terror.28 Sadly, the feeling does not seem to have been reciprocated and Alexios showed little gratitude for his brother’s kindness. By the spring of 1195, he was plotting to seize the throne and had gathered a group of supporters, including an individual called Alexios Doukas Mourtzouphlos. Mourtzouphlos, whose last name was a nickname meaning ‘blackened and blind’, because his dark, bushy eyebrows met over his nose and hung over his eyes, was to play an important part in Constantinople’s political life over the next few years.29 In April 1195, Alexios accompanied Isaac II on a military expedition against insurgents in Thrace. The campaign was a leisurely one and Isaac had plenty of time to go hunting. He invited his brother, the sebastokrator, to join him, but Alexios complained of feeling unwell so the emperor went off without him. Left behind in the camp, Alexios and his fellow conspirators seized the imperial regalia which had been left behind in a tent, and Isaac returned to discover that his brother had been proclaimed emperor in his place. Isaac’s first reaction was to try a repeat of his tactic against his tormentors ten years before, and he spurred his horse to make a charge against the conspirators in the camp. He lost heart, however, when he saw that none of his servants would follow him. He then fled west to a small coastal town, hoping to escape by sea, but he was apprehended and taken to a nearby monastery. There Isaac suffered the same fate as his brother Theodore and was blinded before being taken back to Constantinople to be imprisoned first in the dungeons beneath the Palace of Boukoleon and then at Diplokionion on the Bosporus.

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It might be expected that after having perpetrated such a dastardly crime against his own brother, Alexios would never have been accepted in Constantinople as emperor. That was not so. The Byzantines seem to have regarded this kind of putsch as just the way in which God appointed his representative on Earth. Consequently, even before Alexios arrived back in the capital, the great and the good were quick to throw in their lot with the new regime. They hastened to find Alexios’s wife Euphrosyne and ‘placed their heads under her feet as foot stools, nuzzled their noses against her felt slipper like fawning puppies’. Within days, Alexios had been crowned by the patriarch in the cathedral of Hagia Sophia. The only objector appears to have been the horse that was led forward to bear him away from the ceremony. It bucked and reared so violently when the new emperor tried to mount, that his jewelled crown was knocked off his head and damaged. Another, more placid steed had to be found. Perhaps the readiness of the court and people of Constantinople to accept the coup of 1195 is not really surprising but to more detached observers it still fits very uneasily with Eusebius’s portrait of the emperor as God’s appointee.30 * Given the dangers attendant on being the emperor of Byzantium, one might initially wonder why there were so many individuals who, like Alexios III, were prepared to go to such extraordinary lengths and to risk everything to reach the throne. The fact was that being emperor gave access to almost limitless wealth which provided certain compensations for the burden of being God’s deputy on Earth. Eusebius had painted an austere portrait of Constantine, spending hours on his knees at prayer in the Great Palace, but for those who had a taste for the high life the possibilities were endless. Alexios III, according to Choniates, believed that he had been given the throne ‘not to exercise lawful dominion over men but to supply himself with lavish luxury and pleasures’.31 He was by no means alone in that assumption and it would appear that while some parts of the Great Palace and the Palace of Blachernae were designed to parade the majesty of the imperial office, there were other, more private, sections. Here the mosaics displayed not pious emperors but hunting scenes, cavorting animals and playful children. One set of floor mosaics from the hall known as the Augousteios shows two boys riding on a camel, another driving geese and a man tumbling backwards off a donkey, which seems to be giving him a kick for good measure. Because it was a collection of buildings rather than a single edifice, the Great Palace had room for extensive gardens: there were shady porticoes, a courtyard for playing ball games and numerous fountains.32 At Blachernae, there were marble floors, colourful rooms, a menagerie where the emperor kept his pet lions and beautiful views from the high towers across the surrounding countryside.33 The emperor also had the use

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Figure 9  Great Palace mosaic: Boy driving geese (Montainpics/Shutterstock.com).

of a number of smaller palaces outside the city walls, perfect for escaping the summer heat. Among them were Philopation, just outside the Golden Gate in the Land Walls, and Skoutarion close to Chrysopolis on the Asian side of the Bosporus.34 These were the places where the emperors could relax and enjoy the privileges of power to the full. Hunting was probably the commonest imperial pastime. Emperors would either sally forth into the countryside from the Palace of Blachernae or spend a few days in the extensive stretch of parkland that surrounded the Philopation, which was well stocked with game, particularly boar and wild asses. Some emperors seem to have derived immeasurable delight from the chase and pursued their quarry with reckless abandon. Basil I is credited with bringing down a deer and a wolf by throwing his club at them and breaking their back legs. When confronted on one occasion by a large lion-like creature, most of Manuel I’s retinue ran away. The emperor, however, stood his ground and dispatched the animal with his sword.35 Isaac I Komnenos particularly enjoyed bringing down crane with a bow and arrow: He would shoot them down from the sky, and truly his pleasure in this was not unmixed with wonder. The wonder was that a bird so exceptionally big, with feet and legs like lances, hiding itself behind the clouds, should in the twinkling of an eye be caught by an object so much smaller than itself. The pleasure he derived was from the bird’s fall, for the crane, as it fell, danced the dance of death, turning over and over, now on its back, now on its belly.36

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There were other pleasures opened up by the imperial office. Many Byzantines loved chariot races, but the imperial incumbent had no need to watch them with the common herd in the Hippodrome. He could stage his own in the privacy of one of his palaces, as Alexios III did at Blachernae in 1199 to celebrate the marriages of his daughters. Some emperors even took part in these private contests themselves.37 Then there were the pleasures of the table with many emperors earning themselves reputations as gourmets and gluttons. Manuel I was known to relish savoury dishes, especially if the meal was accompanied by music.38 There was also plenty of scope for indulging their sexual tastes and for exploiting the aphrodisiac effect of power to the full. One emperor discovered that there was no one to gainsay him if he wished to sleep with his niece, and another used to take parties of prostitutes out into the countryside during the summer months for open-air orgies.39 Even when out on a campaign with their armies, Byzantine emperors were not inclined to rough it. A tenth-century military treatise lays down that the equipment to be taken into the field should include thick tufted rugs for reclining on, a bath with a hide cistern of red leather, flax-blue cushions, silver coolers for scented wine and rose water, two gilded chairs concealing chamber pots, silken sheets, linen towels, assorted ointments and perfumes and the imperial silver table service. For the transport of this last item alone some eighty pack animals were required.40 Such were the material benefits of the imperial office. One emperor who had enjoyed them all to the full during his ten-year reign had been Alexios III’s brother, Isaac II, as Choniates recalled: Daily he fared sumptuously and served up a sybaritic table, tasting the most delectable sauces, heaping up the bread, and feasting on a lair of wild beasts, a sea of fish, and an ocean of deep-red wine. On alternate days, when he took pleasure in the baths, he smelled of sweet unguents and was sprinkled with oils of myrrh. … The dandy strutted about like a peacock and never wore the same garment twice. By 1200, of course, Isaac’s circumstances were rather different. He was blind and a prisoner while his brother Alexios enjoyed the lifestyle that he had lost. No wonder that Isaac plotted and schemed, hoping against hope one day to be restored to his rightful place on the throne and to all the perquisites that came with it.41 * In view of what has been said so far, it might be wondered how the Byzantine Empire survived for so many centuries, when the main elements in its political structure were high-sounding theory masking endless political intrigue and personal gratification. Had that been all there was to the matter, then the empire probably would not have lasted anywhere near as long as it did. The

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fact is that just as Byzantine political theory covered over the seamier side of life at the top, it also obscured one of the greatest strengths of Byzantine government: that the responsibility for running the empire did not in actual fact rest with only one man. As far as the theory was concerned, it was frequently said that the Byzantine emperor was like a helmsman, standing alone at the tiller, guiding the ship through the buffeting waves. Or else, he was like the sun, shining alone in the firmament.42 Yet the helmsman could rely on a number of sources of support in keeping a straight course. He stood at the summit of a ruling class who provided many of his generals and advisers. He had the use of a sophisticated bureaucracy based in the Great Palace. Last, and by no means least, he had the often formidable assistance of his wife and female relatives. By the year 1200, the Byzantine ruling class was a very visible group in Constantinople. Their mansions and palaces lined the Mese, the Triumphal Way and the other principal thoroughfares and were clustered in the area known as Sphorakion to the north of the Forum of Constantine. Some were miniature versions of the Great Palace, consisting not of just one building but of a complex of them, including bathhouses and private chapels, their interiors decorated with expensive mosaics. The names of these great families, Komnenos, Palaiologos, Bryennios, Botaneiates, Doukas, Kamateros, Kantakouzenos and, of course, Angelos, crop up again and again in the historical record and surviving documentation. For by the late twelfth century, their members monopolized many of the highest positions in the army and in the Church and bore sonorous honorific titles such as Patrikios, Magistros and Protostrator. Many were linked to the imperial family by marriage or descent.43 The same people surrounded the emperor at court and constituted the membership of the Senate, which was by now a purely honorific body. They followed him from the Great Palace to Blachernae and, when the heat of the city became unbearable in the summer, out into the countryside to one of the suburban palaces. Here they would discuss affairs of state with the emperor and help him to decide policy. Anna Komnene recalled that her father, Alexios I, used to talk about such matters with her uncle George Palaiologos.44 Yet although the great families of Constantinople were the constant companions of the emperor and provided many of his most important generals and officers, they also presented the greatest threat. It was, after all, from their ranks that usurpers were most likely to arise, for they had the resources and personal authority to gather an army and lead it against Constantinople. This was the fear that had prompted Andronicus I to embark on his reign of terror in 1183–5, for he reasoned that if he got rid of the giants, there would only be pygmies to rule over. His fears proved to be justified when he was toppled by Isaac Angelos.45 So the emperors must have been grateful for their second source of support, the bureaucrats of the Great Palace who filled the higher offices in the administration. They too

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bore grandiloquent titles such as Megas Logothetes (Chief Minister) and Epi tou Kanikleiou (He who holds the Inkstand). Their main duties were to draft letters, laws, decrees and treaties, to oversee the treasury and postal services, and to organize the collection of taxes. In many cases, though, they were far more influential than that. Prominent individuals often advised the emperor on policy and tactics and carried out the vital task of publicizing and explaining that policy in public, by means of formal speeches on special occasions, praising the reigning emperor and his achievements. Entry into this elite cadre was dependent not on birth but on education. Entrants had to have completed the traditional course of higher education in the Greek classics. This did not in itself provide much in the way of vocational qualification for the task of administering an empire, but it did give the opportunity to those of relatively modest backgrounds to get a foot on the ladder. Michael Psellos (c. 1022–c. 1080), who rose to become the most important adviser to successive emperors during the eleventh century, had no link to any of the great families of Constantinople, but his mother ensured that he had the best teachers and that qualified him to obtain his first post as a secretary at court. Niketas Choniates had been born in a provincial town but had been sent to Constantinople to be educated.46 With these kinds of examples in mind, an ambitious father counselled his son: Learn your letters as much as you are able. See that man over there, my child: he used to walk on foot, and now he has a fat mule with a fine harness. This one, when he was a student, used to go barefoot, and see him now in his pointed boots! This other one, when he was a student, never combed his hair, and now he is well combed and proud of his locks. That one in his student days never saw a bath door from afar, and now he bathes three times a week. That one was full of lice as big as almonds and now his purse is full of gold pieces with the Emperor Manuel’s effigy.47 Even so, as the solicitous parent went on to say, education did not necessarily guarantee a place at court, and Constantinople was full of highly educated but impecunious men. Those who did make it by virtue of their educational accomplishments alone, like Psellos, would have had a vested interest in supporting the reigning emperor on whose patronage they depended. After all, new emperors tended to rid themselves of the counsellors of the old regime and bring in creatures of their own, although Psellos himself was remarkable for his ability to survive changes of ruler. The bureaucrats could therefore generally be counted on to remain loyal, at least until things had reached such a pass that they realized that the time had come to sink or swim.48 There was another reason why members of the bureaucracy were more trustworthy than the aristocracy. Many of them were eunuchs, and as such they were specifically prohibited by virtue of their physical mutilation from occupying the imperial office. Emperors could entrust them with the highest powers of state without fear that they might make a bid for the throne. Some

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eunuchs had arrived in Constantinople as slaves, either captives in war or even as gifts from foreign ambassadors, but many were of Byzantine origin. It was not uncommon for parents to castrate one of their sons as a baby, a practice that was particularly common in Paphlagonia in northern Asia Minor. That might appear cruel, but it did give the boy an opportunity for a glittering career at court in later life. No less than ten of the most important posts at court that involved close contact with the emperor were specifically reserved for eunuchs, including that of Parakoimomenos or chamberlain, whose splendid title meant ‘He who sleeps alongside’ the imperial person. Childhood castration certainly worked well for a certain John who came from humble origins in Paphlagonia to hold the office of Orphanotrophos at the Byzantine court.49 Some members of the imperial bureaucracy rose to positions of extraordinary power and influence. A notable example is Basil Lekapenos. An illegitimate son of an emperor, Romanos I Lekapenos (920–44), Basil had been castrated in infancy to preclude any attempt on the throne in later life and was given a job in the palace administration. He rose to become Parakoimomenos, a post he was to hold during the reigns of four emperors and from which he commanded extraordinary influence. Not only did Basil dominate the administration of the empire, he also commanded armies in the field and played an important role in bringing new emperors to power in 963 and 969. For many years, he was the most powerful individual in the Great Palace, his imperial master notwithstanding.50 He was by no means unique in wielding such power. During the eleventh century, Michael Psellos, who was not a eunuch, could boast that the emperor was ready to follow whatever course of action he advised. This was still the case in Alexios III’s day, for the chief Parakoimomenos, George Oinaiotes, was an extremely influential voice in court.51 Apart from the aristocracy and the bureaucrats, there was a third group at court which exerted a powerful influence on the emperor and on the way he ruled: the emperor’s mother, sisters and other female relatives, and his wife the empress. Never were theory and practice more at odds in Byzantium than when it came to their role in government. The theory was that women could play no part at all for as Michael Psellos pointed out, it would be improper for the empire to be governed by a woman, rather than by a man.52 A special section of the Great Palace and the Palace of Blachernae was set aside where they could be properly sequestered, the so-called gynaikonitis or women’s quarters. Nevertheless, a succession of powerful women had moulded Byzantine history and culture, starting with Helena, the mother of Constantine. Theodora, the consort of the great Justinian, was so deeply involved in affairs of state that a male contemporary exclaimed in horror that ‘she claimed the right to administer the whole Roman empire!’ Irene, the widow of Leo IV (775–80) had ruled the empire alone between 797 and 802. She then fell victim to a palace coup but that was hardly an unusual occurrence.53 A more recent example had been the extraordinary position occupied by Anna Dalassena, the mother of Alexios I Komnenos. Alexios had seized power in a coup in 1081, but for the first years of his reign

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there was no doubt where real power lay. According to his daughter Anna, the emperor did nothing without his mother’s advice and even declared that without her acumen and judgement, the empire could never survive. When, a few months after his accession, Alexios was compelled to lead his army against the Normans who had invaded the Balkan provinces, it was Anna Dalassena whom he appointed to rule in the capital in his absence. A special gold-sealed document or chrysobull was issued proclaiming that any decrees made by Anna would have the same validity as those of the emperor himself. Anna Dalassena certainly seems to have been a formidable individual. Courtiers quailed before her very glance, and her arrival in the Great Palace was the signal for sweeping moral reforms. She insisted that everyone participate in communal hymn singing and expected that they keep to strict breakfast times. She was also a noted patron of monks and hermits and left a monument in the church and monastery of Christ the AllSeeing (Pantepoptes) which she founded and endowed.54 In 1200, women still played an important role in the politics of the Byzantine court, with the empress Euphrosyne standing at the centre of much of the intrigue. She had played an important part in her husband Alexios III’s coup in 1195 by persuading the court and the patriarch to accept the downfall of Isaac II and to proclaim Alexios as emperor when he returned to Constantinople from Thrace. A member of one of the great families of Constantinople, the Kamateroi, Euphrosyne seems to have ensured that the elevation of her husband to the purple brought benefits for the whole clan. Her brother, Basil Kamateros, became prominent at court while her brother-in-law, Michael Stryphnos was appointed admiral of the fleet.55 She also involved herself with the everyday business of the government, which inevitably brought down on her the fury of Niketas Choniates. He declared that she brought confusion to the government of the empire by deliberately altering and countermanding her husband’s decrees, and he accused her of megalomania bordering on insanity: she allegedly cut the snout off the statue of the Calydonian boar in the Hippodrome and had the giant Hercules there lashed with a whip, though Choniates does not explain precisely why she should wish to do so, contenting himself with dark hints about the rites and divination that she allegedly practised.56 In fact, Euphrosyne’s interference in the government may not have been as unhelpful as Choniates implies. She seems to have become alarmed at quite an early stage at the way in which Alexios III was frittering away the revenues. She therefore secured the appointment as her minister of a certain Constantine Mesopotamites, who had held office under the previous regime. The idea seems to have been that Mesopotamites would bring some order into the empire’s currently rather chaotic financial affairs. This wellmeant move had serious repercussions. The appointment of Mesopotamites enraged Basil Kamateros and others of Euphrosyne’s relatives who had been doing rather well under the old system where nobody asked too many questions. There was little that they could do to remove the hated minister,

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so they decided to strike at Euphrosyne instead. In the summer of 1196, they secured an audience with Alexios and accused the empress of adultery with a young general called Vatatzes. The emperor, who seems to have suffered from extraordinary gullibility, had Vatatzes murdered without further question and had some of the palace eunuchs and chambermaids tortured to extort evidence. When it came to his wife, Alexios vacillated for a time and even dined cosily with her at Blachernae as if nothing had happened. Then he suddenly acted and banished her to a nunnery on the Black Sea. She was only in disgrace for six months, though. During that time her relatives relented, realizing that they had brought shame on their family for they had never dreamt that the normally emollient Alexios would act so drastically. Meanwhile Constantine Mesopotamites lobbied tirelessly for the empress’s recall. Alexios gave way, and in the spring of 1197 Euphrosyne returned. Before long she was more powerful than ever.57 Byzantine political theory had nothing to say about bureaucrats, eunuchs or women. Yet it was they who made the whole system workable. However self-indulgent, bloodthirsty or simply mediocre the imperial incumbent was, there was always a body of older, wiser heads to advise and restrain him. Moreover, when, as often happened, the emperor was toppled and replaced, there was an element of continuity. In spite of the inevitable purges, there would always be some bureaucrats left to carry on with business as usual in the Great Palace, and in some cases the new emperor would even marry his predecessor’s wife. While the panegyrists regurgitated the theory and soldiers and aristocrats schemed and jockeyed for position in the corridors of the Great Palace and the Palace of Blachernae, the task of the government went on.

5 Churches and monasteries

Constantinople’s ecclesiastical edifices were an essential ingredient in the myth. These were, of course, the three most prominent: the cathedral of Hagia Sophia, the five-domed Holy Apostles and the Mother of God at Blachernae but even among the rest there was a host of beautiful and inspiring buildings, described by one visitor as being ‘infinite in number’. By one estimate, there were 294 churches in Constantinople by 1200 and around 300 monasteries and convents. A contemporary put the figure for the latter rather lower at sixty-three but he was probably not counting those in the suburbs.1 These religious buildings would have been a distinctive feature of the landscape and their mosaic decoration, their marble facings and pavements, their soaring pillars, their precious relics and their holy icons excited awe and admiration in visitors. Most of the churches would have looked remarkably similar on the outside, even if some of them were larger than others. They were almost all built, like those in medieval western Europe, in the shape of a cross but they had a square ground plan and lacked the long nave of Romanesque and Gothic architecture. They tended to be of brick rather than stone and to be surmounted by a dome or domes rather than a spire or tower. They had very little in the way of exterior ornamentation and they lacked the elaborate carving and tracery which graces the façades of western cathedrals. That was because most effort and expense were reserved for the decoration of the interior and particularly for the mosaics which covered their walls and ceiling. For like the palaces, the churches of Constantinople were designed with a particular ideological end view. The idea was that the moment that worshippers crossed the threshold, they left behind the material, everyday world and entered the Kingdom of Heaven. The square design of the church meant that they were at once surrounded and enfolded by the space: there was no long vista to a distant altar. Within that intimate space, the decorative scheme of the mosaics was designed to act as a window onto the divine, conveying the people’s veneration towards heaven and involving them in the metaphysical world. The effect was enhanced by following a strict pattern of iconography which

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divided the church into three levels. The lowest level depicted the saints, facing forward and gazing directly at the visitor, often at eyelevel. Above the saints, on the second level of the higher walls and ceilings, were depicted selected incidents from the lives of Christ and the Virgin Mary, particularly the Nativity, the baptism of Christ, the betrayal in the garden of Gethsemane, the crucifixion, the resurrection and the death of the Virgin. It was at the third and highest level of the church that the two most important images were to be found. One was the Virgin and Child, which was always placed in the apse at the far end of the church, behind the altar, so that when the congregation were facing the priest and the altar screen or iconostasis they would also be facing the image of the Virgin and Child. The other, high up in the top of the dome, was the image of Christ Pantokrator. The word has two meanings in Greek. It can mean ‘all-ruling’, signifying that Christ was the ruler of all creation, but it can also mean ‘all-holding’, indicating that he was enfolding his faithful people in his care. The dome and its image stood directly over the place where the congregation were gathered. Their eyes would inevitably be drawn up to the figure in the dome, while Christ looked down, his hand lifted in blessing. To those who entered Byzantine churches, the effect of the glittering mosaics, whether viewed by flickering candlelight or lit up by the sun pouring in through the upper windows, must have been stunning. Some Russians reported that when they entered the churches of Constantinople ‘we knew not whether we were in Heaven or on earth. For on earth there is no such splendour or such beauty’.2 This universal and standardized scheme of decoration had not always graced the churches of Constantinople. Back in Constantine’s day there had

Figure 10  Christ Pantokrator from the Chora church (Evren Kalinbacak/ Shutterstock.com).

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been many influential Christians who were very uneasy with the physical depiction of Christ, the Virgin and the saints as they feared that it might lead to idolatry. One of them was Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea who, when asked by Constantine’s sister for a picture of Jesus, had written a stern letter reminding her of the second Commandment and its prohibition of graven images.3 During the eighth century, these views had become influential at the Byzantine court. Following a string of disasters at the hands of the Arabs, Emperor Leo III (717–41) and his advisers seem to have believed that the Byzantines were being punished for idolatry and in 726 a troop of soldiers was dispatched to the Brazen Gate to take down the icon of Christ. This iconoclast policy was taken further under Leo’s son and successor, Constantine V (741–75), when steps were taken to remove the figural decoration in some churches. At the Church of the Mother of God in Blachernae, mosaics showing the birth and ministry of Christ were scraped off and replaced with birds and fruit trees. In Hagia Sophia and St Irene the apse mosaics of the Virgin and Child were chipped away and replaced with a simple cross. Inevitably there was opposition but Constantine V was not a man to be trifled with. One monk who criticized the policy was flogged to death and another was dragged through the streets and lynched.4 In the end, in spite of all Constantine V’s efforts, the defenders of icon veneration won the argument and they did so by developing a sophisticated theology to justify their case. Foremost among them was John of Damascus (c. 665–749), a monk who lived near Jerusalem in Arab territory where he was safe from imperial retribution. In his three works in defence of icons, John justified their veneration on the basis of two ideas. He drew a distinction between the icon itself and the person depicted on it. When you venerated an icon, that veneration was directed not to the wood of which the icon was made but to the saint who lay beyond it. The act of veneration of an icon was not, therefore, idolatry but a legitimate and praiseworthy act of worship. In fact, John claimed in his second point, it was essential to orthodox Christian belief. Only by accepting icons could one accept the truth of the incarnation of Christ. If you denied that Christ could be depicted in wood and paint, you denied that he could have been present in flesh and bone. John pointed to the transfiguration on Mount Tabor, when divine glory had shone around Jesus, and his disciples had bowed down and worshipped him. They were not worshipping the material matter of which the human Christ was composed, but the Godhead which lay beyond it, and so it was with icons.5 These ideas ultimately won the day, and by the 780s iconoclasm was on the wane. At the Seventh Ecumenical Council at Nicaea in 787 the veneration of icons was declared to be legitimate and orthodox. Iconoclasm had a brief revival between 815 and 842 but thereafter died out altogether. The icon of Christ was put back up over the Brazen Gate and the mosaics were restored to the churches.6 By 1200, the arguments of John of Damascus were encapsulated in every church in Constantinople. Each one acted as icon, its decoration providing a conduit through which the veneration of

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the worshippers passed from this material world to the ultimate spiritual reality that lay beyond. The iconoclast emperor Constantine V had long since been consigned to the realm of legend, an archetypical villain who fought against the true faith. He was alleged to have turned churches into rubbish dumps and to have thrown relics of the saints into the sea. Those who had opposed him were regarded as martyrs and over the years their stories were embellished and elaborated. After all, there could be no doubt that Constantine V and the iconoclasts were wrong. Christ himself had made it clear that he wanted his image to be venerated and displayed: that was why he had sent the imprint of his face to the ruler of Edessa, an image that was now the Mandylion in the Pharos chapel of the Great Palace. Christ’s mother had likewise endorsed the making of images. She had sat for her portrait by St Luke, who had thus created the famous Hodegetria icon.7 Just as with the legend of Constantine, the past had been carefully manipulated to support the present. * Many of Constantinople’s churches were part of a monastery or convent. One of the oldest, largest and best known of its monastic houses was that often known simply as Stoudios. Dedicated to St John the Baptist, the monastery took its name from the influential senator called Stoudios who had founded it in the fifth century. It later became a centre both of monastic reform and of manuscript production.8 There was also the Hodegoi where the famous icon of the Virgin was kept, and close to Blachernae lay the Holy Saviour, known as Chora or ‘in the country’ (Figures 10 and 11). That was because when it was founded, it lay outside the city wall and it was only with the construction of the new Land Walls in 413, that it was brought inside the city limits. For women there was the Virgin Full of Grace and other convents. There were many more outside the city limits, strung out along both sides of the Bosporus and on islands in the Sea of Marmara. Just outside the Land Walls were St Cosmas and St Damian, always known as the Kosmidion, and the Virgin Evergetes, the ‘doer of good works’. These monastic institutions offered an opportunity to escape the world in the heart of the metropolis. Stoudios was sequestered in the extreme southwest of the city, not far from the Golden Gate, its walls enclosing a complex of buildings, orchards and fountains. As one of the monks there wrote, it provided an idyllic haven of calm amid the bustle and temptations of the city: No barbarian looks upon my face, no woman hears my voice. For a thousand years no useless man has entered the monastery, none of the female sex has trodden its court. I dwell in a cell that is like a palace; a garden, an olive grove and a vineyard surround me. On one hand is the great city with its market places and on the other the mother of churches and the empire of the world.9

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Figure 11  The church of the monastery of the Holy Saviour in Chora (rm/Shutterstock.com).

While monasticism was practised and admired throughout the Christian world, there were some differences between the life of monks in Byzantium and those of medieval western Europe. Byzantine monks wore a different type of habit, covering their heads with a close-fitting black cowl. There were no monastic orders, along the lines of the Benedictines, Dominicans or Cistercians. Instead each monastery or convent had its own rule that was written into its foundation charter or typikon. These rules tended to follow a pattern that had been established by the monastic reformer Theodore the Stoudite (759–826) in the guidelines that he provided for Stoudios. Theodore’s main concern was the liturgical year that the monks of Stoudios were to follow, their diet and their dress and his instructions were extraordinarily detailed. The dress code took the chilly Constantinopolitan winters into account. Each monk was allowed two woollen tunics, one outer garment not made of wool, two cowls, two undergarments and two scapulars, short cloaks that covered the shoulders. For footwear he was allowed both short- and long-legged boots as well as leggings. For a bed he was allowed two mats, one of goat hair and one of straw, and two woollen blankets. The food eaten in the monastery depended on the time of year, although red meat was permanently off the menu. During Lent, the period of fasting in February and March leading up to Easter, one meal a day of boiled beans and chickpeas was all the monks got, though dried figs and chestnuts might be added if available. After Easter, two cooked dishes were served with fish, cheese, eggs and vegetables in olive oil. On feast days three measures of wine went with them. As for the rest of the day, the monks

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would have spent a good deal of their time in church, singing the liturgy and reciting the psalms and Theodore was well aware of human frailty: at every service, one monk was to be given the task of prodding any of his brothers who had nodded off. There was more to life at Stoudios than just singing and eating though. Theodore was a great believer in manual work as part of monastic discipline and, as well as other tasks, the monks spent much of the day in the scriptorium laboriously copying out manuscripts which in the days before printing was the only way to reproduce a book. There were also days off when the monks borrowed a book from the library to study. They were expected to return it promptly that evening and there was a penalty if they were late.10 All this might seem like a selfish withdrawal from the world but monks and nuns did in fact contribute a great deal to the life and well-being of the Byzantine capital. The monasteries provided social services for the whole of the city’s population, notably hospitals, old people’s homes, orphanages and hostels for travellers.11 To contemporaries they had an even more important function, that of acting as a kind of bridge between the mass of humanity and the Almighty. While all Byzantines were Christians, most of them were painfully aware that they themselves fell woefully short of the standards of life laid down in the Gospels. They therefore placed their hopes for salvation in the spiritual elite of men and women who had given up the good things of this world and who had dedicated themselves to the service of God. It was hoped that by their merits, their prayers and their fasting, they would somehow atone for the failings of others and act as intercessors with God for the rest of humanity. This pious hope permeated the whole of society. Emperor Nikephoros II Phokas used to sleep on the floor, wrapped in a leopard skin that had been given to him by his uncle who was a monk. Michael IV (1034–41) not only rebuilt and refounded the Kosmidion monastery but had himself taken there during his last illness so that he could be tonsured as a monk on his deathbed.12 The emperor’s prominent subjects used their wealth to encourage the monks in their salvific calling. Constantine Lips established a monastery dedicated to the Virgin near the Church of the Holy Apostles in the early tenth century. Christopher Phagouros provided land on which to build a monastery on the other side of the Bosporus. The less affluent shared the enthusiasm even if they could not match the generosity. When a popular monk called Symeon the New Theologian returned from exile in around 1011, they lined the streets of Constantinople to cheer him.13 This Symeon was in many ways typical of the kind of monk who captured the imagination of the Byzantines, even though from the perspective of many centuries later he does not come across as an attractive character. In his voluminous writing he set out some forthright and occasionally rather disturbing views. He rejected any charity or kindness as a way to the salvation of the soul. He claimed that any kind of friendship or family ties were unsuitable for monks, whose only obedience should be to God, to their spiritual mentor and to the emperor, in that order. He could not resist

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getting involved in theological disputes and ended up being exiled by the patriarchal synod to a village on the Asian side of the Bosporus. For the Byzantines he had two redeeming features. First he was a rigorous ascetic who sought to enhance his soul by denying the body. As a young man, he had lived a dissolute life in Constantinople before he decided to renounce it all and to enter the monastery of Stoudios. There he embarked on a regime of abstinence and self-denial so rigorous that it went well beyond the requirements of the rule of Theodore the Stoudite. It also disturbed his rather less rigorous brethren and Symeon found himself summoned before the abbot and told to tone down his ascetic lifestyle so as to fit in better with the community as a whole. Never one to compromise, he quit Stoudios and went to the neighbouring house of St Mamas where he would be free to be as self-denying as he wished. At the age of thirty-one, he became abbot of this rather rundown and dilapidated establishment, announcing at the outset that he intended to reform the place which, he said, had become a meeting place for worldly men. He got his way to start with but he pushed his flock too far and provoked a crisis when a group of thirty monks burst into the chapel while he was giving a sermon during matins and angrily barracked him. In the face of determined opposition, Symeon resigned as abbot and became an ordinary monk again. The other thing that marked Symeon out was the ideas that he put forward about the role of monks as mystics who should practise an intense and constant inward prayer. He claimed that he himself did so and that on one occasion it had led to his being surrounded by an intense light and being caught up in an out-of-the-body experience. The Byzantines loved mysticism almost as much as asceticism and it was enough to ensure Symeon’s posthumous rehabilitation. Although he died in exile, in 1052 his body was brought back to Constantinople and reinterred in the church of the monastery of St Mamas. His tomb became famous for its ability to heal the sick, a sure sign of sanctity. He was a relatively rare example of a home-grown saint rather than one whose relics had been imported from elsewhere, the product of one of Constantinople’s own monasteries.14 * Prominent individuals like Symeon aside, when it came to Constantinople’s religious life, there was a particularly strong tension between myth and reality, for it was difficult to be a holy city and a centre of political power and wealth at the same time. The church and everyday life were so closely intertwined that the latter was bound to invade the former, and Constantinople’s religious buildings were never just places where services and prayers were said or where lives of contemplation were followed. The grand showcase churches were a case in point. They were doubtless expressions of deeply held religious belief but considerations of influence and propaganda went into their construction as emperors vied with each other to create ever

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more grandiose memorials to their reigns. Justinian had led the way in the construction of Hagia Sophia. It is likely that one of the reasons that he chose such a radical new design was because a few years ago a rich and pious noblewoman called Anicia Juliana had paid for the construction of St Polyeuktos which everyone had hailed as the most splendid church in Constantinople. The emperor could not bear to be outdone.15 A splendid new church could paper over the cracks in an emperor’s legitimacy. Basil I was a usurper who had come to the throne by murdering his predecessor. He made up for that by commissioning the five-domed New Church or Nea Ekklesia that stood within the precincts of the Great Palace. Inaugurated in 881, its interior was faced with costly marble and its ceiling mosaics were said to shine like stars.16 The same considerations doubtless lay behind the church and monastery of the Myrelaion, built by Romanos I Lekapenos and the Church of Christ the Saviour on top of the Brazen Gate, reconstructed by John I Tzimiskes, who claimed that he disliked the original cramped and inconvenient building. Both men had come to power in a coup.17 A further impetus for a new building came in 1028 when, with the burial of Constantine VIII, there was no more room in the Heröon or anywhere else at the Holy Apostles for any further interments of deceased rulers.18 The emperors thereafter vied with each other to build ever more magnificent and lavishly decorated churches which would serve as their final resting place. Romanos III Argyros constructed the splendid church and monastery of the Virgin Peribleptos in the south of Constantinople, sparing no expense and ‘pouring rivers of gold’ into the project in an attempt to rival Hagia Sophia. Ultimately he was buried there in a sarcophagus made of red jasper.19 John II Komnenos founded the Pantokrator monastery which served as his resting place and that of his son and successor, Manuel I. It was Manuel who greatly increased the monastery’s prestige by securing a precious relic for it: the slab of red marble on which Christ had lain after his crucifixion. He had it shipped to Constantinople from Ephesus and, when it arrived at the harbour of Boukoleon, carried it up to the palace on his own back. After Manuel’s death in 1180, the slab was used to surmount his tomb.20 To beautify their own foundations, emperors happily stole from those of their predecessors. Basil I took mosaics and pillars from Justinian and Theodora’s Church of the Holy Apostles for his Nea Ekklesia. Basil’s church was in turn robbed by Isaac II.21 Perhaps the best example of the worldly origins of Constantinople’s great ecclesiastical foundations is that of one of the largest and most beautiful, the church and monastery of St George in Mangana. Its story is inseparable from that of its founder, Emperor Constantine IX Monomachos and it came into being not so much as a result of pious devotion but as a memorial to a relationship that the church would have considered adulterous and immoral. Monomachos was not a Porphyrogenitos but a member of a very prominent noble Constantinopolitan family. He was lucky enough to grow up not just rich but handsome too: a court poet quipped that he had no need of gold with

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hair as blond as his.22 In the suspicious atmosphere of the Byzantine court though, those very good looks proved to be a liability. During the 1030s, when Monomachos was a frequent visitor to the palace, he charmed the empress Zoe with his conversation and wit. Zoe’s second husband, Emperor Michael IV was less impressed and decided to rid himself of a potential threat to the throne which, after all, Michael himself only held by virtue of his marriage to Zoe, one of the last representatives of the Macedonian dynasty. Constantine was arrested on a trumped-up charge and sentenced to exile on the Aegean island of Lesbos. Given the nature of Byzantine politics, one might consider Monomachos to have been lucky to escape murder or blinding but to any noble Byzantine, exile from Constantinople was a fate very close to death. Monomachos may well have uttered similar words to those of another of his class who was forced to leave Constantinople on a diplomatic mission: ‘O thrice-happy city, eye of the universe, ornament of the world, star shining afar, beacon of this lower world, would that I were within you, enjoying you to the full! Do not part me from your maternal bosom!’23 There was, however, one consolation for Monomachos in his dreary exile. He had been married twice but, after the death of his second wife, he was prevented from marrying again by Byzantine church law which did not permit a third union. He therefore took Maria Skleraina, the niece of his late wife, as a mistress, and the couple were, by all accounts, completely devoted to one another. So when Monomachos departed for Lesbos, Maria went too and used her money and possessions to ameliorate her lover’s situation as much as possible. One day in the early summer of 1042, a messenger arrived from Constantinople with momentous news. Michael IV had died and his nephew and successor, Michael V (1041–2), had been overthrown in a popular uprising. Empress Zoe and her sister Theodora were now in control of the Great Palace. With the news came a summons to return to Constantinople immediately. Zoe had decided that her old favourite was to become her husband, and when he reached the capital a splendid reception awaited him. A guard of honour was on hand to escort him on the final leg of his journey, and an ecstatic crowd cheered him as he rode up to the Brazen Gate. The patriarch of Constantinople was soon prevailed upon to make an exception to the rule on third marriages in this particular case, and on 11 June 1042 Monomachos married Zoe and was crowned emperor as Constantine IX. After all his trials and tribulations, Constantine had finally arrived at the summit of power, the dark days of Lesbos left far behind. The moment is captured in a mosaic portrait of the imperial couple on the wall of the cathedral of Hagia Sophia (Figure 12). Kneeling one on either side of a seated Christ, Constantine and Zoe both wear elaborate crowns and both have halos to denote the sanctity of the office they held. Some alteration is noticeable around the necks of the figures. It is quite possible that Constantine’s head has been substituted for that of one of his predecessors in power, Romanos III or Michael IV.24

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Figure 12  Constantine IX and Zoe from Hagia Sophia (Antony McAulay/ Shutterstock.com).

Many men in this situation would simply have forgotten about Maria Skleraina who had been left behind in Lesbos. After all, the need for her had passed, and even to admit to her existence could jeopardize all that had been won. Not so for Constantine, as his friend and biographer, Michael Psellos, recalled: ‘The emperor did not forget his beloved, even after his accession. With his physical eyes he beheld Zoe, but in his mind’s eye was the image of his mistress; while he enfolded the empress in his arms, it was the other woman he clasped in the imagination of his heart.’25 Against the urgent advice of his friends and relatives, Constantine decided to ask Zoe to recall Maria, presenting her simply as a victim of unjust punishment. Somewhat surprisingly, Zoe readily agreed. Maria was brought back to Constantinople and lodged in a modest house not far from the Great Palace. There Constantine visited her secretly but it soon became clear that there was little need for concealment. The fact was that Zoe, now aged over sixty, considered herself much too old to be jealous. It was therefore agreed that Maria should be allowed to come and live inside the Great Palace. Nor was that all. Maria became, in effect, Constantine’s second consort and a special title was created for her, that of Sebaste. She took part in official processions alongside the emperor and empress and was even given a say in affairs of state. Not surprisingly, this cosy ménage à trois did not meet with approval in all quarters. There were angry demonstrations in the streets against a commoner being given such honours to the prejudice

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of the rightful empress Zoe. Niketas Stethatos, the abbot of Stoudios and biographer of Symeon the New Theologian, publically rebuked Constantine for his infidelity.26 Constantine and Maria just rode out the storm and the patriarch and higher clergy turned a blind eye. There were, after all, different rules for emperors. Then, after about two years had passed, Maria fell ill, complaining of chest pains and difficulty in breathing. The doctors brought in by the emperor proved unable to help her and she died in 1044. Constantine was inconsolable and resolved to build for her a tomb that reflected the depth of his feeling for his lost love. The setting was to be the Church of St George of Mangana which stood to the northern extremity of the precincts of the Great Palace and which was already renowned for possessing an important relic, the head of the martyr St George. Constantine had the existing building pulled down and brought in an architect to plan a more impressive building. Work began on the project but before long Constantine decided that it was not splendid enough: he wanted something that ‘would rival all other buildings ever erected’. The site was cleared and enlarged and a new design adopted. Even when the foundations and walls had gone up, Constantine kept insisting on adding to and altering the design, having some parts pulled down and rebuilt once more. Gold leaf and green marble were shipped in to adorn the interior. The cost was astronomical and Constantine had to levy new taxes to finance the project. The result though was spectacular: a magnificent new church, set in a complex of monastic buildings, cloisters, fountains and extensive gardens. Even Psellos was impressed: Its every detail excited the greatest admiration. People marvelled at the size of the church, its beautiful symmetry, the harmony of its parts, the variety and rhythm of its loveliness, the streams of water, the encircling wall, the lawns covered with flowers, the dewy grass always sprinkled with moisture, the shade under the trees … It was as if a pilgrimage had ended, and here was the vision perfect and unparalleled.27 Inside, Constantine’s church was equally striking. It was a very tall building, so that the figure of Christ Pantokrator in the main dome appeared to be far away in the ether. The floor was overlaid with colourful slabs of porphyry and jasper with pride of place given to Maria Skleraina’s tomb of jasper. Constantine had indeed created a building that rivalled Hagia Sophia and the Holy Apostles.28 With Maria gone, Constantine consoled himself with other mistresses but his last years were clouded by illness, as he suffered appallingly from gout. Michael Psellos recorded the ravages that it wrought on Constantine’s once fine physique: I myself saw his fingers, once so beautifully formed, completely altered from their natural shape, warped and twisted with hollows here and projections there, so that they were incapable of grasping anything at all.

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His feet were bent and his knees, crooked like the point of a man’s elbow, were swollen, making it impossible for him to walk steadily or to stand upright for any length of time. He often used to go to the hospital attached to the church he had built, to seek relief. When he died in January 1055 he was laid to rest in St George of Mangana: not beside Zoe, who was buried in another church, but next to Maria Skleraina, the woman who had risked everything for him and for whom he had staked everything in return.29

TEXT BOX 5: A visit to the Church of St George in Mangana, 1403

S

ome three centuries after the death of Constantine IX, a Spanish diplomat called Clavijo passed through Constantinople on his way to Samarkand. While he was there, he paid a visit to St George in Mangana, although it would seem that by then it had long been forgotten that the woman buried in the splendid tomb there had been a concubine rather than an empress: On that same day, we were taken to see another church which is that of St George. Before the same stands a great court, wherein there are orchards and many houses and the main building of the church lies beyond these. At the church door stands a great font for baptism, very beautifully wrought, and it is surmounted by a cupola supported on eight pillars of white marble that are carved and ornamented with figures. The main building of the church is very lofty, and it is everywhere adorned with mosaic work. There is seen here the figure of our Lord Jesus Christ as he appeared ascending into Heaven. The flooring of the church is a wonder of workmanship being flagged with slabs of porphyry and jasper in many colours, with scroll work very deftly accomplished. The walls are similarly wrought and the ceiling immediately inside the doorway displays a figure of God the Father in mosaic work. Further, there is the semblance of the True Cross which an angel points to as it appears up in the clouds of heaven, while the apostles are seen below, as at the time when the Holy Spirit descended on them in tongues of fire. All this is done in mosaic work and very beautifully accomplished. In this same church is to be seen a great tombstone of jasper, which is covered over with a pall of silk, and here lies buried a certain empress. Ruy Gonzalez de Clavijo, Embassy to Tamerlane, trans. G. Le Strange, London: Routledge, 1928: 77.

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The people of Constantinople, fond as they were of myths and legends, were perfectly well aware of that the great churches of the city were not necessarily the places to find soaring spirituality: there was a popular saying to the effect that the larger the church the smaller the grace to be gained there. They knew too that the Byzantine clergy, like the emperors, did not always live up to the ideal. The senior ecclesiastic in Constantinople was the patriarch, an office that was held in 1200 by John X Kamateros. He was certainly no saint. It was an open secret that he held his position largely because he was a close relative of the empress Euphrosyne. He was not an unworthy patriarch and seems to have taken his duties seriously enough but he had weakness in his inordinate propensity for doctrinal disputation. A year before he became patriarch, he had caused a furore by using the occasion of a party at a friend’s house loudly to advertise his opinions on the theology of the Eucharist and by accusing anyone who disagreed with him of heresy. There had been both better and worse patriarchs than John X in the past. The nadir must have been Theophylact who was enthroned in 933 at the age of sixteen on the insistence of his father, who happened to be Emperor Romanos I. Not surprisingly, the young patriarch did not always have his mind on the job, being much more interested in horse breeding. He possessed a stable of over 2,000 horses and on one occasion, when he received news that his favourite mare was giving birth, he broke off a church service in Hagia Sophia halfway through so that he could rush down to the stables. At the other end of the scale was the courageous and principled Nicholas Mystikos, who in 906 dared to have the doors of Hagia Sophia slammed shut in the face of Leo VI (886–912), in protest against the emperor marrying for a fourth time.30 But then, the patriarch of Constantinople was not really expected to be a saint. The job was an administrative one and involved its incumbent in the mire of Byzantine politics too much for him to rise above the things of this world. It was to the monasteries that the Byzantines looked for holiness and, sadly, even here they were often disappointed. There was one great disadvantage of attempting to pursue a pure monastic life in a great capital city. The world and its politics had the habit of breaking in. Not only were monasteries built as vanity projects to bolster the prestige of the current imperial incumbent, but they were also regularly used as dumping grounds for the losers in the endless power games of the Byzantine court. In 1059, for example, Stoudios received a novice in the person of former emperor Isaac I Komnenos who had just abdicated in the face of vociferous opposition to his rule. He took refuge in the monastic life and spent the remainder of his days in writing and contemplation. Michael VII Doukas ended up in the same place in the spring of 1078, arriving under guard on the back of a mule. The emperor who dethroned Michael VII, Nikephoros III Botaneiates, was himself toppled three years later, though at least his conqueror had the goodness to send him to a different monastery, that of the Virgin Peribleptos. When asked later whether he found the sudden change in lifestyle tolerable, Nikephoros replied that he could cope

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with it for the most part but that he found it difficult to do without meat.31 Monasteries in the area just outside Constantinople frequently received such political prisoners. In 944, Romanos I was sent to a monastery on Prote, one of the Princes’ Islands in the Sea of Marmara, after having been ousted from the Great Palace by his rebellious sons Stephen and Constantine Lekapenos. According to one account, he had the satisfaction the following year of being joined by his sons, who by then had themselves become the victims of yet another palace coup. The ex-emperor is said to have met the disconsolate pair at the door, enquiring with withering sarcasm: ‘What a holiday it is that brought your imperial highnesses to visit us in our humble condition?’32 The forcible insertion of political undesirables can hardly have been conducive to spiritual life in the monasteries. True, some of these enforced monks and nuns accepted their lot and even displayed some vocation for the monastic life. Romanos Lekapenos happily turned to hoeing the beans until his death in 948, and Michael VII went on to become bishop of Ephesus. Others, however, harboured hopes of returning to political life and in some cases they succeeded in doing just that. Empress Euphrosyne, who was banished by her husband Alexios III to the convent of Nematarea at the Black Sea end of the Bosporus in 1196, returned to Constantinople only six months later. Michael Psellos fell out of favour at court in about 1054 and took the monastic habit, a step he attributed ‘partly to an innate desire which I had experienced from my earliest years … and partly to the complete metamorphosis in political affairs’. No sooner had the emperor died, however, than he was back in the Great Palace and enjoying the favour of the new incumbent, the monastery having served its purpose as a temporary asylum. John Doukas, the uncle of Michael VII, took the tonsure, probably at the Evergetes monastery, after the coup of 1078. Three years later he came out again to help Alexios Komnenos in his bid for the throne. When he appeared before the Land Walls with the rebel army, still in his monastic habit, he was hooted and jeered by the men on the battlements, who called him ‘the abbot’ and doubtless much else besides.33 Even those who did stay put behind monastery walls often made it clear that they had no intention of renouncing the things of this world. When Irene, the wife of Alexios I, founded and endowed the convent of the Virgin Full of Grace, she made provision in the foundation charter that female members of her family should be allowed to join the community, perhaps as an asylum from any political reverses they might suffer. She was careful to stipulate, however, that they should not have to follow the same diet as the other nuns or participate in all the church services. They should have their own room, two servants and their own private lavatory.34 It would seem that Irene’s daughter, Anna Komnene, was later to take advantage of this opportunity when she fell into disgrace as a result of her opposition to her brother, John II. She probably made little contribution to the spiritual life of the community as she made no secret of her resentment at being excluded from political life. She passed her time studying the works of Aristotle

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and writing a biography of her father. It would appear that only on her deathbed did she actually take vows as a nun.35 Understandably ordinary members of the community resented the privileges of these imperial monks and nuns, especially the superior food that they were served: white bread rather than brown, wine from Chios rather than diluted plonk from the Black Sea, catfish and brill rather than some unidentified creature fished out of the Bosporus.36 It was not just that politics invaded monastic life: the world of the monastery also invaded politics. Believing, as did all medieval Christians, in the efficacy of the prayers of saintly monks, many emperors brought them into the palace to act as spiritual advisers or took them with them on a campaign to pray for the success of the venture.37 Their position was much the same as that of Rasputin at the court of the last Russian tsar, and like Rasputin these palace monks soon attracted an unenviable reputation. After all, even the most saintly would have been hard put to maintain quite the same standards of self-denial on being catapulted from the austerity of a monastery into the sybaritic environment of the court. They were lampooned for their luxurious lifestyle, for gorging themselves at magnificent banquets and for making free with the imperial wine cellars. More seriously, they were accused of giving dubious advice to the emperor on matters about which, with their limited experience, they knew nothing, and they were widely blamed for unpopular policies and failures. Michael Psellos accused the monks who advised the empress Theodora in 1055–6 of having ‘brought ruin on the whole empire’. Isaac II Angelos was criticized for taking too much notice of the prophecies of the Stoudite monk, Dositheos, whom he appointed as the patriarch of Constantinople. On the basis of Dositheos’s prophecies, in 1189 Isaac adopted an aggressive stance towards the German emperor, Frederick Barbarossa, who was passing through the Byzantine Balkans on his way to the Holy Land for the Third Crusade. The consequences were disastrous. The Germans easily overcame the Byzantine army that was sent against them, and Isaac had to make a humiliating climb-down.38 The problem was not confined to monks in the palace, for they were everywhere in Constantinople. Not only were there large numbers of them, thanks to the proliferation of monasteries, but Byzantine abbots were never as strict as those in the west about insisting that monks remain cloistered behind high walls. They could be found pushing and shoving in crowds, swearing in the market, riding on horses and having affairs with women.39 Now that monasteries owned considerable tracts of land, they got into legal disputes with their neighbours. Symeon the New Theologian ended up in a fist fight with two brothers whose land was next to his monastery. Another disgruntled neighbour lobbed a rock through his window, narrowly missing Symeon’s head.40 The original idea of monasticism, that monks would give up the things of this world by fleeing from cities to desert places, seemed to have been lost sight of. No wonder that by 1200 the most prestigious monasteries had become those which were situated far away from the capital,

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such as those on Mount Athos in Macedonia or Mount St Auxentios in Asia Minor, remote from the temptations that abounded in Constantinople. * Disappointed in monks and monasteries, Byzantines in search of holiness turned to individual hermits and holy men who lived alone, outside the confines of monastic communities. There had always been a strong streak of individualism in the Byzantine monastic tradition. Monks did not take a vow of stability, to stay in the same place until they died but often wandered from place to place. Indeed, the Byzantines considered that the highest spiritual calling was not that of living a communal life but a solitary one: that of the hermit who lived alone and dedicated his entire life to prayer and abstinence. Such individuals were seen as particularly holy because they went far beyond the requirements of Theodore the Stoudite’s rule, performing extraordinary feats of self-denial and even self-harm. Theodore of Koloneia, a hermit who lived in the late tenth century, used to wear an iron corselet next to his skin beneath a hair shirt which must have kept him in constant agony.41 Such trials pale into insignificance compared to those of the hermits known as Stylites. These rigorous ascetics lived out their lives standing on the tops of the ancient columns that still survived from ancient times in Constantinople and all over the empire. They took their inspiration from St Symeon Stylites (c. 386–459), a Syrian hermit who spent the last forty-seven years of his life standing on a pillar near Antioch.42 Another peculiar Byzantine religious phenomenon was that of the holy fool. Perhaps as a conscious reaction to the celebrity status enjoyed by some stylites and hermits, this group sought to evade any admiration for their sanctity, and hence any temptation to the sin of pride, by behaving so outrageously as to attract only disgust and opprobrium. The first recorded example was a nun in Egypt in around 420 who, though perfectly sane, pretended to be mad, living in the convent kitchen, doing all the most menial jobs and wearing rags rather than a cowl on her head.43 Constantinople had stylites and holy fools of its own. The first stylite was Daniel, a disciple of Symeon the Stylite who moved from Syria to the imperial capital in the mid-fifth century and stood almost continuously for thirtythree years on a column at Anaplous on the European side of the Bosporus. Daniel, however, faced a greater challenge than his mentor Symeon, as the climate of Constantinople was not nearly as amenable as that of Syria. On one occasion, the column very nearly blew down in a gale. During one particularly severe winter an icy wind blew down from the Black Sea with such violence that it ripped off the holy man’s tunic and left him frozen stiff, his face ‘hidden by ice as though it were covered by glass’. Fearing the worst, his team of disciples brought buckets of warm water with which to thaw him out. To their immense relief, Daniel opened his eyes and recounted the beautiful dreams that he had experienced while in that catatonic state.

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Thereafter the emperor insisted that a small shelter be erected on top of the column, overruling the hermit’s protest that Symeon the Stylite had had no shelter.44 Stylites continued to be part of the Constantinopolitan scene long after Daniel’s death in 493. Luke the Stylite (c. 900–79), for example, stood for over forty years on the column of Eutropios in Chalcedon. On his death, another took his place but his vigil came to an abrupt end in 989 when a freak wave dashed the column to the ground and drowned him.45 Constantinople’s best-known holy fool was Andrew Salos who is thought to have died in about 474, although he may have been legendary and possibly never have existed at all. Originally from the area north of the Danube, Andrew was supposedly brought to Constantinople as a slave when he was a young boy. Although his master treated him kindly, Andrew yearned to be free and so pretended that he was mad. He was therefore locked up in the Church of St Anastasia which acted as a kind of lunatic asylum. During the night, Andrew was visited in a dream by St Anastasia herself who encouraged him to continue in his madness. When it was clear that no cure was forthcoming, Andrew was released after four months. The rest of his life was spent wandering the streets of Constantinople getting into all kinds of trouble, and the surviving record reads like an uproarious slapstick farce. On one occasion Andrew relieved himself behind a tavern, provoking its owner to rush out and rain blows on him while a passer-by, who was carrying a shepherd’s crook, laid into him with that as well. The hapless Andrew staggered into the middle of the road and passed out, whereupon he was run over by an ox cart. By a miracle, he got up afterwards completely unhurt. There was, of course, method in Andrew’s madness, calculated as it was to highlight the vanity of this passing world. Thus when Andrew went into one of the main squares of Constantinople and saw women selling jewellery he began shouting loudly ‘Chaff and dust!’ He had reckoned without a local wit, however, who quipped as he passed, ‘If you have chaff to sell, take it to the Anemodoulion,’ meaning that the wind vane was the place where all the chaff would be blown away.46 Eccentrics like these commanded the devotion of rich and poor alike. Emperor Michael IV used to invite hermits into the palace, embracing them, washing their feet and insisting that they slept in the imperial bed while he curled up on the floor. Constantine IX and Maria Skleraina made gifts of land and money to a stylite named Lazaros, whose pillar was at Mount Galesion near Ephesus. At the other end of the social scale, the fishermen of Constantinople gave a tenth of their catch to Luke the Stylite in return for his blessing on their labours.47 Like icons and relics, hermits were appealed to in moments of crisis. Faced with a dangerous rebellion in 1187, Emperor Isaac II summoned some stylites to the palace to pray for his survival. The prophecies of the holy fool Andrew were regarded as divinely inspired and were carefully recorded as a guide to future events.48 In spite of all the admiration, the people of Constantinople were as often let down by hermits as they were by monks in monasteries. There

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were always some individuals ready to exploit the admiration for holy men to extort money from gullible admirers. Hermits used to come into Constantinople from the countryside bearing baskets of fruit and vegetables to ‘sell’ on the streets. What they were really looking for was donations and they would persuade the pious but credulous to part with two or three gold coins for a single apple or pear. Others dealt in relics, such as the monk Andrew, whose offerings included no less than ten hands of St Prokopios, fifteen jaws of St Theodore, eight legs of St Nestor, twelve arms of St Demetrius and even the beards of the babies killed in the Massacre of the Innocents. The supposed ability of holy men to predict future events could also provide rich pickings. Early in 1042, an enterprising monk learned on the Constantinople grapevine that Constantine Monomachos was to be recalled from exile and married to Empress Zoe. He promptly jumped on a ship to Lesbos and got there in advance of the news. He then sought out the unsuspecting exile and announced that he had brought a prophecy from a holy stylite that Monomachos would soon be emperor. When the ‘prophecy’ was miraculously fulfilled, the grateful Constantine IX rewarded his informant with bags of gold. Then there were those who faked their ascetic sufferings. One individual was reported to have walked around Constantinople wearing an iron harness that apparently bit into his flesh and caused him to bleed profusely. Naturally such mortification attracted a horde of admirers, largely female, who showered gifts on the holy man. It turned out, however, that this particular hermit was not suffering at all, for he had simulated the bleeding by smearing himself with ox liver beforehand.49 Even the stylites of 1200 were not made of the same stern stuff as Daniel, as one contemporary complained: ‘A few great Stylites are recorded among the saints of old, sky-climbers who reached heaven by using pillars for ladders. But this generation sprouts the Stylite kind like trees in a forest, and these are not trees of life or trees of knowledge but very mean little trees indeed.’ The columns used by stylites now usually had shelters on top and stairways inside by which to ascend and descend.50 It would seem that they could not resist making use of the latter to get involved with the latest political upheaval. When Isaac I Komnenos entered Constantinople in triumph in 1057, the stylites were among the crowd that thronged the streets to cheer him, presumably returning to their columns when the tumult had died down. To be fair though, Daniel the Stylite had come down from his column in 475 to oppose the usurper Basiliscus.51 There were still holy fools on the model of Andrew Salos in Constantinople in 1200, but here too there was some wariness and scepticism as to their credentials for holiness. One nobleman advised caution in dealing with them: give them money by all means but do not engage with them too far.52 It would seem that the authority of hermits was waning because they had become just another aspect of the everyday world: a good indication that the Byzantines were not as blinkered to reality by their own myth-making as might at first be thought.

6 ‘Two thirds of the wealth of this world’

Conspicuous prosperity was very much part of the Byzantine myth, for visitors to Constantinople were as much amazed by its opulence as they were by the relics and the churches. ‘Wealth like that of Constantinople’, wrote one, ‘is not to be found in the whole world.’1 The abundance of precious metals, jewels and silk also played an important part in Byzantine diplomacy, gold coins and costly silk garments being routinely lavished on kings, rulers and dignitaries on whom the Byzantines wanted to make an impression. Yet while the wealth of Constantinople was undeniable, what was much less apparent was where it all came from. The Byzantine attitude seems to have been that riches were simply a corollary of Constantinople’s special spiritual status. Foreigners were informed that the city was the richest in the world because just as its inhabitants surpassed other people in wisdom, so they excelled them in wealth.2 There was, of course, rather more to the question than that, and a number of more down-to-earth factors lay behind the prosperity of medieval Constantinople: efficient management, wide circulation of money and the exploitation of trade. * As far as efficient management is concerned, perhaps the most surprising thing about Constantinople is not so much that it flourished but that it survived at all. No other city in the Christian world could match it in size, but that meant that it faced a severe challenge in finding the means to feed and to water its considerable population. The immediate resources for doing so were not plentiful. There was no natural freshwater on the site, apart from the small River Lykos, and the vast number of people within the Land Walls could not be fed by what was produced in the immediate vicinity. Up to the mid-seventh century the Byzantine emperors had been able to rely on imported corn from the province of Egypt to provide the all-important

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staple food, bread. In 642, however, Egypt was lost to the Arabs and with it Constantinople’s main source of grain. In the dark days of the later seventh and early eighth century, there was a real danger that the Byzantine capital would be brought to its knees by starvation, rather than being taken by storm. This was Constantinople’s dark age, when it ceased to be the capital of a mighty empire and became instead an embattled fortress, fending off enemies from its very walls. The needs of defence took priority over everything else and the building activity that had characterized previous centuries came to a complete halt. The population shrank drastically as repeated outbreaks of plague decimated the inhabitants. During the summer of 745, so many people died that the churchyards no longer had room for further burials. Pits had to be dug in the orchards and vineyards near the old, Constantinian wall. The emperors also encouraged people who did not have their own reserves of food to leave Constantinople and thus ease the strain on its dwindling resources.3 Then, after about 750 the empire began to recover. Its military fortunes revived and it slowly reconquered the Balkans from the Slavs and halted the Arab advance in the east. With Constantinople no longer directly threatened, its population started to rise. Emperors now encouraged settlers from the provinces to move to the capital, especially brick makers, plasterers and those with other useful skills. By 1050, the population had reached about 375,000, almost as many inhabitants as in the time of Justinian.4 The recovery did mean though that the old problem of how to keep all those people supplied with the necessities of life once was once more on the agenda. As regards the water supply, the superb infrastructure of aqueducts and cisterns, created in the fourth, fifth and sixth centuries, had been carefully restored and overhauled.5 There was no room for complacency, though, as adverse weather conditions could easily bring about an unexpected crisis. There was unusually low rainfall during the winter of 1167–8 so that the wells and cisterns were running dry as summer approached, prompting the authorities to embark on a programme of clearing out the pipes and aqueducts and to construct a new underground cistern outside the Land Walls.6 As far as the grain supply was concerned, the rulers of Byzantium had long since found new sources of supply to replace Egypt. All of Constantinople’s hinterland of Thrace, as well as Bulgaria, the Crimea and the lands around the Aegean, were tapped and their produce shipped to the capital. So efficient was the agriculture in these regions that a surplus was produced and in 1054 grain was even exported to Egypt where there was an acute shortage.7 The official responsible for making sure that this produce was properly distributed once it reached Constantinople was the eparch or prefect, the head of the city administration. He regulated the price at which grain was sold to bakers and that at which the bakers sold it to the public. The work of bakers was considered to be so vital that they were exempted from all other public service and anyone who attempted to raise the rent on a bakery was liable to be exiled for life.8

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Though the food supply was managed efficiently, something could always go wrong. In 1036, bad harvests caused the grain warehouses to run short and emergency supplies had to be brought in from Greece.9 Getting it wrong could be dangerous. In the late 1070s, the food supplies came under severe pressure as refugees flooded into Constantinople from Asia Minor which was rapidly being overrun by the Seljuk Turks. The chief minister, Nikephoritzes, attempted to stave off the crisis by taking the administration of the grain supply out of the hands of the eparch. Instead of storing the grain in Constantinople, he had it stockpiled in warehouses just outside the port of Rhaidestos on the Sea of Marmara to ensure that it was bought and sold at a fixed tariff. The policy backfired when farmers proved unwilling to sell to the government at the price that it was offering and the shortages in Constantinople worsened. An open revolt broke out in Thrace in 1077 and the hated warehouses were torn down by an angry crowd. Nikephoritzes fled from Constantinople in a coup d’état the following year and was later executed.10 Fortunately, Constantinople was not entirely dependent on grain brought from Greece or Bulgaria. There were other sources of food closer to hand. Fruit and vegetables could be grown inside the city itself. The area closest to the Land Walls was by no means entirely covered in buildings and was largely given over to orchards and market gardens. Once harvested, the crops could be preserved in hot weather by hanging them in baskets suspended over the cool waters of the underground cisterns until they were needed.11 There was an abundance of fish in the Bosporus. Entire shoals of mackerel, bonito and tuna were brought to its very walls by the same currents that made Constantinople so difficult to attack by sea. A large fishing fleet of over 1,000 boats was ready at all times to intercept the shoals as they migrated south from the Black Sea in winter and back north again in summer, and the fish could also be caught in fixed nets into which the current would obligingly sweep them. The owners of the boats and nets were obliged by law to land their catch on piers and beaches by the city walls and to sell directly to fishmongers who in turn sold the fish to the public at one of several markets. The price was fixed by the authorities, and the fishmongers were forbidden to sell their wares to outsiders for conveyance beyond the city walls. Only if there was a surplus which might otherwise go bad was any export permitted. The needs of the city came before all other considerations.12 Thus it was that most of the time there was plenty of food in Constantinople and the majority of the inhabitants probably enjoyed a varied diet. Meat was provided by livestock that was driven into Constantinople from the surrounding area and sold to butchers and merchants at various markets. Sheep were sold in the Strategion Forum, pigs in the Forum of Theodosius, and cattle and buffalo in the Amastrianon Forum. These animals had to be driven through the streets to reach the appropriate forum on market days. On one occasion, a herd of buffalo which was being prodded down the Mese suddenly panicked and stampeded. One animal charged into Hagia Sophia and got as far as the pulpit before it was chased out again.

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The markets were strictly regulated. The eparch appointed inspectors to view the livestock and point out defects to potential purchasers. If an animal was found to be flawed in some way after purchase, the buyer had six months to take it back to the vendor for a full refund. After slaughter, the meat from these animals was sold in grocers’ shops which could be found all over the city.13 Other commodities arrived by sea such as cheese, made from goats’ milk, large quantities of which were shipped in from Crete and the Aegean islands. Olive oil came from the Peloponnese.14 Wine was imported into Constantinople in vast quantities, for the demand was far greater than could be met by the vineyards in and around the capital. Amphorae of wine were brought in not just from Crete, Greece and the islands but also from as far afield as Syria and Italy.15 So apart from brief crises such as that of the 1070s, Constantinople remained not only sufficiently fed and watered but also supplied well enough with luxury items such as wine to provide an affordable cup for a workman in his local tavern. All in all, it was a wonder of an organization in a world where subsistence farming was the norm. * Just to say that Constantinople succeeded in feeding itself though, does not explain its extraordinary prosperity or why it throve to the extent that it was a source of wonder and envy to neighbouring peoples. Part of the answer lies in another important factor in Constantinople’s economic life, the free circulation of coins of all values. That was not the case in all parts of the world at that time. In many areas of western Europe there was no gold coinage before the thirteenth century and many transactions such as the paying of rents or taxes were carried out in kind.16 In Constantinople in 1200, coinage was part of everyday life for all the city’s inhabitants. For small transactions such as the purchase of food, people would use the copper tetarteron or half-tetarteron. One of the former would buy ten or eleven mackerel, depending on the honesty of the vendor, or a meal of soup and greens from a street hawker in Blachernae. The next denomination up was the trachy, which was saucer shaped and made of copper–silver alloy (see Figure 13). The gold coin of the day was the hyperpyron. These dominations were the result of years of debasement and inflation. The original Byzantine gold coin had been the nomisma, introduced by Constantine in 309. At 20.5 carats, the hyperpyron, which had been introduced by Alexios I in 1092, had a much lower fineness and gold content. The trachy and the tetarteron were likewise smaller than their predecessors, the silver miliaresion and the copper follis. The shrinkage of the size and value of the coins, however, did not affect their wide circulation.17 One huge advantage of this money economy was the ability of the Byzantine emperors to draw a tax income. In the Byzantine provinces, households without land paid a hearth tax, while those with land paid a combined hearth and land tax, all rendered in gold or silver, although the

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Figure 13  Trachy of Alexios III (Author).

emperor also levied various exactions payable in kind, usually food and wine. There were all kinds of other taxes and imposts too. Fishermen, for example, paid one hyperpyron every fourteen days to the government as a tax on their boat and its catch.18 This tax income must have been a major source of the fantastic wealth of the Byzantine emperors: Basil II allegedly accumulated so much, both from taxation and successful wars, that he had to build new vaults under the Great Palace to house it all. It funded the generous diplomatic gifts such as the purses full of gold and silver coins handed to Sigurd of Norway and his companions, and the lavish rebuilding and redecorating of Constantinople’s churches and palaces. This ability to tax was something that distinguished the Byzantine emperor from his counterparts elsewhere in the Christian world who often drew feudal services and payments in kind from their subjects rather than coins. A similar money tax that was levied by the rulers of England and France in 1188, the so-called Saladin tithe, proved impossible to collect in the face of entrenched opposition.19 The emperor’s tax income also promoted a kind of trickle-down effect. Some of the proceeds were passed on to the courtiers and aristocrats whom the emperors invested with titles, offices and the generous yearly stipend that came with them, payable in gold during Holy Week.20 The courtiers and aristocrats in their turn provided the market for Constantinople’s industries producing luxury goods, to clothe their persons in silk and adorn their houses in mosaic. Finally, the rest of the population, from money changers to innkeepers, benefited both from the presence of affluent customers and from the influx of merchants who provided a ready market for their services.

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The necessity of paying taxes ensured that coins must have circulated freely. The large number of Byzantine coins which have survived from this period suggests that a significant proportion of the population had money and so would have been able to use it as an everyday means of exchange and of storing wealth. That was why Constantinople had a banking system, provided by the money changers, whose stalls could be seen lining the Mese and the great squares. They would exchange gold coins for the silver and bronze ones that were needed for every day expenses, or take the silver and bronze accumulated by the shopkeepers in exchange for gold so that taxes could be paid. They also exchanged the coins brought by foreign visitors for Byzantine ones.21 Although strictly regulated, it was a lucrative trade. One of the money changers, Kalomodios, was so wealthy that he attracted the notice of Emperor Alexios III who had him arrested on a trumped-up charge in the hope of relieving him of his fortune. Yet wealthy though Kalomodios was, he was not, apparently, unpopular. When news of his arrest spread, a crowd of his supporters invaded Hagia Sophia and threatened to do violence to the patriarch unless he interceded for the money changer. Alexios III backed down and Kalomodios was released unharmed but such spontaneous popular support is suggestive. He and other money changers and bankers may well have been appreciated for the service that they provided, possibly enabling even those of relatively modest means to store what money they made in good years as a reserve against times of dearth. It was not that taxes were any more popular in Constantinople than they have ever been anywhere else. One of the most unpopular men in Emperor Alexios III’s administration was the procurator of public taxes, John of Poutze, whom Niketas Choniates described as completely relentless, deaf to the entreaties of those who could not pay, stony-faced and silent in the presence of petitioners.22 Moreover, the existence of a money economy was only a symptom of Constantinople’s wealth, rather than a cause of it. There had to be other factors to ensure that money circulated widely, not just into the emperor’s coffers through taxation. It is tempting to take a modern view and to assume that the Byzantines must have grown rich by making something and selling it. There is some evidence to support that view, for twelfth-century Constantinople was a centre of production. Some of the vessels constructed in its shipyards along the Golden Horn went for export but its main products were expensive luxury goods such as soap, perfume, candles and, above all, garments of silk and work in ivory and in precious metal, such as golden altarpieces and bronze doors.23 These activities certainly generated wealth for some. A poor poet wrote wistfully that he should have become a gold filigree maker as then he would have all the money he needed.24 Overall though, Constantinople’s luxury goods were not the source of its wealth. The prevailing ideology meant that the Byzantines were not prepared to sell their wares to whoever produced the purchase price. To take the example of the silk industry, its manufacture and sale was a tightly controlled imperial monopoly.

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The export of raw silk was forbidden and that of finished goods was strictly regulated. Certain types of silk garment were simply not for sale. Foremost among them were the cloaks of deep purple whose colour came from the shells of the rare Murex mollusc, found in the waters off the Peloponnese and nearby islands. Since it took up to 12,000 shells to dye just one garment, such silks were astronomically expensive and were reserved for the use of the emperor alone. For anyone else to don such finery was tantamount to declaring their candidature for the throne and was therefore high treason. The emperors’ subjects were permitted to buy only small patches of purple cloth, not an entire roll. They were forbidden from manufacturing it and only officially licensed guilds had that privilege. The restrictions did not stop there. The Byzantine authorities had drawn up a long list of types of finished garment that were reserved either for certain classes of society or for the Byzantines alone, with their export strictly forbidden. Anyone found selling them to foreigners was liable to be flogged as well as suffering the eparch’s favourite punishment of having their hair and beards completely shaved off. As with everything else in Byzantium, this prohibition was traced back to Constantine the Great. He had been visited, as he so frequently was, by an angel who had presented him with these particular vestments but had warned him that they should never be given to non-Romans.25 Behind the legend, there was a clear objective to the policy: to maintain the rarity of silk garments in neighbouring countries and thereby retain exclusive possession of a potent symbol of authority and power. In 968, the envoy of the German emperor Otto I had some silk cloths that he had purchased confiscated because they were of the type ‘which are prohibited to all nations, except to us Romans’. The money he had paid for them was returned.26 The rule was not completely inflexible. The harassment of the envoy was no doubt partly motivated by annoyance at his master’s attacks on Byzantine territories in Italy. He had been allowed to take out similar items on another visit to Constantinople some twenty years earlier. Other visitors to whom there was no particular objection were treated more leniently. William of Mandeville, Earl of Essex, who passed through Constantinople in the autumn of 1176 on his way back from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, took away with him a number of silk cloths which he distributed among local churches when he got home. Bishop Gunther of Bamberg, who visited in 1065, seems to have acquired during his stay a fine silk tapestry depicting a mounted emperor.27 One gets the impression, however, that the Byzantines viewed such transactions as a favour bestowed rather than as a straightforward commercial sale. These are not the actions of a society that lived by making goods and exporting them. By the same token the Byzantines never gained a reputation as enterprising merchant venturers. There were, of course, some Byzantine merchants who travelled overseas to trade, particularly to Egypt. They took timber, textiles and mastic, a kind of natural chewing gum produced on the island of Chios and returned with cargoes of spices. There was certainly

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money to be made: a party of merchants who sailed to Alexandria in 1192, returned with goods to the value of 39,000 hyperpyra.28 In general though, commercial enterprise was not greatly valued in a city where service at court was regarded as the highest calling. Niketas Choniates looked disdainfully on his fellow bureaucrat Constantine Mesopotamites because of his ‘aptitude for trade and his insatiable gathering in of unjust gain’. Emperor Theophilos (829–42) was horrified when he discovered that his wife had been making money by shipping goods. He ordered that both ship and cargo be burned, an action that earned him high praise from an otherwise hostile chronicler.29 One suspects too that the Byzantines might not have been very good at commerce. A Jewish merchant was scathing about the lack of commercial acumen among some of his Byzantine counterparts whom he encountered in Cairo because ‘they do not distinguish between first-class and inferior goods; for every quality they pay the same price!’30 There was another factor that diverted the energies of the Byzantines away from commerce: the reluctance most of them felt to travel beyond the walls of the Queen of Cities. The lands beyond, even the provinces of the Byzantine Empire, they regarded as hostile and barbaric. Most intimidating of all was that fearsome and uncertain element, the sea. The dangers were, of course, very real. During the 1030s, a Byzantine merchant ship on its way back from Syria was sent crashing onto the rocky coast of Asia Minor when the shank of its anchor sheared off, and it went down with its entire cargo of glass. Even a short voyage across the Sea of Marmara, like that taken by Alexios III and his retinue in late 1200, could suddenly become fraught with peril: a storm blew up so unexpectedly that there was blind panic on board, both among the passengers and the crew. The ship succeeded in taking shelter behind one of the Princes’ Islands and then in reaching Chalcedon. From there it made the crossing to the Boukoleon harbour of the Great Palace, those on board ‘recovering from their vertigo and spitting out the brine’. While anyone who ventured forth on the sea in frail wooden ships had to face these perils, the Byzantines seemed to have been particularly aware of them. Their literature abounds with sea metaphors. The emperor, for example, was always being likened to a helmsman, guiding his ship through the tempestuous swell, facing seas of troubles and waves of enemies. Such images reflected only too well the wariness and apprehension with which the Byzantines viewed the surrounding waters, as well as the reluctance they felt in venturing forth from the centre of sophistication and civilization that was their capital city. Commercial enterprise on the high seas was not for them.31 So the problem of Constantinople’s wealth remains. * The answer to the conundrum is that although the Byzantines were not a commercial people, the source of much of their wealth did indeed lie in trade. They did not conduct it themselves to any great extent but they were

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masters in directing, organizing and profiting from that carried on by others. Once again, Constantinople’s great advantage was its geographical position. Situated at the crossing point between Europe and Asia, it was an obvious entrepôt where goods from one part of the world could be exchanged for those of another. The Golden Horn was thronged with ships from all over the world that came to profit from that position. One contemporary counted 361 sailing ships, 157 galleys and 2,553 other vessels there. Another reckoned that they came from Persia, Egypt, Palestine, Russia, Hungary and Italy.32 These ships brought in commodities from their home countries and the lands beyond. Arab and Turkish traders brought spices, perfume, carpets, porcelain and jewels, as well as glassware.33 Italians, from the mercantile cities of Amalfi, Bari, Genoa, Pisa and Venice, brought timber, gold and wool.34 Russians, who had journeyed down the River Dnieper and across the Black Sea, brought wax, amber, swords and fur, and the Bulgarians came laden with linen and honey. Intrepid Jewish merchants brought musk, aloeswood, camphor and cinnamon from China.35 These products were then sold at various markets throughout the city. Perfume, for example, was marketed from stalls that were set up in the Augousteion between the Milion and the Brazen Gate.36 Having disposed of their goods, the merchants could then load up their ships with products that were in high demand in their home countries, both those brought by other foreign merchants and those produced in Constantinople itself. The Arabs were on the lookout for furs, which commanded a high price in the bazaars of Baghdad and Cairo, but also for Byzantine silks, even though the Islamic world had a flourishing silk industry of its own.37 Silk garments, almonds, raisins, cochineal and spices, particularly pepper, cinnamon and saffron, were the favourite export for the Italians, although they carried all kinds of goods, including the odd stolen icon. They sold their cargoes at a huge mark-up at two annual fairs in Pavia.38 The rarity value placed on silk in western Europe, where there was little or no silk industry before the twelfth century, can be gauged from the fact that exported Byzantine silks were often used to adorn the tombs of major saints and rulers, such as those of St Dunstan at Canterbury and St Potentien at Sens, and that of the great Frankish emperor, Charlemagne, at Aachen. The body of St Cuthbert in Durham Cathedral was wrapped in silk vestments, embroidered with designs of fish, birds and fruit, probably of Byzantine manufacture.39 Given that most of this trade was conducted by foreign merchants, it might be asked how the Byzantines themselves benefited from it. They did, in fact, do very well out of it indeed. The principal way of doing so was by charging a customs duty, known as the Kommerkion. Unlike a modern government, the Byzantine authorities had no interest in using taxation to discourage imports and encourage exports. The Kommerkion was levied at the rate of 10 per cent on all goods coming into or going out of the city and on all transactions in between. Then there were a range of other tolls and imposts that enabled the authorities to skim off still more. So lucrative was

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the Constantinople trade that merchants could still turn a handsome profit, in spite of such an onerous level of duty.40 The Byzantines also carefully managed and regulated the foreign merchants as they did everything else, to ensure that commerce was conducted to the city’s advantage. Arab merchants from Syria, Baghdad and Cairo were particularly strictly controlled, doubtless because their rulers were often at war with Byzantium. They were only allowed to remain in Constantinople for three months at a time and were to live and sell their wares in the area alongside the Golden Horn. They could only import articles that originated in their home countries: the authorities did not want them to muscle into the empire’s internal trade. On the other hand, they were provided with a hostel in which to live and certain seats at shows in the Hippodrome were specially reserved for them.41 The same shift of a potential enemy towards a more favoured status can be seen in the case of the Russians. At first, they were viewed with great suspicion because they had made a number of raids by sea on Constantinople’s outlying suburbs. So Russian merchants were not allowed to stay in Constantinople itself but were allotted a special lodging place in the suburban quarter of St Mamas, situated on the European shore of the Bosporus to the north of the Golden Horn. If they did wish to enter Constantinople itself, they had to do so by a particular gate in the Land Walls, unarmed and never in groups of more than fifty at a time, accompanied by an imperial officer. They were specifically forbidden from buying silk fabrics that cost more than fifty gold pieces. As time went by, the Russians began to look like less of a threat. They converted to Christianity and some of their finest warriors served as mercenaries in the Byzantine army. So the restrictions were relaxed. A treaty made in 971 specifically provided that Russians who journeyed to Constantinople to trade should be regarded as friends and eventually they were allowed to reside inside the city, in an area close to the Church of the Forty Martyrs.42 Of all the foreign merchants who visited Constantinople, the most favoured were those from the city states of Italy. One of them was Bari, whose ships used to make a triangular voyage every year to Damietta in Egypt, then to Constantinople then back to their home port. Merchants from cities like this were, after all, Christians and many of their cities had long-standing links with Byzantium. Since the Byzantine emperor had retained control of southern Italy until the late eleventh century, towns like Bari and Amalfi could still be considered as somehow part of the empire. They were also useful allies against Byzantine enemies in Italy, notably the Normans and the German emperor, and that was reflected in the very favourable terms on which their merchants were allowed to do business in Constantinople. The Amalfitans had their own commercial quarter, not in a suburban outpost like the Russians, but a stretch of land along the southern bank of the Golden Horn inside the walls of Constantinople. Within the quarter were shops, houses, bakeries, churches, warehouses and landing

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stages, all for the exclusive use of the merchants of Amalfi. In 1111, the merchants of Pisa received a chrysobull giving them special advantages in Constantinople’s commerce: not only did they receive their own commercial quarter and a landing stage on the Golden Horn, but also a reduction in the Kommerkion from 10 to 4 per cent. A similar agreement was negotiated with Genoa in 1155.43 These agreements helped the Italians to become preeminent players in Constantinople’s trade, settling in large numbers along the Golden Horn and dominating the flow of goods in a triangle between the Byzantine capital, western Europe and Egypt. Not that the Italian merchants escaped the close supervision of the eparch. They too were bound by the regulation that only certain silk cloths could be exported, on pain of the dreaded hair and beard shaving.44 The Venetians were the most favoured of all the Italian merchants. Their city had once been an outpost of Byzantium in northern Italy and even though it had long since achieved complete independence, it retained all kinds of cultural and political links with Constantinople. Its chief magistrate was known as the Doge, a title derived from the Byzantine one of doux or duke. Its largest church, St Mark’s, was built in the same style as the Holy Apostles with five domes: the inside of it was decorated with mosaics that were probably the work of Byzantine artists specially sent from Constantinople. The Venetians had proved their loyalty to Byzantium in the past. In the early ninth century, when the Frankish emperor had demanded their submission, they had defiantly replied, ‘We want to be servants of the emperor of the Romans, and not of you!’45 Their special status was recognized in a chrysobull of 992 which reduced the toll that Venetian ships on their way to or from Constantinople had to pay when they passed through the Dardanelles and gave them permission to move freely around the city. That was not all. The Venetians were allowed to do what most other merchants were not: they could carry goods from one part of the Byzantine Empire to another, rather than just shipping in their own. Thus in 1022, a Venetian called Leone da Molin arrived in Constantinople with a cargo of cheese, probably from Crete. In 1148 another Venetian sent 3,640 litres of olive oil that he had purchased in the Peloponnese to the Byzantine capital.46 In due course Venetian special status was extended, for the same reason that it was with the other Italian cities: the Byzantine emperor needed allies. In 1081, Robert Guiscard, Norman duke of southern Italy, launched an attack across the Adriatic against the Byzantine provinces in the Balkans and inflicted a serious reverse on the imperial army at the Battle of Dyrrachion. Desperate to stop the victorious Normans from marching on to Thessalonica and Constantinople, the Byzantine emperor, Alexios I Komnenos, sought an ally who would close the Adriatic to Norman ships and so prevent reinforcements from reaching his adversary. Venice was the obvious choice, situated as it was at the top of the Adriatic and having a strong fleet at its disposal. The Venetians were happy to help, as they probably had no desire to see both sides of the Adriatic in Norman hands. Although their

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fleet was badly mauled by the Normans off Corfu in the spring of 1084, they played a significant part in the campaign as Alexios first wore down the Norman army and then expelled it from the Balkans altogether. In seeking to draw the Venetians into the conflict, Alexios had promised that ‘all their desires would be satisfied’ and he proved as good as his word, issuing a new chrysobull in their favour. So valued an ally was Venice that its doge was henceforth to carry a Byzantine court title, that of protosebastos, and its merchants were to enjoy far-reaching concessions in the maritime trade with Constantinople. They were given their own commercial quarter, close to that occupied by the Amalfitans, alongside the Golden Horn. It was the largest of the Italian commercial quarters, measuring approximately half a kilometre in length and containing three landing stages, along with shops, taverns, warehouses and mills. The Venetians living there were to be completely exempt from paying the Kommerkion and all other dues and imposts. Their right to participate in the Byzantine internal trade was confirmed too, for they were given the right to conduct business in nearly all ports of the empire.47 They took full advantage of this last concession, so that by 1200 it was Venetian ships that supplied Constantinople with much of its food and wine. Venetian merchants had bases in provincial towns and ports such as Corinth, Dyrrachion, Thebes, Rhaidestos, Sparta and Almyros, from where they organized the collection and shipping of wine and agricultural produce. They also organized the distribution of it once it reached the capital: Niketas Choniates was on very good terms with his Venetian neighbour who probably supplied his household with wine.48 The Venetians also gradually came to dominate the Italy–Egypt–Constantinople triangle. For Byzantine merchants, it became much easier simply to entrust goods for export to a Venetian who would ship and sell them on for a very reasonable commission. After all, they possessed some of the largest and swiftest ships afloat. Thus the Byzantines also benefited from the Venetians’ special concessions. While their exchequer had to forego much of the revenue that it would normally have collected on all this activity, the benefits of a maritime ally, an efficient supply chain and regular sailings to Egypt and Italy more than compensated for that.49 * These were the hard commercial facts that made Constantinople the wealthiest city in Christendom but profiting from trade in this way was not just a matter of sitting back and collecting the Kommerkion or allowing the Venetians to run the supply chain. So lucrative was Constantinople’s commerce to all parties that the stakes for participation in it were very high. There was wide scope for disputes and conflict since both the Byzantines and foreign powers were often tempted to use underhand methods and even violence to improve their profit margins. In 894, for example, some corrupt

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Byzantine officials rerouted some goods being shipped overland from Bulgaria to Constantinople through the port of Thessalonica, where they slapped a heavy customs duty on them. The Bulgarian merchants reported the incident to their ruler, Khan Symeon, who in turn complained to the emperor. When no satisfaction was received, the khan declared war. Worsted by the Bulgars, the Byzantines had to back down and agree to pay the khan an annual tribute. In the end though, the issue of Bulgarian merchants was settled in favour of the Byzantine emperor, for in 1018 Basil II conquered Bulgaria and incorporated it into the empire.50 There were also some thorny moments in commercial relations with the Russians. They had been coming to Constantinople to trade since the early ninth century, sailing down the River Dnieper and across the Black Sea from their base at Kiev. In 874, the Byzantine emperor made some kind of treaty with their ruler which may have included trading concessions of some form or another.51 Then in 907, according to one account, for reasons that are not entirely clear, the prince of Kiev, Oleg, arrived in the Bosporus with a powerful fleet. He had done a great deal of damage to churches, monasteries and suburban settlements before he withdrew across the Black Sea. If the motive behind the attack was to extort better terms in the Constantinople trade, it worked. The Byzantine emperor concluded a commercial treaty with the Russians in 911 which conceded many of the privileges enjoyed by the Italians. Russian merchants were exempted from paying the Kommerkion and given a commercial quarter for their warehouses and wharves at St Mamas. Interestingly though, this treaty added that the visiting Russians were to be allowed to take baths whenever they wanted them, something that was probably not available back home. These terms stood for thirty years, until the Russians attacked Constantinople again. This time they were met by a Byzantine fleet armed with Greek fire and their ships were virtually annihilated. The treaty was then renegotiated and the Russians found themselves once more liable to the Kommerkion and to all the rules and regulations that the eparch and other Byzantine officials so zealously implemented.52 For the next hundred years, all was peaceful. Then in the spring of 1043, a prominent Russian merchant was killed in a brawl in Constantinople. The Russian ruler, Vladimir, was outraged and sailed south across the Black Sea with a fleet to wreak vengeance. Hearing of his approach, the authorities in Constantinople quickly rounded up all the Russian merchants and sent them out into the countryside as prisoners. Then they gathered a fleet. The Byzantine ships did not wait until the Russians reached the capital but met them at the northern end of the Bosporus, where they attacked the enemy fleet as it lay at anchor with Greek fire. The fire destroyed three ships but it was their lack of local knowledge that caused the Russians’ downfall. As they retreated, they blundered into an area where there were hidden reefs and most of their ships foundered. After that, the Russians seem to have accepted the commercial arrangements as dictated by the Byzantines.53

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Ironically, the power whose commercial aspirations the Byzantines found the most difficult to control was their old friend, Venice. It is unlikely that, in the years immediately after Alexios I granted Venice its special privileges, anyone in Constantinople thought that the maritime republic could be as robust in the defence of its commerce as the Russians and Bulgars had been. It was, after all, just one city and not a very sophisticated place: ‘filled with sailors’ vulgarity’, according to one Byzantine observer.54 The Venetians were just tradesmen and although they had helped the Byzantines out against the Normans in 1081, by the time Alexios I died in 1118 and was replaced by his son John II, that was a long time in the past. The rationale for allowing Venetian merchants to have such advantages over everyone else, especially the complete exemption from Kommerkion, was no longer there and when a delegation from Venice arrived to request their renewal, John refused. In response, the Venetians resorted to a kind of gun boat diplomacy but they did not make the mistake of the Russians and attack Constantinople itself. In August 1123, a fleet of more than a hundred ships set out down the Adriatic and launched an attack on the Byzantine island of Corfu. Taken by surprise, the Byzantines had no time to react or send help. Two years later, after spending some time off the Syrian coast assisting the king of Jerusalem in the siege of Tyre, the fleet returned to Byzantine waters. Once again the strategy was to go for exposed towns on islands and coasts which would have no warning and no defence. Rhodes, Chios, Kos, Lesbos, Samos, Andros and the port of Methone were all attacked, their fortifications destroyed, relics seized from their churches and large numbers of their young people rounded up to be sold as slaves. Powerless to stop the raids, John II had no option but to give way and to restore the original commercial privileges in a chrysobull of 1126.55 These events were a wake-up call to the Byzantines: the people that they had fondly believed to be their obedient clients were every bit as dangerous as a foreign power and henceforth they treated them much more carefully. They also set about cunningly exploiting the Venetians’ own weak spot: the bitter antagonism that existed between them and the other Italian mercantile cities, especially Pisa and Genoa. The three cities were deadly commercial rivals who were frequently at war with each other and who often carried on their battles in and around Constantinople. The Pisans and Venetians used to regularly fight in the streets alongside the Golden Horn and their ships clashed in the Bosporus within sight of the Sea Walls.56 Acute though the antagonism was, both Pisans and Venetians hated the Genoese even more than they did each other. In 1162, they temporarily patched up their differences and banded together to mount an attack on the Genoese quarter. Outnumbered and caught off-guard, the 300 or so Genoese fought as best as they could but after a day’s resistance fled to their ships. The attackers then broke into their houses and seized property worth some 30,000 hyperpyra. While it was annoying to the Byzantine authorities to have their city used as a battleground, incidents like this gave them ample scope for

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manipulation. Emperor Manuel I went out of his way to smooth matters over with the Genoese, offering compensation for their losses and making a new treaty with them in 1169 which brought them back into their quarter in Constantinople. The Venetians were deeply suspicious of such cordiality between the emperor and their rivals so they took the bait, charging into the Genoese quarter and demolishing many of the houses. When the emperor sent a protest and demanded that the Genoese be compensated, he received a defiant reply, reminding him of how Venice had dealt with his father’s threat to their position.57 That provided Manuel I with just the pretext that he needed. Over the weeks and months that followed, he secretly brought troops into Constantinople from the provinces. On the morning of 12 March 1171, his soldiers marched into the Venetian quarter, arrested everyone there and seized their money and possessions. Inevitably some Venetians evaded the net, rushed to their ships and managed to get out of the Golden Horn. Pursued by Byzantine vessels equipped with Greek fire, they protected themselves by hanging cloths soaked in vinegar over the gunwales which prevented the fire from taking hold. Those left behind were locked up in prisons and monasteries and only released when they pledged some kind of ransom payment. Not surprisingly, once news reached Venice, the doge and his councillors reacted as they had in 1119 and sent a fleet of 140 vessels to the Aegean. This time, however, the Byzantines were lucky. The Venetians reached as far as the island of Chios but while they were there plague broke out on board their ships. Over a thousand people died within the first few days of the epidemic and when attempts to shake it off by sailing from island to island were unsuccessful, the Venetians had no option but to turn back. Manuel I’s brutal coup had paid off.58 If their mutual antagonism was the Achilles heel of the Italians, Byzantium’s was the vagaries of its internal politics which ensured that the Venetians were not excluded from the Constantinople trade for long. Two years after Manuel I’s death, when Andronicus Komnenos staged his rebellion, his followers believed that the Pisans and Genoese, the favourites of the previous emperor, were supporters of their opponents, the regency for the young Alexios II. So when the victorious Andronicus entered Constantinople in April 1182, his troops charged in the commercial quarter along the Golden Horn. The Italians had got wind of what was likely to happen and most of them managed to escape by ship, though a considerable number were killed in the streets.59 Their departure left a gaping hole in the empire’s internal trade and the new emperor Andronicus I had no option but to turn to the Venetians. Towards the end of 1183, they reoccupied their quarter by the Golden Horn, and the following year a new treaty was concluded with Andronicus, promising 1,500 gold pieces in compensation for the losses incurred in 1171 and all the old privileges that they had enjoyed. Andronicus was overthrown in 1185, but his successor, Isaac II Angelos confirmed the treaty and made similar rapprochements with the Genoese

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and the Pisans. At the end of the day, fractious and arrogant though they might be, the Italians were just too useful to be dispensed with altogether. It was they who kept the city a byword for wealth and luxury and its citizens well fed and contented.60 * This was the economic situation inherited by Alexios III when he became emperor in 1195 and he followed pretty much the policy of his predecessors. As was customary, his accession to the throne brought a Venetian delegation hurrying to Constantinople in order to secure a renewal of the trading privileges. A new treaty was signed with the Venetian doge, Enrico Dandolo, in November 1198 which was in effect a restatement of those issued by the previous emperors. Venice received complete freedom from the Kommerkion whether importing or exporting goods, along with a good deal of judicial autonomy to deal with crimes committed within their quarter. In return, the Venetians agreed to help the Byzantines if an attack was made on them by the ruler of southern Italy or by the emperor of the Germans. Alexios courted the Genoese and Pisans as well.61 Relations with the Italians were complicated though by the increasing difficulty that Alexios III was experiencing in securing the revenue he needed for his spiralling expenses. His predecessor Isaac II had debased the coinage and raised taxation but with the loss of Cyprus and Bulgaria the tax receipts must have declined in proportion. On the other hand, Alexios was fighting numerous wars, against the Bulgars and Vlachs and various insurgents within his borders. Then there had been an unpleasant incident in 1196, when the German emperor, Henry VI, had demanded 5,000 pounds of gold to assist in his forthcoming crusade and had threatened to invade Byzantium if he did not get it. Alexios gave way and promised to pay the tribute, but there was not enough gold in his treasury. A special levy, the Alamanikon or German tax, was imposed and when that did not quite meet the demand, the gold and silver ornaments on the imperial tombs in the Church of the Holy Apostles were plundered to provide further funds, with only those of Constantine the Great being spared. The sudden death of Henry VI saved the day but the incident suggested that the Byzantine emperor’s usual inexhaustible river of gold might be drying up. So Alexios III looked to exploit Constantinople’s commerce to plug the gap. He was committed by treaty to give wide exemptions from the Kommerkion to Venetian, Genoese and Pisan merchants, but he sought to undermine the concession in various subtle ways. Officials would deny all knowledge of exemption from this or that duty and new ones would be quietly introduced. The emperor dragged his feet in paying the outstanding compensation for the seizures of 1171 and played off one group against another, especially the Pisans against the Venetians. In 1200, he hit on another way of supplementing his income. He dispatched a fleet of six ships

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commanded by Constantine Phrangopoulos to the Black Sea, ostensibly to salvage a shipwreck. Phrangopoulos was, in fact, a pirate who cruised the Black Sea and preyed on merchant shipping on its way to and from Constantinople. Both Byzantine and Turkish merchants fell victim to his attacks and once they got back to Constantinople they appealed to Alexios for redress. By this time, however, the emperor had already sold his cut of the loot from their vessels, so the Turkish merchants went to Konya and appealed to the Seljuk sultan, Rukn al-Din. The sultan reacted exactly as the Bulgar khan Symeon had in 894 and threatened war. Alexios promptly backed down, distanced himself from Phrangopoulos’s depredations and compensated the Turkish merchants. His own subjects, though, received nothing.62 It was cynical manoeuvrings like these that lay behind the myth of two-thirds of the wealth of the world.

Text BOX 6: Alexios III’s Treaty with Venice 1198

N

ote Alexios’ reference to his ‘beloved’ brother Isaac II, a man whom he had had blinded and imprisoned so that he could take his throne!

Our Majesty having acknowledged these things, the present chrysobull transmits his word in its entirety to our faithful and noble doge and protosebastos of Venice [Enrico Dandolo] and to all the whole of Venice through our envoy sent to that place, our most honourable protonotary and member of our household, Lord Theodore Aulikalamos which the gold-sealed word plainly sets forth to them. Since their most noble doge the protosebastos and the Great and Lesser Councils of Venice and others of their number have accepted this and have also confirmed it by oath according to their custom, and have put down in writing all these things that it contains and have completed it by subscribing in their own hands, when they have sent it to our aforesaid protonotary, the present gold-sealed word of Our Majesty will be handed to them by him. Our Majesty reinforces and confirms the chrysobulls issued long ago to the most faithful Venetians by Lord Alexios [I] Komnenos, emperor of eternal memory and forefather of Our Majesty, by his son the emperor, Lord John [II], by Our Majesty’s beloved uncle, Lord Manuel [I] and above all the chrysobull issued by Our Majesty’s most beloved predecessor and brother, Lord Isaac [II] Angelos. As regards the things which have been set forth in them, whether already implemented or not yet carried to completion, they will have unchangeable effect and they will be regarded as having been issued by Our Majesty. For Our Majesty reinforces and confirms these (Continued )

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things through the present chrysobull and directs that they dwell in all regions of our empire, secure in their persons and possessions and without fear of either Our Majesty’s men or of Our Majesty himself. And also to have those things and all properties which they used to have in the past, of which they were deprived by the anger of the Emperor, our uncle, Lord Manuel [I] Komnenos, of eternal memory. … Of all such regions of my empire and Romania (i.e. Byzantium) … their trade will be without hindrance and even in the Queen of Cities they will receive no interference from anyone nor will even as much as one copper coin be required for the Kommerkion … or for any other tax. They will even have freedom for beasts of burden and wagons brought in by them and for these will nothing be required from them by anyone. On the contrary, they will travel across all regions of my empire peacefully and without paying anything, neither from those [people] carried in carts and wagons nor from those drivers who serve them will anything be required. Alexios Angelos in God faithful emperor and autocrat of the Romans. Translated by the author from M. Pozza and G. Ravegnani, eds, Pacta Veneta 4: I trattati con Bizanzio, 992-1198, Venice: Il Cardo, 1993: 128– 9, 131–2.

7 Democracy

The breathless accounts of the wealth and splendour of Constantinople were based, of course, on the lives of the rich and powerful. Inevitably, it was only a tiny proportion of Constantinople’s citizens that lived in such style and there was a huge gulf between them and the rest of the population. Hidden away behind the façades of the magnificent palaces and churches lay quarters that were by no means as glamorous and awe-inspiring as the Augousteion and the other great forums. The most populous districts lay to the north of the Mese, between the Church of the Holy Apostles and the Forum of Constantine, and one visitor who wandered off the beaten track noticed: ‘The city itself is squalid and fetid and in many places harmed by permanent darkness, for the wealthy overshadow the streets with buildings and leave these dirty, dark places to the poor and to travellers.’1 Typical of the dwellings in Constantinople’s back streets was the ‘ugly, wide-open’ house given to one visiting dignitary, who complained that it ‘neither protected from the cold nor kept out the heat’ and had no supply of water. Some streets and squares were covered in mud and roamed by stray dogs. Here people lived in three-, four- or even five-storey tenement blocks. The inhabitant of the first floor of such a building complained bitterly of his sufferings in a letter. The priest and his family who lived above, he wrote, had numerous children and kept pigs up there with them. Quite apart from the noise, urine from both the pigs and the children used to seep down into the room below. On the ground floor, there was a farmer who used his rooms to store hay. Another three-storey house had a donkey mill in the basement.2 The denizens of this other Constantinople earned their living in a variety of ways. Some, such the carpenters, locksmiths, painters, builders and marble masons, had valuable manual skills while others produced highvalue goods, such as the soap makers and chandlers, and the silversmiths whose workshops were clustered around the Augousteion. These craftsmen were highly valued and their activities were closely regulated by the eparch.3 However, they represented only a tiny fraction of Constantinople’s working

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population. The vast majority were unskilled and earned their living as best as they could: ‘sausage sellers and tanners’, as a wealthy courtier of the Great Palace disdainfully described them, ‘who pass the days in taverns and eke out a niggardly existence from cobbling and with difficulty earn their bread from sewing’. They kept market stalls or turned their hand to whatever was on offer. Many of them found employment in the shipyards on the upper reaches of the Golden Horn, caulking the hulls of the new vessels with pitch.4 For these inhabitants of Constantinople, life could be a severe struggle. Average life expectancy was just thirty-five, with high infant mortality, and survival beyond the age of seventy was considered most unusual. Even in a city renowned for its wealth, destitution and want would have been a familiar sight in the backstreets away from the grand forum and palaces. The court-poet Christopher of Mytilene mused on a beggar called Leo who had neither money, nor shoes nor even a walking stick to his name. Not without irony, Christopher concluded that he was living the life of the apostles, albeit unwillingly.5 But intellectuals like Christopher were not immune from the ravages of penury. One well-educated but impoverished supplicant addressed repeated appeals to the emperor, begging for help in his impoverished old age: ‘Send a spark from your golden rays … so that I may be able to warm myself from the cold throughout the year … because I am undergoing a double frost. … The one that keeps blowing upon me is the bitter wind of poverty … the other is the cold that I endure from adversity.’6 Poverty and an early death were common in the countryside too but for Constantinopolitans there were also the problems of a large city to contend with. Crime was rife, especially in the dark and poorer quarters.7 The area alongside the Golden Horn suffered from appalling overcrowding, with houses and apartments packed tightly together. The authorities were aware of the danger and had introduced building regulations to lay down the minimum space between buildings. There was supposed, for example, to be at least ten feet between houses before either householder could construct a balcony, otherwise it would ruin the other’s view and cut out the sunlight.8 One suspects that the regulations were widely flouted and with so much competition for space, disputes between neighbours were common. One curious case has been recorded because it involved one of the architects of the cathedral of Hagia Sophia, Anthemius of Tralles, back in the sixth century. His neighbour, a lawyer called Zeno, constructed a balcony that spoiled the view from Anthemius’s window. When the subsequent court case went against him, Anthemius plotted revenge. He took advantage of the fact that Zeno’s elegant salon was built over one of his own groundfloor rooms. The architect filled a number of kettles with water and ran leather pipes from them to beams of the ceiling. He then boiled the water in the kettles, causing the steam to rise up the pipes. With nowhere to escape, the steam pressed against the beams and caused them to shake violently

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overturning the furniture in the room above and causing Zeno and his guests to run out into the street in panic thinking that a major earthquake had struck.9 The overcrowding of the city did not just provoke disputes, it could also lead to disaster and death. Accidents frequently occurred when crowds of people were gathered. During the 960s, panic broke out among the spectators at the Hippodrome who thought that they were about to be attacked by imperial troops. In the ensuing stampede, many people were trampled to death.10 Fire could spread rapidly through the closely packed buildings, especially during the long, hot summers. On 25 July 1197, a major conflagration broke out in the grain and oil warehouses around the Droungarios Gate in the Sea Walls, close to the Venetian quarter. It burned all night and well into the next day, creating such heat that the lead on the roofs melted and poured down like rainwater. A large swathe of the harbour area was gutted, with mansions, churches, monasteries and tenement blocks reduced to ruins.11 The city was vulnerable to other natural disasters such as the drought caused by low rainfall in the spring of 1168 and the frequent earthquakes along the North Anatolian fault. One occurred in the spring of 1162, causing a number of buildings to collapse. More severe was that of October 989 which turned houses ‘into tombs for the inhabitants’ and even brought down part of the dome of Hagia Sophia. A huge earth tremor in September 1063 initiated a series of minor quakes which lasted for two years. No figures on casualties are available, but all these disasters would have left many people homeless and destitute.12 On the other hand, given the advantages of flourishing trade and a money economy, the lot of the Constantinopolitans in general was probably much better than that of their counterparts elsewhere in the medieval world. There were public baths with warm water all over the city, such as that next to the Church of the Holy Apostles and that by the Strategion forum.13 Thanks to Constantinople’s supply chain, its inhabitants would have had access to a wide variety of food and drink to make a change from everyday fare. Fish, thanks to the abundance in the Bosporus, was always on the menu, from tuna and mullet to skate and sting ray. The Byzantines were extremely fond of garum sauce, made from fermented fish blood and intestines, and they happily ladled this over other meats, such as roasted goat.14 When it came to washing down the feast, the best wines went straight to the Great Palace and the houses of the wealthy. Michael Psellos witnessed some of the heavy drinking sessions among the palace administrators but participants had to take care, as what they had said in their cups might be held against them the next morning. Wine was by no means a luxury reserved for the rich though and there was plenty of cheaper stuff in the market. It was often mixed with pine resin to help preserve it better in hot weather and was an object of disgust to those of a more refined palate. It was sold in taverns throughout the city and, like so much else in Constantinople, its sale was strictly regulated. Innkeepers had to adhere to officially fixed prices and

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were obliged by law to serve full measure in vessels bearing the regulation stamp. The punishment for any infraction was the usual hair and beard shaving and expulsion from the innkeepers’ guild. They were also supposed to close their premises at eight o’clock in the evening to prevent outbreaks of violence and unruliness, although in spite of this prohibition, the palace bureaucrats were quick to blame any disturbance on over-indulgence by the masses. The vast majority of Byzantines doubtless drank simply to enhance the enjoyment of convivial occasions and like many people before and since they had their own special recipes for avoiding a hangover: drinking vinegar, eating cabbages leaves and wearing wreaths of flowers on the head were all held to be efficacious.15 There was also greater protection in Constantinople against the inevitable vicissitudes of life. The large population meant that there were significant numbers of better-off tradesmen and manual workers who could provide for their security by banding together into guilds. At least nineteen of these are known to have existed and they covered trades from leather cutters and candle makers to bakers and innkeepers. Membership was expensive but it probably brought some kind of financial protection in the event of ill fortune.16 Alongside these private insurance schemes, the monasteries and other religious institutions provided social services that were unequalled elsewhere in the medieval Christian world and were available to a significant proportion of the population from the cradle to the grave. Foundlings and orphans were cared for at the Orphanage on Constantinople’s acropolis in the far east of the city. It was a very large institution. Anna Komnene reckoned that if you wanted to visit every inmate it would have taken you all day.17 Those who had fallen on hard times were catered for as well. The Orphanage daily distributed food to several thousand people and there were also hospices where the destitute could find shelter. There were also private religious fraternities which specialized in one service or another to the poor, such as providing a weekly wash in one of the public baths for those who could not afford the entrance fee.18 For the sick and injured there were numerous hospitals throughout the city. One of the oldest was that of St Sampson which stood between the Church of St Irene and the cathedral of Hagia Sophia and others were attached to churches or monasteries, such the Forty Martyrs, the Evergetes, the Myrelaion and St George in Mangana.19 It is possible to get a glimpse of what went on in these hospitals because the foundation charter of one of them, attached to the Pantokrator monastery, has survived. It is clear from this document that this was no mere hospice where the sick were merely made comfortable. The Pantokrator hospital was specifically organized to treat and cure specific conditions such as fractures, ophthalmia and stomach disorders. It had fifty beds and was divided into five wards. Each ward was presided over by two doctors and seven other staff and there were extra doctors and surgeons for outpatients. Treatment there was to be free to those who could not afford to pay.20 If this was typical of all

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Constantinople’s hospitals, then its inhabitants had access to a very high level of medical care. There was provision too for those who had reached the evening of their days. Most would have been cared for by their families once they became too old to be able to work while wealthy widows and widowers could adopt the monastic habit in old age, paying the monastery a lump sum to provide care for the rest of their life: a kind of annuity.21 For those who were poor, infirm and without families, there were homes for the elderly that were really places of last resort. There was one at St George in Mangana and another at the Pantokrator which provided its residents with food, oil, firewood, a clothing allowance and two baths a month. The foundation charter insisted though that the home was only for those who were ‘crippled, lame, infirm and suffering in other ways’: the healthy elderly were specifically excluded.22 At the very end of the line, there was the Church of St Luke which provided burials without charge for those who had died in poverty.23 Along with better diet and the social services, another great advantage to living in Constantinople was that, like many cities past and present, it afforded many opportunities both to those born there and to new arrivals to improve their lot in life. The poor illiterate peasant from Thrace called Basil who arrived in Constantinople in the 860s, spent his first night sleeping rough outside a monastery. He found work as a servant in the house of a prominent nobleman but he later rose to become Emperor Basil I and founder of the Macedonian dynasty in 867.24 There were few who could match Basil’s specular success story but there was a tried and trusted way of helping one’s children to have a better life. Basic education and literacy were far more widespread in Byzantium in 1200 than in western Europe. Children could be sent to a teacher to learn how to read the Gospels and the Psalms. There were schools throughout Constantinople, including one in its main orphanage and the ability to read and write might enable a poor boy to enter the church or the guild of notaries.25 The hardness of everyday life was also mitigated by some opportunity for leisure and an escape from the everyday grind was provided by the many religious festivals and saints’ days that were holidays when no work was done. The great feasts of the church were occasions for grand imperial processions. On Easter Sunday, the emperor would process from the Brazen Gate to Hagia Sophia across the Augousteion. Every 11 May, the anniversary of the inauguration of Constantinople, he would receive the cheers of the crowd in the Hippodrome. On the feast of the Assumption on 15 August, a particularly important holiday as it commemorated the death of the Virgin Mary and her bodily removal to heaven, the emperor would cruise up the Golden Horn, provided the weather was fine. He would disembark at Blachernae and process to the Church of the Mother of God. The populace would turn out on these occasions to witness the pageantry, but the holidays were not dominated by the emperor and the court: people celebrated in their own way too. On the Ascension of the Prophet Elijah

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every 20 July, while the emperor celebrated in the Pharos chapel of the Great Palace, out on the streets miracle plays were staged. Every 11 May there was dancing in the streets.26 There was also a host of unofficial festivals that were specific to certain localities or groups, such as the guilds who staged annual processions in honour of their particular patron saint. Such festivals were also, no doubt, an excuse for a great deal of fun that had no connection whatsoever with the religious ceremonies. The guild of notaries, for example, had its special holiday on 25 November, the feast of the Holy Notaries, Marcian and Martyrius, two obscure individuals who had allegedly been martyred by a heretical patriarch in 351. Such occasions were accompanied by much merrymaking and fun. Female spinners, weavers and wool carders had their own festival, the feast of Agathe, which they celebrated every year on 12 May with singing, dancing and processions. At Eastertime, the towndwellers spilled out of the Land Walls into the countryside and there was dancing at Sosthenion on the Bosporus to celebrate the arrival of spring. There were masquerades and masked processions as well as plays and farces whose content was often scurrilous: the authorities specifically banned the depiction of monks in these performances. Curious though it may seem in such an overtly Christian society, there were even many festivals that had no link whatsoever with the church and which probably had their origins in pagan times. There was a celebration that took place around midsummer, when a series of curious rituals were enacted. People would gather privately in their homes with friends and dress the eldest daughter of the house in a wedding dress. Objects would be thrown into a vase containing sea water. The girl would then draw out some of the objects at random and predict the fate of their owners. Drinking and dancing would follow and the revellers would spill out into the summer night to jump over lighted bonfires. The church took a dim view of this kind of merriment and banned it in the 1170s, though evidently without much success, for elements of this custom still survive in Greece and the southern Balkans.27 Of all the holidays and feasts of the Byzantine year, none aroused the excitement and passions of the populace more than the chariot races in the Hippodrome. Back in the time of Justinian, these had been staged very regularly, with much of the population being divided between two supporters’ clubs, the Blues and the Greens. By the twelfth century, the races took place much less frequently, about three times a year. The so-called Golden Hippodrome races were held on the first Sunday after Easter with another set to mark the anniversary of Constantinople’s inauguration in May. Others were organized to mark some special occasion such as a military victory.28 Though there were fewer of them, race days were still spectacular occasions and drew huge crowds. Even before dawn on the appointed day, the whole city would be gripped by feverish excitement, a provincial visitor complaining about the noise and mayhem that broke loose as the crowd surged towards the Hippodrome. When everyone was gathered, the emperor would appear in his private box, the Kathisma, and would make the sign of the cross three

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times, once over the supporters of the Blue faction, once over the Greens and once over the people in the middle. He would then receive the acclamations of the crowd: ‘Many upon many years!’, that is to say wishing the emperor a long reign, and ‘Christ-loving emperor, may you conquer in the name of God!’ The show would begin with various entertainments and displays, including wrestling contests, tightrope walking and displays of juggling. Various species of wild animals would sometimes be set on each other, in ascending order of fierceness: dogs on foxes, cheetahs on antelopes, and finally lions on bulls. After these preliminaries, the emperor would retire for lunch. The two chariots were now prepared, one for the Blue faction and one for the Green, each drawn by four horses. Lots were drawn to allocate the inner or outer position on the track. A banner was raised over the Hippodrome and an imperial official visited the stables of both factions to wish them success. When the emperor returned to his box in the afternoon, the main business of the day would begin. Four races would be run in succession, with the chariots careering around the central spine. While in general the chariot that completed the required number of laps first was the winner, there were a number of variations to enhance the excitement. If, for example, a charioteer was able to knock his opponent’s helmet off, he won automatically. The victorious charioteer received a gold seal, a tunic, a helmet and a silk belt from the emperor, along with the delirious cheers of the crowd, who acclaimed him in much the same way and with the same words as they did the emperor. Successful charioteers enjoyed celebrity status that bordered on adulation. Their exploits were commemorated in stone inscriptions set into the walls of the Hippodrome and at the Milion arch in the Augousteion, where one emperor placed a picture of a popular charioteer in the very act of winning a race.29 Not surprisingly, the activities in the Hippodrome were not entirely approved of by the church. John Chrysostom, who was the patriarch of Constantinople between 398 and 404, denounced the place as a ‘Satanodrome’ and it was considered to be an unsuitable place for monks, clergy and women. They did attend the races though. As a penitent monk told his confessor, as he was passing the Hippodrome, ‘a desire was kindled in my heart burning like a flame, compelling me to go to see the chariot race’. According to a pious fable, another monk who yielded to the same temptation was struck down by divine wrath. The disapproval did not arise solely from sanctimony. Quite apart from the cruelty to animals that these shows involved, the Hippodrome was a dangerous place for people too. In 1184, part of the railing of the imperial box broke away and fell into the crowd killing six men and nearly provoking a riot. For the vast majority of Constantinopolitans though, the races were an irresistible draw that brought glamour and excitement to their lives.30 * While there were compensations and distractions for the people of Constantinople, there was no established mechanism for them to have any say in government and politics. Byzantium was, after all, an absolute

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Figure 14  Emperor Theodosius I in the Kathisma: from the Obelisk column base in the Hippodrome (Pavle Marjanovic/Shutterstock.com).

monarchy and the theory was that the emperor, the representative of the Almighty, was answerable to God alone. Democracy had no part to play in this scheme of things: indeed the very word was regarded as a synonym for anarchy. For Eusebius of Caesarea, monarchy had to be the best kind of government because if many people were ruling then that would be a recipe for anarchy and civil war. Just as there was only one God, so there was only one emperor.31 In earlier centuries, this exalted office seems to have been within the reach of anyone. The rags to riches story of the peasant from Thrace who rose to become Basil I in 867 was by no means unprecedented. Leo III began his career as a shepherd and Michael IV as a money changer.32 By the twelfth century, though, things had changed. It seems to have become established that only members of the ruling dynasty of Komnenos or those connected to them by marriage, like the Angeloi, could legitimately hold the imperial office. That did not necessarily cut everyone else out of the political process. After all, as has been seen, the emperor did not rule alone. As well as his nobles, his relatives by marriage and his consort the empress, the emperor was supported by an extensive bureaucracy, composed of both eunuchs and non-eunuchs. Here entry was on merit. John the Ophanotrophos came from a poor, provincial family and yet he succeeded in dominating the imperial administration during the 1030s.33 There was, however, a formidable barrier to anyone wanting to join the ranks of the Byzantine civil service. In 360, the emperor had decreed that ‘by no means shall any person obtain a post of the first order unless it is established that he excels in the practice and

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Text Box 7: A description of a chariot race in the Hippodrome in around 1100

W

ritten by the Persian physician al-Marwazi (fl. 1056–1124), this description may not be accurate in all its details, as the author clearly obtained them second hand, but it does give a flavour of the excitement that events in the Hippodrome engendered. By the emperor’s palace there is a spacious square, one of the greatest of its kind, surrounded on all sides by stone buildings. In it one sees images and statues in the shape of men, domestic animals, wild beasts and such like things. … Most of the statues are wrought in brass. This square is in the middle of the town and on its western side, towards the Golden Gate. There are two gates and they call this place the Hippodrome. They have some special days on which they gather at this place. … One day before the day of the assembly, a proclamation is made in the town that the emperor intends to visit the Hippodrome. The people hasten thither for the spectacle and jostle in throngs and in the morning the emperor comes with his intimates and servants, all of them dressed in red. He sits on an eminence overlooking the place and there appears his wife called despoina with her servants and intimates, all dressed in green and she sits in a place opposite the emperor. Then arrive the entertainers and players of stringed instruments and begin their performance. … Then they commence feasting, amusing themselves and playing. Then two men of the emperor’s and two men of the empress’ come forth and begin wrestling and competing in racing. If the winner is of the emperor’s party, the emperor gives him a golden hat and if he is of the lady’s party, she gives him a similar prize. After this they set dogs upon foxes, then cheetahs upon antelopes, then lions upon bulls, while the onlookers feast and drink and dance. The last entertainment is the horse races. Beforehand they prepare agile and trained horses, and eight horses are brought forward. They also have in readiness two big vehicles embellished with gold. To each of them four horses are harnessed, and in them two men take their places, dressed in clothes woven of gold. Then they let the horses go, urging them on until they reach the two gates, and outside this gate there is a place with idols and statues and the drivers have to wheel around them three times in competition with one another. Whoever wins is laden with gifts. From V. Minorsky, ‘Marvazi on the Byzantines’, Annuaire de l’Institut de Philologie et d’Histoire Orientales et Slaves, 10 (1950): 455–69 at 461–2 (slightly adapted).

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training of the liberal studies, and that he is so polished in the use of letters that words proceed from him without the offence of imperfections’.34 The law did not refer to those who had basic literacy and could read the Gospels and the Psalms. It meant those who had continued their education beyond the age of fourteen and were conversant with the classics of ancient Greek literature. Most children would never have had the opportunity to go that far, even if they had received some basic schooling. That did not mean that the door was closed completely. Clever children, like the young Symeon the New Theologian, Michael Psellos and Niketas Choniates were able to take this higher education even though they were of a provincial or middling rather than a noble, Constantinopolitan background and it provided them with the springboard for their careers. No wonder Psellos’ mother was so careful to provide her son with teachers and was given to praying fervently every day for his success before an icon of the Virgin.35 Palace moguls like Psellos and Choniates went out of their way to show off their accomplishment. They gave speeches, wrote history, drafted treaties and exchanged letters all couched in the Classical Greek that they had been taught rather than in the more homely language that they had learned at the mothers’ knees. They may even have spoken the same rarefied idiom to each other. They were scathing about anyone whose education was not of quite the same order as theirs and who perhaps allowed the occasional dialect word to slip into their prose. Psellos dismissed his fellow bureaucrat Leo Paraspondylas as lacking ‘long-standing qualifications in the realm of literature or oratory’.36 While a knowledge of the classics and the language of the ancients could provide promotion and preferment for some, the requirement also had the effect of creating a huge cultural gulf between the rulers and the governed. For Choniates, the latter were simply ‘the stupid and ignorant inhabitants of Constantinople … who spoke broken Greek and drivelled in their speech’. Their vulgar and homely Greek was a source of wry amusement and pained condescension. Princess Anna Komnene, in her biography of her father, felt compelled to offer a translation of a popular song into a more archaic and ‘proper’ form for the benefit of her readers. She also ‘translated’ accounts written of her father’s campaigns by old soldiers. The language gulf could even cause communication problems. When he arrived on the island of Chios, Choniates’ brother Michael enquired whether there was anything to eat, expecting the kind of meal suitable for the archbishop that he was. All he got was a lump of local cheese. He later discovered that the word he had used for ‘food’, prosphagion, had come to mean ‘cheese’ in the local dialect.37 So on the face of it, political power was concentrated in the hands of the representative of God and his classically educated advisers who constituted what amounted to a closed caste. All others had no say. Yet once again, theory and reality were at odds for there were ways in which those excluded from the corridors of power could make their voices heard. *

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There were various avenues to express opposition to a reigning emperor and his supporters. Among the courtiers in the two palaces, scurrilous songs and pasquinades lampooning the ruler and his consort circulated freely. Alexios I Komnenos even found some, directed at himself, scrawled on a piece of paper left in his tent while he was on campaign in the Balkans. But such activity was risky. The chances of keeping one’s identity and authorship secret were slim in that closed world and discovery meant instant dismissal and exile to some wretched town far from the capital.38 In some respects, those outside the charmed circle of the court were in a stronger position for they had much less to lose and consequently nothing to fear. The people of Constantinople were by no means silent and downtrodden proles, helpless before the monolithic weight of imperial authority. They had a voice, and even if it did not express itself in elegant Greek, it certainly made itself heard. The emperors and their advisers knew very well that their power could be seriously challenged on the street. As Choniates disapprovingly observed: ‘Him whom today they extol as an upright and just ruler, tomorrow they will disparage as a malefactor, thus displaying in both instances their lack of judgement and inflammable temperament.’39 With such a large population concentrated so tightly in an urban setting, news, ideas and resentments could spread very quickly and a large crowd be gathered in no time at all. The dangers of popular unrest were ever present and the tiniest spark could ignite a serious conflagration. If a large group of people decided to vent their feelings, there was very little that the emperor could do about it. To take one example, Nikephoros II Phokas, although a successful general, was never popular in Constantinople, largely because of the heavy taxes that he levied to pay his army. On one occasion, as he rode through the streets of the city he was greeted with a chorus of yells, boos and insults. No retribution followed. Nikephoros rode on looking neither to left nor to right and put the incident down to drunken high spirits. He was not the only butt of popular resentment. Empress Euphrosyne, wife of Alexios III Angelos, was also greeted with catcalls and jeers whenever she appeared in public, and people even taught their pet parrots to mock and mimic her. There were limits. When one woman and her daughter went so far as to hurl stones at Nikephoros II from the roof of their house, soldiers were sent in and both were executed. In general, the emperors took a conciliatory line towards such behaviour, preferring to allow their subjects to get their anger off their chests. Nevertheless, Nikephoros II took the precaution of building a stout wall around the Great Palace.40 He was right to take precautions, for the people of Constantinople did not restrict themselves to words in their opposition to unpopular rulers. If the emperor miscalculated and pushed his luck too far, the result could be a popular uprising. His advisers would have been able to remind him of the socalled Nika riot of January 532 when the Hippodrome factions had united in their opposition to the Emperor Justinian and had very nearly brought about his overthrow. Nothing had changed by the twelfth century, for mob

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violence could be sparked off by the slightest pretext. In around 1200, a riot began over the arrest and flogging of a thief. The crowd were incensed because they knew that the man had been acting on the orders of a corrupt prison governor, John Lagos, who set his charges free by night to steal and then took a cut of the proceeds. A pitched battle with fully armoured troops ensued, some rioters clambering onto the roofs and hurling down stones and tiles. The next day, all was quiet, the episode apparently having been completely forgotten, but the people had spoken.41 * Just how unstoppable the populace of Constantinople could be once its blood was up emerges from a dramatic series of events that occurred in April 1042 and culminated in the deposition of an emperor. The background to the affair was this. When Emperor Constantine VIII entered on his last illness in 1028, he left his eldest daughter, Zoe, as his successor. To provide a male ruler, she had obediently married a prominent nobleman, and her husband became emperor as Romanos III Argyros. When in 1034 he accidentally drowned in the bath (an accident that some said had been engineered by his wife), Zoe married again, this time to Michael IV, a former money changer and brother of the eunuch John the Orphanotrophos. When it looked as if he too would shortly pass away, Zoe, rather than looking for a third husband, instead adopted Michael’s young nephew, Michael Kalaphates. On the emperor’s death in 1041, Zoe’s adopted son became Michael V, the idea being that he would rule alongside, and in deference to, the legitimate empress. This was considered to be only right, given Michael V’s humble origins: his father had earned his living as a caulker in the shipyards of the Golden Horn.42 That was the plan but within a few months the headstrong Michael V had grown tired of Zoe’s presence and decided to free himself of her tutelage. Aided and abetted by his uncle Constantine, who held the office of Nobilissimos, he laid careful plans. Both the emperor and the Nobilissimos were well aware that their action might not go down well with all sections of Constantinople’s population. There was a strong sense of loyalty to the Macedonian dynasty, from which Zoe had descended, and her sidelining might be resented. Michael therefore first tested the prevailing mood by processing publicly to Hagia Sophia on the Easter Sunday of 1042. He was pleased to note a favourable reaction. Cheers greeted his appearance and silk carpets were strewn in his path. A procession to the Church of the Holy Apostles the following Sunday brought forth a similar response.43 Convinced now of the populace’s personal loyalty to him, Michael acted swiftly. Guards were sent to Zoe’s room in the Great Palace. She was shorn of her hair and shipped off to a convent on the island of Prinkipo in the Sea of Marmara. On 20 April, the eparch Anastasius was dispatched to the Forum of Constantine to read out a proclamation announcing the coup

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and promising that the people would reap great benefits from the change of regime. The announcement was greeted with stunned silence by the assembled crowd until a single voice cried out: ‘We do not want a crosstrampling caulker for emperor, but the original and hereditary ruler, our mother Zoe!’44 The cry was taken up by the whole throng and Anastasius judged it prudent to retire from the scene with some alacrity. Michael and his uncle had seriously miscalculated. They could only look on in horror as rioting broke out across the city and a huge crowd began to move towards the Great Palace. Michael Psellos, who was working on dispatches in the Brazen Gate, heard what sounded like the rumble of horses’ hooves, until a messenger arrived with the news that it was, in fact, the tramp of thousands of feet on the city’s thoroughfares. Mounting his horse and riding out into the streets, he viewed the oncoming crowd. Most of them were armed in one way or other, some with axes, swords, bows or spears but many just with the largest stone that they could find. Their first target was the mansions owned by members of the emperor’s family, all of which were reduced to rubble within a few hours. By that time in the palace, the emperor had realized his mistake and had had Zoe hastily shipped back from the convent. She was taken to the Kathisma in the Hippodrome, to reassure the crowd that she was unharmed, but the stratagem did nothing to abate their fury. Instead they marched off to find another of Constantine VIII’s daughters, Theodora, and took her off to Hagia Sophia where she was proclaimed empress. Michael and his uncle Constantine now panicked and hurried down to the harbour of Boukoleon where they boarded a ship. After sailing along by the southern Sea Walls, they landed at the monastery of St John Stoudios and took sanctuary in its church. The building was soon surrounded by an angry crowd who threatened to pull it down over the heads of the fugitives. At this point, however, a detachment of soldiers arrived, accompanied by Psellos, to take control of the situation. Forcing their way through the crowd, they gained admission to the church. Until then, wrote Psellos, he had had some sympathy with the crowd, feeling that Michael’s treatment of Zoe had been wholly unjust. But now when I reached the sacred altar where he was, and saw both the refugees, one, who had been emperor, clinging to the Holy Table of the Word, and the other, the Nobilissimos, standing on the right of the altar, both with their clothes changed, their spirit gone and utterly put to shame, then there was no trace whatever of anger left in my heart.45 By now it was getting dark and another official arrived to ask Michael and Constantine to leave the church, promising them that they would not be harmed. When they refused and clung even more tightly to the altar, the mob could be restrained no longer and burst in to drag the two men from their sanctuary. Once they were off consecrated ground, they in all probability

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would have been lynched had not yet another official arrived bearing a branding iron and instructions from Theodora that they were to be blinded. Psellos describes how the two men reacted when they learned their fate. Constantine, realizing that there was no escape, offered himself as the first victim, lying down on the ground with the crowd jostling for a better view. Michael, on the other hand, was overcome with terror and had to be forced to the ground and held down so that the deed could be done, possibly by the chief Varangian, Harold Hardrada. So ended Michael’s five-month reign. He was dispatched to a monastery to live out the rest of his life as a monk. In the battle to dethrone him, some 3,000 citizens of Constantinople had been killed. Zoe and Theodora then ruled jointly for two months before Zoe brought Constantine Monomachos back from Lesbos. She married him in June 1042 and so provided the empire with a new male ruler. Everything returned to normal.46 The events of 1042 were particularly dramatic but they were by no means unique. On several other occasions, the people of Constantinople had intervened and helped to decide who the representative of God was going to be. In 945 they protested vociferously outside the Great Palace to prevent the legitimate emperor of the Macedonian dynasty, Constantine VII Porphyrogenitos, great-grandfather of Zoe and Theodora, from being sidelined by the Lekapenos family. Shortly afterwards, Constantine and his supporters arrested the Lekapenoi and Constantine took power as sole emperor.47 The crowd did not always act in favour of legitimacy. In 1057, when the rebellious general, Isaac Komnenos, was approaching from the east with an army, the incumbent emperor Michael VI could have remained safe behind the walls of Constantinople. But a large crowd began to gather around Hagia Sophia. Egged on by Komnenos’ supporters they began to acclaim Isaac as emperor. Unnerved by the demonstration, Michael abdicated and fled to a monastery. Isaac crossed the Bosporus and entered Constantinople the next day to a tumultuous welcome. Such support from the people could be fickle though. Andronicus I, who was similarly welcomed into Constantinople in 1182, was lynched by a mob in the Hippodrome just three years later. Whatever the theory, popular opinion was not something that the emperors could ignore.48 * Consequently, one can discern an awareness among Byzantine emperors of the need to consider public opinion, something not usually associated with autocrats who ruled by divine right. With great political acumen, they sought to present themselves in a way likely to secure popular approval and to break down the rift between rulers and ruled, in much the same way as contemporary European constitutional monarchs. While the emperors had no access to mass media, they could use their own writings, the preambles to their law codes and the public speeches of their close advisers to get

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their message across. The theme that recurred again and again was that the representative of God had been appointed not for his personal advantage but to provide for the common good of all Christian people. He was expected to imitate God, displaying appropriate devoutness and love of mankind. He was responsible for dispensing justice, for defending the borders, providing for the needy and generally seeing to the prosperity and welfare of his subjects. Emperor Leo VI claimed to take these duties very seriously indeed: ‘Mindful of our obligation to take thought and to be concerned about them [i.e. the general population], we stay up at night, and during the day we deliberate on how to preserve them free of all unpleasantness and harm and on how they may enjoy all the happiness and prosperity that are rightfully theirs.’49 The same message was conveyed in visual form in the ubiquitous portrayals of the imperial person alongside Christ or the Virgin Mary: they reinforced the idea of the emperor as their pious protector, taking thought for the good of his people. One emperor went even further. A painted panel commissioned by Andronicus I on the gates of the Church of the Forty Martyrs depicted him wearing not the usual imperial vestments but the costume of a labourer, and holding a sickle in his hand. The circumstances in which the panel was painted were rather unusual: Andronicus was about to launch his purge of the court aristocracy and so it suited him to pose as the champion of the labouring poor. Even so, it was another example of an emperor presenting himself as having the interests of his people at heart.50 The Byzantine emperors were also keen to make sure that they were seen regularly by their subjects. The appearances in the Kathisma at chariot races in the Hippodrome and the processions across the Augousteion and along the Mese were all designed to allow people to see the emperor and to evoke their admiration and awe. Nor, on these occasions, was the emperor so hemmed in by bodyguards that no one could approach him. Emperor Theophilos was processing from the Church of the Mother of God at Blachernae when a woman rushed forward and seized the bridle of his horse, exclaiming that the animal was rightfully hers. Rather than brush her aside, the emperor asked her to wait while he returned to the palace to make enquiries. It turned out that the horse did indeed belong to her, having been confiscated from her late husband by a corrupt official. Theophilos restored the horse and punished the official. As regards access to the imperial person, the general population could visit his residence. The Great Palace was far from being an enclosed fortress, in spite of the wall built by Nikephoros II. Its gardens were open to the public from soon after daybreak until nine o’clock and again after three in the afternoon.51 There was also a conscious policy of involving as wide a spectrum of the population as possible in imperial ceremonial. Representatives of the Blue and Green circus factions almost always played a part. On the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross every 14 September, they would meet with the emperor in the Brazen Gate when he returned from Hagia Sophia and make the sign of the cross over him. Members of the guild of notaries

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were entitled to participate in certain ceremonies and processions. Indeed, they were expected to do so and could be fined for not turning up. On the Wednesday after Easter, six newly baptized children and six orphans were brought into the Great Palace to receive a purse of coins and a kiss on the forehead from the emperor. Court titles and honours were not reserved just for the educated political elite. The heads of the Blue and Green factions were both given the title of protospatharios and the salary that went with it. Alexios III Angelos allegedly bestowed prestigious titles and offices on ‘the baseborn, the vulgar, the money changers and the linen merchants’. Membership of the Senate, which by now a nebulous, largely honorific body, was also distributed widely. Constantine X Doukas (1059–67) even conferred senatorial status on some manual workers. Bureaucrats like Psellos and Choniates were horrified and complained bitterly at this hawking of public offices ‘like vendors peddle ripe fruit’. The trick, of course, was to invent new titles and reserve them for the inner circle while the debased older ones were handed out to all and sundry.52 Titles could only be used to buy the allegiance of a small section of the populace. For the rest, the emperors of Byzantium resorted to much the same policy as that of their Roman predecessors, that of ‘bread and circuses’. Lavish entertainments were laid on during public holidays to keep the Constantinopolitans contented and occupied. The fountains in the palace courtyard were made to gush wine, gold coins were scattered to the crowd and free food was distributed in the Hippodrome.53 Emperors vied with each other to lay on novel and thrilling events. Nikephoros II and Constantine VIII introduced gladiatorial contests, though these bouts were not, it would seem, to the death. Constantine IX Monomachos, who loved nothing more than a good show, had a giraffe and an elephant paraded around the arena to the delight of the crowd. The former seems to have made a particularly strong impression. One observer made careful notes on how the giraffe walked by moving both legs on one side, then those on the other while a graffito of the animal has been found on the site of Constantine IX’s monastery of St George in Mangana.54 Such shows played a vital role in providing a safety valve for the often violent passions of one section of the population. Then there was the issue of social welfare, one that still occupies a great deal of the attention of governments today. According to the theory, the emperor was supposed not just to provide good things for his people but also to look after them in adversity. Basil I, we are told, ‘was a generous benefactor of the poor, spending lavish amounts of money on charity’. He was not in the least unusual in this, for most Byzantine emperors, if they reigned long enough, took care to undertake conspicuous works of charity. The emperor also played the leading role in any response to disasters, such as fires or earthquakes. When a fire devastated part of the northern area of Constantinople in the early 1190s, Isaac II Angelos was quick to pay out money to compensate those left homeless.55 Moreover, while most of

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Constantinople’s social services were run by the church and the monasteries, they were often funded by imperial generosity. The Orphanage had originally been founded in the fourth century by a pious layman called Zotikos, but it soon fell under imperial patronage. Justin II (565–78) built a church inside it and Alexios I rebuilt the entire complex.56 The earliest hospitals, poor houses and old people’s homes had likewise originally been founded by private citizens but the emperors soon muscled in. Justinian I rebuilt the St Sampson hospital and brought it under imperial auspices. In later centuries, the emperors tended to be the founders of such institutions. Constantine VII transformed some stables behind Hagia Sophia into a home for the elderly. Michael IV founded a poor house.57 All the great showcase monasteries such as St George in Mangana or the Pantokrator were designed to provide social services as well as to look magnificent, thus associating the emperor with pious charitable work. He made full use of the publicity to be garnered from it. Every Maundy Thursday he would ride through the city with his retinue to visit every home for the aged and to distribute gifts to the occupants.58 In all this, the emperors were ostensibly acting in accordance with Byzantine political theory which identified philanthropy as one of the prime duties of the emperor of the Romans. Nevertheless, it should never be forgotten that simple self-preservation was also an element in imperial philanthropy. The fate of Michael V was a constant reminder of what could happen if the views and needs of the people of Constantinople were taken too lightly.

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The last myth of Constantinople was perhaps an unspoken one: an assumption that to be truly ‘Roman’, that is to say Byzantine, one had to possess certain attributes. A Byzantine was male; he was heterosexual; he subscribed to orthodox Christianity as defined by the seven ecumenical councils; he was physically able and he spoke Greek, preferably in its official form. Most of the prominent figures in Byzantine political, religious and cultural life, the people who fill the pages of chronicles and official documents, fulfilled all those criteria. On the other hand, there were very large numbers of people who did not and who were therefore considered outsiders, to be excluded from some aspect or other of the life of the city. Once again though, theory and practice were at odds. While diversity was never on the agenda, one way or another everyone fitted in. The largest group of outsiders was formed by women. As in most premodern societies, they occupied a position subordinate to men. They were considered to be inherently weaker and more prone to sin. After all, in the Old Testament it had been the first woman, Eve, who had succumbed to the temptation of the serpent in the Garden of Eden. She had then tempted Adam to eat the forbidden fruit, thus bringing about the fall of mankind. Theodore the Stoudite accordingly counselled monks to have nothing to do with the opposite sex if they wished to avoid temptation, to the extent of not even using female beasts of burden. It was an idea that provided the basis for plenty of crass misogyny, as in the case of the anonymous poet who identified the sea, fire and women as the three great evils with the last one as the worst of all.1 It also led to the conclusion that women had to be protected and kept out of public life for their own good and that of everyone else. They were expected to stay in the home and not to roam abroad, or if they did they should be discreetly veiled. Their frequently cited role model was Penelope in Homer’s Odyssey who patiently waited at home and wove a tapestry until her husband returned from the Trojan War. Michael Psellos praised his mother for turning the spindle and using other instruments that ‘pertain to the women’s chambers’.2

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This ideal of removal from the everyday world was reinforced by Byzantine law. It stipulated that for a woman to go to the Hippodrome, to the baths or to a banquet without the permission of her husband was a ground for divorce. They were certainly not supposed to frequent taverns, although for some reason the Byzantines believed that they did not get drunk as easily as men. Only the direst emergency would justify their appearing on the streets, such as when an earthquake struck Constantinople in 1063 and women rushed out fearing that their houses might collapse.3 There were severe restrictions on the part that women could play in public life. Not only were they specifically debarred by law from acting as judges and bankers, they were not even considered competent to act as witnesses of contracts.4 They had fewer educational opportunities than men. As the daughter of a reigning emperor, the historian Anna Komnene was an exception but even she had to overcome some parental disapproval when she announced that she wanted to advance to higher education. She initially had to take lessons secretly with the palace eunuchs before her father relented.5 While these kinds of sequestration might be justified as offering protection to women, the criminal law afforded them little redress against domestic violence. In theory, a man who beat his wife with a whip or rod without sufficient cause could be compelled to pay compensation. In around 900, a man called Nikephoros beat his wife Maria with a whip and when she ran away to escape him, she fell and injured her head. After she died a few days later, nobody made any attempt to prosecute him.6 But Byzantium was ever a land of contradictions and the religious basis that justified the subordinate role of women was double-edged. While the Old Testament taught that women were the weaker vessel and a channel for sin and temptation, the New Testament described how the salvation of mankind had come about because the Virgin Mary had been willing to carry God incarnate in her womb. Indeed a young woman named Kasia had once taken issue with an emperor, who had rather pompously declared that it was through a woman that sin had come into the world. She had reminded him that it was through a woman that mankind’s redeemer had been born. The punishment for her impertinence was to be dropped from the list of possible imperial spouses and she spent the rest of her life in a convent where she turned her energies to music and wrote some memorable hymns.7 In spite of Kasia’s relegation, her point was a valid one that most Byzantines would have agreed with. The Virgin enjoyed intense veneration in Byzantine Constantinople. A high proportion of its churches and monasteries were dedicated to her and two of the greatest festivals of the liturgical year, the feast of the Annunciation on 25 March and that of the Dormition on 15 August, were in her honour. She certainly did not remain hidden away from public view. As the special protector of Constantinople, she had often been seen on the Land Walls in times of crisis and her icon was carried by emperors into battle. She was the ultimate positive female role model. In view of this precedent, it is not surprising that some women among the Byzantine elite, such as empresses Anna Dalassena and Euphrosyne

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could defy the theory and come to play a leading political role. Parallels with the Virgin may well have played a part. Empress Zoe, the daughter of Constantine VIII who between 1028 and 1042 brought three men to power by marrying them, was viewed by the people of Constantinople as their mother.8 There was something else that gave Byzantine imperial women the opportunity to wield power: a legal loophole. Byzantine law laid down that if a husband predeceased his wife and their children were still minors, then the wife became the guardian of the children. In the case of widowed empresses, this stipulation gave them the power to head a council of regency and effectively to rule the empire during the minority of her son. So, for example, between 842 and 858, during the minority of Emperor Michael III, the empire was administered by his mother Theodora, with the assistance of her male relatives and the palace officials.9 This legal loophole applied not just to empresses but to the whole of Byzantine society. It meant that widows became the head of the household and controlled all the property of the marriage, both her own and her husband’s. However, the control that Byzantine women had over property did not end there. Byzantine law may have debarred women from certain professions and stopped them from being witnesses, but it did permit them to be parties to contracts and to make wills, even if they were married. Moreover, a wife’s dowry remained her own possession, separate from her husband’s property. In most medieval systems of law, the wife’s legal interest was deemed to be merged with that of her husband, so that she had no right to control property independently. The rights enjoyed by Byzantine women were not extended to those in western Europe and America until well into the nineteenth century.10 Nor in practice were all Byzantine women permanently locked away in the domestic sphere. The ideal seems only to have applied to women of wealthy and high-status families. Others played a very prominent role in Constantinople’s commercial life. There were female merchants who owned their own cargo ships, an empress among them. Further down the economic ladder, there were women who ran market stalls that sold everything from hot pies to jewellery.11 There were female artisans and craft workers. They seem to have been particularly prominent in weaving, spinning and carding wool, a skill at which they were considered to be better than men and which they clearly practised commercially as well as to provide clothing for their own families.12 Naturally there were midwives, but women were also trained as doctors. The foundation charter of the Pantokrator monastery laid down that in the hospital there, a certain number of female doctors were to be employed specifically to tend to women patients.13 Even the oldest profession was not criminalized in Constantinople. Obviously, the church disapproved. One clerical visitor primly asserted that just as Constantinople exceeded other cities in wealth, so it excelled them in vice. Attempts by the authorities to curb prostitution were limited to the creation of refuges for those who wanted to escape exploitation. Michael IV built one in the 1030s and sent heralds out into the streets to invite prostitutes who wished to

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abandon their way of life. In some cases though, emperors were numbered among their clients rather than their rescuers.14 When it came to finding a political voice, the situation was the same for working women in Constantinople as it was for the vast majority of their male counterparts. In theory, they were excluded but in practice they could take violent action when their passions were aroused. They played a notable role in the opposition to the iconoclast emperors. According to later legend, when news spread that soldiers were taking down the icon of Christ at the Brazen Gate in 726, it was a crowd of women, led by a certain Theodosia, who surged across the Augousteion to the rescue. In the ensuing fracas, they pushed away the ladder on which one of the soldiers had perched himself in order to prise off the icon, sending the unfortunate man hurtling to his death. Theodosia was shortly afterwards dispatched by the soldier’s comrades who cut her throat with a ram’s horn.15 The story of Theodosia may well be apocryphal but there are plenty of other, wellattested examples of women taking part in violent political protest. It was women who lobbed stones at Emperor Nikephoros II from the roof of their house. When Emperor Andronicus I was overthrown and lynched in the Hippodrome in 1185, women were at the forefront of the mob that kicked and beat him, many of them intent on taking revenge for the execution or blinding of their husbands. Women also played a leading role in the riot that brought down Michael V in 1042. Michael Psellos saw them at the head of the crowd ‘shouting and beating their breasts’ and demanding the reinstatement of their ‘mother’, Empress Zoe.16 So it turns out after all that women at all levels of society could participate in political and economic life. Of course, no one could claim that Byzantine women enjoyed the same status as men. It was just that the theory as to what their role should be was by no means as monolithic and inflexible as its proponents wished to believe. * Given that they constituted half the population, women were simply too numerous to marginalize completely. Smaller groups that did not conform to the ideal in one way or another were much easier to brand as completely beyond the pale. Homosexuals were subject to the deep disapproval of the authorities and often of the populace at large. Again there were religious grounds for the disapproval. The Bible seldom mentions the subject but there is a specific prohibition of sexual activity between males in the Book of Leviticus 18.22, for those diligent enough to look for it. On that basis, there was no lack of clerical condemnation of the practice and warnings of the dire punishments that awaited those who succumbed to the temptation. One moralist advised his readers: ‘Suppose that [the devil] brings pressure on you to sleep with a male, beware the inescapable judgement of God and fly from it. Many are those who have been struck dead by God’s lightning while they secretly committed this sin in their homes.’17

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One of Constantinople’s hermits claimed that he had seen a vision of the Last Judgement where, on a nod from the Almighty, angels fastened millstones around the necks of homosexuals and hurled them into a sea of all-consuming fire.18 Ecclesiastical censure was backed up by imperial authority in a series of laws. They started in 342 when any kind of marriage between men had been banned, and culminated in 559 when severe punishments had been prescribed for those guilty of ‘debauchery contrary to nature’.19 During the reign of Justinian I, there was a purge of bishops who were suspected of being homosexual. Isaiah, bishop of Rhodes and others were arrested and brought to Constantinople, some of them on the basis of decidedly flimsy evidence. They were tortured, castrated and paraded ignominiously through the streets, some of them dying in the process. ‘From then on’, wrote a contemporary, ‘there was fear among those afflicted with homosexual lust.’20 But just as the Biblical conception of female weakness was not always reflected in everyday life, neither was the condemnation in Leviticus regularly put into practice. The draconian punishment meted out to Isaiah of Rhodes and the other bishops was by no means a regular occurrence. In fact, there are almost no other recorded instances of prosecution for homosexuality throughout the entire span of Byzantine history. Moreover, there is no doubt that same-sex relations went on in Constantinople, even if the very nature of the case means that specific instances are hard to find and were always reported in a hostile fashion. The meeting place for gay men in Constantinople seems to have been the portico which surrounded the Church of the Mother of God at Blachernae and which must have provided plenty of dark corners but we only know that because someone claimed that a bolt of lightning was sent from heaven to put a stop to the proceedings. We hear of a pupil at the Orphanage school called Bogoas who developed an affection for an older student; when he grew up he allegedly castrated himself, hoping to preserve his youthful looks and continue the relationship. The information comes from a vicious denunciation by a political rival. Behind all the shrill and self-righteous indignation, however, Byzantine society did throw a lifeline to men like Bogoas because there was a way in which male partners could create a recognized union. They could enter into an adelphopoiia, adopting each other as brothers, promising mutual help and support. The link had no legal status and had no implications for inheritance of property but the ceremony to create it was a religious one and it was clearly considered binding by wider society.21 By quietly allowing what was in effect same-sex marriage, the Byzantines were clearly doing what so many societies have done before and since and just turning a blind eye to something that harmed no one. In sequestering women and denouncing homosexuals, the Byzantines could call upon biblical authority. It was very different when it came to dealing with those people who suffered from certain frightening afflictions, notably insanity, leprosy and severe disability. In these cases, it was all too

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easy to forget the compassionate healings carried out by Christ in the Gospels and to react with horror and revulsion. This was a society that set great store by physical wholeness: eunuchs were considered ineligible to become emperor precisely because they lacked part of their bodies and a similar rationale lay behind the punishment of blinding meted out to those who lost out in the struggle for power.22 By extension, there was also a belief that those who suffered from these stigmatized conditions must have deserved them in some way. It was often thought that leprosy was brought on by excessive lust and that mental illness was caused by demonic possession.23 These people were thus at first sight the ultimate outsiders, disowned by wider society. As in the case of women and homosexuals, however, there were two sides to the coin. There was a recognition that Christ’s example should be followed and that those who were afflicted in these ways should be treated with compassion. It would seem that the Orphanage cared for those who had lost limbs. According to Anna Komnene, you could see there ‘a man without feet making use of others’ feet, a man who had no hands being aided by the hands of his friends … and the paralysed being waited on by strong, healthy men’. For lepers there was a hospital, founded by Zotikos, the same man who had established the Orphanage. Sited outside the city proper on the opposite side of the Golden Horn, it received imperial patronage from John I Tzimiskes who rebuilt it and used to pay regular visits. Nor were lepers always exiled to the outer suburbs. There was a house set apart for them in the Pantokrator monastery, although the idea was not to treat them but merely to provide them with ‘relief and consolation’. There were no segregation laws as there were in western Europe at the time.24 The mentally ill were probably the least well catered for. There were asylums, such as that attached to the Church of St Anastasia, but these institutions probably did little more than confine their residents. Curiously though, in one of those strange twists of logic at which the Byzantines excelled, both leprosy and insanity were seen by some in a completely opposite way: as holy diseases, a kind of divine visitation that set the sufferer on the road to sanctity. The bizarre cult of the holy fool was one manifestation of that perception. In this way, these outsiders came to be numbered among the most revered type of person, the holy man.25 * While there was some flexibility and ambiguity in matters of gender, sexuality and physical affliction, on the face of it there could be no compromise over religious doctrine. In the years immediately after the conversion of Constantine, the Christian church had been severely splintered by theological disagreements, especially over Christology: the thorny question of the exact relationship between Jesus Christ and God the Father. In 380, Emperor Theodosius I sought to end the uncertainty by passing a law decreeing that

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all Christians must adhere to the version of the faith articulated at the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea in 325.26 When the disagreements continued, further ecumenical councils followed, notably the fourth at Chalcedon in 451. The last was the seventh which met at Nicaea in 787 to put an end to iconoclasm. The decrees of these clerical gatherings thenceforth represented the orthodoxy to which all true Christians were expected to subscribe. Those who failed to do so were likely to fall foul of both the ecclesiastical and imperial authorities. Initially the suspect would be summoned to appear before the synod, the governing body of the Church of Constantinople. A considerable number of prominent people found themselves in this position, including clergymen. Symeon the New Theologian was summoned in 1009 because he had venerated an icon portraying not Christ or the Virgin Mary but a recently deceased fellow monk. In 1117, Eustratios, the archbishop of Nicaea, was accused of having asserted that Jesus Christ had reasoned in the same way as Aristotle. After due deliberation, Symeon was sent into exile and Eustratios was formally condemned as a heretic and anathematized, that is, cut off from the sacraments of the church until he repented.27 Punishments for deviancy among the lower classes could be a great deal more severe than that. By the early twelfth century, Emperor Alexios I was growing concerned that the heretical Bogomil sect had gained a foothold in Constantinople. Its adherents believed that everything material was evil, created by the devil and only the spirit was good. That position directly contradicted orthodoxy which held that God, in Jesus Christ, had been born in a material body. The hunt was on for these sowers of discord and when one of them was apprehended, he was brought to the Palace of Blachernae and tortured until he revealed the name of the sect’s leader, a certain Basil. To trap him, Alexios invited Basil to the palace in the pretence of being interested in adopting his doctrine. After a friendly conversation in which Basil revealed his beliefs, the emperor ripped back a curtain to reveal a secretary who had been taking down every word that had been said. Hauled before the synod, Basil was condemned to death and the sentence was carried out in the Hippodrome where he was publically burned on a huge pyre. Equally savage punishments were handed out to those convicted of sorcery, two of whom were blinded during the reign of Manuel I.28 As in the case of the persecution of homosexuals, these instances of drastic punishment were relatively rare. When the Bogomil leader was executed in the Hippodrome, the reaction of the crowd to the spectacle was to demand that all the members of the sect be consigned to the flames. Emperor Alexios, however, declined to do so.29 The Byzantines never reacted to religious deviancy with quite the same ferocity as did western Europe in the later Middle Ages and the Reformation, when countless people perished for their beliefs. Moreover, the Byzantine authorities recognized that some Christians had different practices and traditions, like the Nubians and Ethiopians who came as pilgrims or served as guards in the palace.30 The Byzantine authorities were perfectly happy for these different traditions

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to be accommodated in dedicated churches. In the Russian quarter there was the Church of St Boris and St Gleb where the liturgy was performed not in Greek but in Old Church Slavonic. That was only to be expected. The Russian ecclesiastical hierarchy was very closely linked to that of Constantinople: the Russian ruler and his people had been baptized in 989 by clergy sent from Constantinople and the archbishop of Kiev and other prelates were still usually Byzantine appointees. The Russians therefore fitted in with what the Byzantines considered to be correct belief even if they had different practices and a different liturgical language. There were limits to what would be tolerated though. For a time there was a church where the services were said in Armenian. The Armenian hierarchy, however, had never accepted the decrees of the Council of Chalcedon and so were technically in heresy. Their church in Constantinople survived until about 1100 when on imperial orders it was burned down and the clergy sent home.31 The largest group of Christians from a different tradition in Constantinople were the western Europeans, the people that the Byzantines referred to collectively as ‘Latins’. Apart from the Italian merchants who lived in their special compounds by the Golden Horn, there were many other westerners who served as mercenary soldiers in the imperial armies, particularly Normans, English, French, Germans and Scandinavians, as well as passing pilgrims and envoys. Like the Russians, the westerners had their special churches in which the mass was said in Latin: the English had one dedicated to St Nicholas and St Augustine of Canterbury and the Scandinavians one to St Olaf.32 The Italian merchants had their own churches in their commercial quarters alongside the Golden Horn. The Pisans had their Church of St Peter while the principal Venetian church was St Akindynos, along with others dedicated St Mark, St John, St Nicholas and the Virgin Mary.33 On the face of it, there should have been no difficulty here, for the western church accepted the decrees of the ecumenical councils. Unfortunately, it had slowly been growing apart from that of Byzantium for some centuries. There were differences not only in practice but also in doctrine: the Byzantines strongly disapproved of the western creed which differed slightly from that defined by the ecumenical councils and they did not accept the Latin belief that the pope in Rome had the authority over the entire church. In 1052, a zealous patriarch closed all the Latin churches in Constantinople because he did not approve of their using unleavened rather than leavened bread for Holy Communion.34 That was a rare occurrence though and the churches soon reopened: the synod generally overlooked what the Latins did in their own churches. That same tolerance was by and large extended to those small groups of Constantinople’s inhabitants who were not Christians at all. There were Turkic people such as Pechenegs and Cumans who served in the imperial armies and who still adhered to their old pagan religion. Then there were the Muslims, mainly Arab and Turkish merchants for whose spiritual needs a number of mosques had been provided since the early eighth century.

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By 1200 the most important was the one known as the Mitaton, which was discreetly tucked away just outside the Sea Walls on the Golden Horn. This accommodation of Muslim worship was not motivated by any spirit of toleration and inclusiveness but by the needs of international diplomacy. The mosques in Constantinople were a useful bargaining counter in Byzantium’s relations with its powerful Muslim neighbours to the east, whether the Abbasids, the Fatimids, the Seljuks or the Ayyubids. The right to appoint the Muezzins and to pay for the upkeep of the Constantinople mosques could be traded for something that the Byzantines valued, usually control of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.35 The other non-Christian community of Constantinople lived not in the city itself but in the suburb of Galata on the other side of the Golden Horn. There a small community of some 2,500 Jews could be found, along with their synagogues and cemetery, divided into a Rabbinite majority and a Karaïte minority.36 It was only to be expected that the uncompromisingly Christian rulers of Byzantium would occasionally pay unwelcome attention to these dissidents living on their doorstep and, unlike the Muslims, the Jews had no powerful foreign government to protect their interests. In the years after the conversion of Constantine to Christianity, they had been deliberately deprived of some of the rights enjoyed by the rest of the population. A law of 418, for example, prohibited Jews from entering imperial service. They were not allowed to ride on horseback and their property rights could be swept aside on an imperial whim. Emperor Theodosius II had unceremoniously evicted the Jews from the Chalkoprateia area when he wanted to build the Church of the Mother of God there.37 There were even sporadic attempts to force the Byzantine Jews to accept baptism. Emperor Leo III issued a decree to this effect in the 720s and Basil I tried again in the 870s. The most serious persecution came under Romanos I in the 930s and 940s, prompting many Jews to flee from Byzantine territory to avoid forcible baptism.38 On the other hand, in spite of the legislation, the high-handed measures and the occasional bout of persecution, the Jewish experience in Constantinople was not one of grinding and constant oppression. The laws of Leo III, Basil I and Romanos may have led to some Jews being bribed or coerced into accepting baptism but these measures do not seem to have been enforced very effectively or for very long. Any reluctant converts are likely to have quickly returned to their ancestral faith and after the downfall of Romanos I in 944 there were no further attempts to force baptism on the Jews. There were never state-sponsored mass expulsions of the kind that occurred in western Europe during the Middle Ages. Even the specific legal disabilities placed on Jews were not always enforced. Emperor Manuel I’s personal physician was exempted from the ban on Jews riding horses.39 Apart from those specific prohibitions, Byzantine law actually afforded the same protection for the lives and property of Jews as it did for that of everyone else. Christians were specifically forbidden to disturb the Jews and if they did they were liable to pay double the value of any property they damaged as well as replacing it.40

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In general, the community was left much to its own devices. A Christian contemporary asserted, with some exaggeration, that the Jews could live openly and fearlessly in the Byzantine Empire and at times of persecution in the Muslim world, as under the Fatimid Caliph Hakim in Egypt in the early eleventh century, Jews would flee to Byzantine territory and often remained there. Constantinople and other Byzantine cities seem to have become centres for Jewish education and learning. A rabbi called Kaleb Korsinos, who is recorded as living in the Galata community in the late twelfth century, wrote a commentary on the work of Abraham ibn Ezra (1089–1167).41 When they were left in peace, some of the Jews of Galata seem to have earned their livelihoods as silk weavers and tanners, others as merchants, taking advantage of Constantinople’s position as a trading hub.42 They had an added advantage in doing so because, while some had lived there all their lives, many were immigrants who had numerous connections in other great trading cities such as Alexandria. Letters exchanged between these sundered friends and relatives have survived, such as that from a woman called Maliha who had moved to Byzantium but was clearly deeply homesick for Egypt. She wrote to her brothers: ‘Would that I could write to you that I am well but I am not well because at this moment, I’ll tell you, my soul is restless in my heart, my step has faltered, my bones tremble and my strength has melted away, for I have been separated from you now for a number of years.’ Quite apart from the emotional attachment, those links with family and friends in ports all over the Mediterranean provided a useful network to facilitate movement of goods. Maliha ended her letter to her brothers asking them to come and fetch her back to Egypt but while they were at it to bring merchandise with them.43 Jews were not supposed to use Venetian vessels to ship their goods, as this might allow them to avoid paying the Kommerkion, but they clearly found ways of doing so. Consequently though it was not large, the Galata community was wealthy enough to pay the ransoms of Jews captured by pirates and provide hospitality and charity to those who passed through the capital, including perhaps the merchant of Alexandria whose ship in 1050 had to flee north to Constantinople to escape pirates while sailing to Amalfi with a cargo of pepper and other spices. One traveller gratefully recorded his thanks when he got back to Egypt to his six benefactors in Constantinople as well as ‘the entire holy congregation, may they be blessed’.44 * Official de facto tolerance on the part of the religious and secular authorities of those who failed to fit into Byzantine orthodoxy was a pragmatic response to everyday reality. It could never be guaranteed, however, that this tacit acceptance would be reflected on the streets. Just as the Constantinopolitan crowd could at times intervene violently in politics, so there were times when it could vent its wrath against certain groups of outsiders. Given how mixed Constantinople’s population was, such outbreaks happened rarely and for the most part the different groups lived perfectly amicably alongside each

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TEXT BOX 8: Two sides of the Jewish experience in Constantinople Hasdai ibn Shaprut (c. 914–c. 970) was a Jewish scholar and chief minister to Caliph Abd ar-Rahman III of Cordova in Spain. In around 940, he wrote to Helena, daughter of Emperor Romanos I Lekapenos, begging her to use her influence to end the persecution of Jews in the Byzantine Empire: I cast my supplication before your royal highness … on behalf of the remnant of the Jewish nation abiding among you … who have survived captivity and persecution. … The Lord has commanded them not to cease from the observance of their laws nor from the customs to which they adhere … Now if you will fulfil my earnest request by spreading your wings over them. … Appoint one of your subjects regularly over them so that their enemies will be deterred from harming them. By contrast, Elisha bar Shinaya, archbishop of Nisibis (1008–46), claimed that Jews led a privileged existence in the Byzantine Empire though it is worth adding that he did so not to extol the Byzantines for their tolerance but to castigate them for their laxity: The Byzantines tolerate a large population of Jews in their realm. They afford them protection, allow them openly to adhere to their religion and to build their synagogues. … As regards the Byzantines, the Jew in their lands may say ‘I am a Jew.’ He may adhere to his religion and recite his prayers. No one brings it up to him, restrains him or puts any difficulties in his way. … Even the Jews may enter the churches of the Byzantines. From J. Starr, The Jews in the Byzantine Empire, 641–1204. Athens: Verlag der Byzantinisch-Neugriechischen Jahrbücher, 1939: 156, 190.

other. One Constantinopolitan even prided himself on his ability to speak to the people he met in the streets in their own languages: One finds me a Scythian (Pecheneg) among Scythians, Latin among Latins, and among any other tribe a member of that folk. When I embrace a Scythian I accost him in such a way: ‘Good day, my lady, good day my lord: salamalek alti, salamalek altugep.’ … To a Latin I speak in the Latin language: ‘Welcome, my lord, welcome, my brother: Bene venesti,

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domine, bene venesti frater.’ … So I talk with all of them in a proper and befitting way.45 There is no evidence that the people of Constantinople objected to the presence of Muslims in their city, even though Muslim powers were frequently the enemies of the Byzantine Empire. The burning down of a mosque is recorded on one occasion in around 1200 but there is no sign that the Muslims were specifically being targeted, for a church was ransacked on the same occasion. Three years later, when a mob of Latins tried to loot the Mitaton mosque, the Constantinopolitans rushed to the rescue and, together with the Arabs, beat off the attack. Perhaps it was the relatively small number of Arab and Turkish merchants that ensured that their presence never gave rise to resentment.46 It is true that some other groups were singled out for prejudice. People from the Black Sea coast of Asia Minor, an area known as Paphlagonia, had a reputation for being violent and uncivilized, Armenians for being crafty and untrustworthy, but while these stereotypes might have encouraged sneers and slights they seldom led to violence.47 There was a fight between some Armenian soldiers in imperial service and some of the citizens in the spring of 966: there were plenty of injuries but this was not a regular occurrence.48 Indeed, in spite of all the prejudice, some immigrants from both Paphlagonia and Armenia ended up doing very well for themselves in the Byzantine capital. The powerful eunuch John the Orphanotrophos, emperors Michael IV and Michael V, Symeon the New Theologian and Theodora, the consort of Emperor Theophilos, were all of Paphlagonian origin. Emperors Leo V, Basil I and John I Tzimiskes, not to mention numerous successful generals, were of Armenian descent.49 The Jews were certainly not liked and they were prevented by law from improving their situation by gaining entry to the corridors of power. As in other parts of the Christian world, they were sometimes singled out for scorn and denunciation because they were seen as enemies of Christianity and the descendants of the crucifiers of Christ. Preachers declared that they were doomed to eternal perdition and stories circulated about their supposed machinations against Christianity. There was, for example, the tale of the Jew who attacked an icon of Christ in Hagia Sophia with a knife whereupon it allegedly spurted blood all over its assailant. When the Jew ran out of the cathedral, his blood-stained appearance led to his immediate arrest on suspicion of murder. Only when he led his accusers back into Hagia Sophia and showed them the icon, with the knife still in it, was he believed. He subsequently converted to Christianity, along with his whole family.50 On the other hand, such tall tales never led to any large-scale attack on the Jewish community along the lines of the savage pogroms perpetrated in England, Germany and elsewhere in western Europe at the time of the crusades. Instead there was merely occasional petty harassment. In Galata, the local tanners used to dump the filthy water that was the by-product of their trade onto the doorsteps of Jewish houses and there were occasional cases of Jews being beaten up in the streets. During an attempted coup in

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1077, many Jewish houses in Galata were burned down although they do not seem to have been singled out specifically.51 In Constantinople’s early centuries, when major outbreaks against outsiders did occur the target was not Jews or foreigners but Christian heretics. This was the period when the Byzantine Church had been deeply divided on the Christological issue that had been the main topic for debate at the Fourth Ecumenical Council at Chalcedon in 451. In Constantinople theological discussion was not confined to words. In 512, Emperor Anastasius I (491–518) suggested that an addition be made to the liturgy that seemed to contradict the definitions agreed at Chalcedon. Crowds spilled out onto the streets demanding that Anastasius be deposed. They marched to the house of a former eparch who was believed to have suggested the change and when they could not find him, they ransacked the premises and burned them to the ground. They finally found a victim in a Syrian monk who was seized and decapitated, presumably because he was suspected of holding the opposing view on the nature of Christ. His head was stuck on a pole and paraded through the streets to cries of ‘Here is the enemy of the Trinity!’ Emperor Anastasius only restored order by appearing in the imperial box in the Hippodrome, without his crown as a gesture of humility, and personally appealing for calm.52 By 1200, the Christological issue had long since been settled and no longer moved the people of Constantinople to such violent passions. When widespread disorder did break out in the later twelfth century, it was directed at a very different target: the Latins. * By the late twelfth century, the Latins were everywhere in Constantinople. They constituted the emperor’s most trusted regiment of guards, the Varangians, and were prominent in the rest of the Byzantine army too. The empire’s internal trade was largely conducted by the Venetians, Genoese and Pisans. A series of imperial consorts had been Latins. Manuel I had married twice, first a German princess, Bertha of Sulzbach, and then Maria of Antioch. His son Alexios II was married to Agnes, daughter of the king of France. Most recently Isaac II had wed a Catholic, Margaret of Hungary. To start with, there was little sign of tension between the people of Constantinople and these incomers. Incidents inevitably sometimes occurred but they never led to any general tension. In the 1030s, when a Varangian attempted to rape a Byzantine woman, she grabbed his sword and killed him. Rather than seeking to avenge him, the man’s Latin comrades applauded her action and gave her all the dead man’s property. Even the religious divide made little impact: most Byzantines regarded the Latins simply as fellow Christians. An Italian monk who joined the community in Symeon the New Theologian’s monastery was treated exactly the same as everyone else. Those who attempted to denounce the Latins for their deviations from orthodoxy found it hard to get a hearing. When the abbot of Stoudios, Niketas Stethatos, published a pamphlet criticizing the Latins’

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use of unleavened bread in communion, Emperor Constantine IX made him publicly burn it: sweet revenge no doubt for Stethatos’ condemnation of Constantine’s extramarital relations with Maria Skleraina.53 The beginning of the slow change in the way that the population of Constantinople viewed the Latins can probably be dated to the summer of 1096. News arrived that a large army was heading towards the capital from the west, not to attack it but, on the contrary, to make war on the empire’s enemies in Asia Minor, the Seljuk Turks. When the host arrived at the Land Walls, however, it was like no army the Byzantines had seen before. It contained as many women and children as men, all wearing crosses on their shoulders and carrying palms, and it was led not by a soldier or general but by a Latin monk called Peter the Hermit. They claimed that they were on a pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem which they were going to liberate from infidel rule. Emperor Alexios I therefore received them kindly, provided them with food and money and even invited Peter to the Palace of Blachernae. Unfortunately, Peter’s followers proved rowdy and undisciplined and they started looting the suburbs, stripping lead off the churches and monasteries to sell. Unable to control the vast horde, after just five days Alexios ordered them to be ferried across the Bosporus where most of them were massacred by the Turks.54 Hardly had Constantinople recovered from this strange incursion than it was announced that more Latin armies were on the way, this time led by prominent noblemen: Count Raymond of Toulouse, Duke Godfrey of Bouillon and Bohemond, lord of Taranto, all on the same pilgrimage to liberate Jerusalem. By December 1096, the first contingents were arriving at the Land Walls, the newcomers pitching their tents between the bulge at Blachernae and the Kosmidion monastery. Indeed the latter was known ever afterwards among the Latins as ‘Bohemond’s castle’ after the leader who had installed himself there.55 As more and more Latins came, Constantinople’s supply system was under increasing pressure to feed them. The emperor provided markets at which the Latins could buy food but again the sheer numbers involved ensured that there would be trouble. Some of the Latins started to break into the suburban villas of wealthy Constantinopolitans, prompting the emperor to remove the food markets, and there was even a pitched battle between Byzantine troops and the Latins outside the Blachernae walls.56 At last, at the end of April 1097, the huge armies moved on, crossing the Bosporus and heading towards Nicaea. This was the expedition that has come to be known as the First Crusade and it was ultimately to capture Jerusalem in July 1099. For the people of Constantinople, the passing of the crusade was a moment for rueful reflection. When the crusaders had made their attack at Blachernae, many people had been terrified and ‘beat their breasts in impotent fear’. While the ostensible goal of these Latins had been Jerusalem, many Byzantines feared that this was merely a pretext for an attempt to seize the Byzantine capital as so many others in the past had tried to do.57 The seeds of a deep popular mistrust of all Latins were sown and that

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mistrust grew because the crusaders kept on coming back, using the land route via Constantinople to reach the Holy Land. Whenever they came, there was trouble. In the spring of 1101, a large crusade army composed mainly of Lombards encamped outside the Land Walls while it waited to be ferried across the Bosporus. Emperor Alexios urged them to make the crossing as soon as possible but the crusaders were reluctant, as they wanted to join forces with another army that they knew was on its way behind them. To put pressure on them, the emperor cut off the food supply, so the crusaders attacked the Blachernae walls. Some of them managed to get over the fortifications and into the palace where they killed not only a lion in the imperial menagerie but also a young relative of the emperor. In September 1147, when the German contingent of the Second Crusade arrived, apprehensive civilians crowded onto the Land Walls to get a good look at the crusaders and were rewarded with the sight of a lively skirmish between the Germans and Byzantine troops.58 In both cases, peace was restored soon afterwards and the crusaders moved on, but such incidents helped to fuel perceptions that they harboured aggressive intentions towards Constantinople. When the German emperor Frederick Barbarossa marched through Byzantine territory on his way to the Holy Land in the late summer of 1189, he avoided Constantinople and crossed at the Dardanelles rather than at the Bosporus. Nevertheless, the patriarch of Constantinople, Dositheos, publicly announced that he had foreseen that Barbarossa would march into Constantinople and even specified the gate in the Land Walls through which the German ruler would come. Emperor Isaac II took the patriarch at his word and had the gate bricked up.59 In this atmosphere of mistrust, the religious differences between Latins and Byzantines which had been largely ignored in the past now came to be taken more seriously. Byzantine clergy would refuse to celebrate the liturgy on an altar on which the Latin mass had been said unless it had first been given a ritual purification. They refused to marry a Latin to a Byzantine woman unless he agreed first to be rebaptized as if he had not been a Christian to start with. A Pisan who was in Constantinople in 1166 complained that Latins were pointed at on the streets as objects of detestation.60 This was very much a popular reaction. The emperors and their advisers did everything they could to remain on good terms with western powers and with the crusader states in Syria and the Holy Land. They also relied heavily on Latin mercenaries to provide the best troops in their armies. But in this, as in so much else, they found it difficult to control the people of Constantinople once their blood was up. * When the clash came, it was not passing crusaders or Latin mercenaries who were attacked but the Italian mercantile communities in Constantinople. Quite apart from their being Latins, there were additional reasons to make these people an object of resentment. Thanks to the commercial treaties that

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their home cities had negotiated with the Byzantine emperor, they enjoyed a privileged position in Constantinople. Not only were they exempt from the Kommerkion and other customs duties that the Byzantines had to pay but they also enjoyed a certain amount of judicial immunity within their own commercial quarters along the Golden Horn. The treaty agreed between Venice and Alexios III in 1198 allowed Venetians in Constantinople accused of criminal offences to have their case heard by Venetian judges in all cases apart from murder and riot.61 The Venetians in particular were perceived as, and probably often were, swaggering and arrogant. ‘Their immoderate enrichment’, complained one Byzantine,‘quickly elevated them to boastfulness. They used to treat the citizen like a slave.’ As often happens with immigrant groups, they were believed to be much more numerous than they actually were. One contemporary described how they came to Constantinople in swarms and another estimated there to be 60,000 of them in the capital by 1180, an evident exaggeration.62 Had the Italians been concentrated, like the Jews, in a distant suburb such as Galata, they might have gone unnoticed, but their enclaves were all sited in the most crowded area of Constantinople, right under the noses of the most volatile section of the city’s population. When violence broke out, it was not that the people of Constantinople made an unprovoked attack on the Italians. Rather they were initially drawn into the Italians’ own rivalries. In March 1162, when the Pisans launched an attack on the Genoese quarter, they were at first repulsed. The Pisans withdrew to collect reinforcements, calling not only on the Venetians but also the local Byzantines to help them. With their numbers thus boosted, the attack was renewed and the Genoese were driven out of the city. How matters might have developed after that is a matter for conjecture because in 1171 Emperor Manuel I intervened and expelled the Venetians from Constantinople, a measure that was likely to have been very popular on the streets and probably helped to keep a lid on the resentment for some time.63 A decade later the Constantinopolitan mob was to launch its own attack on the Italian quarters along the Golden Horn. The opportunity presented itself in April 1182, when Constantinople was going through another of its periodic political upheavals. Andronicus Komnenos had marched on the capital with a view to overthrowing the regency for the young Alexios II. His supporters on the inside had opened the gates to allow his troops to enter the city. For a time, law and order broke down and a large mob gathered to take advantage of the situation. Joining forces with Andronicus’ Paphlagonian soldiers and spurred on by rumours that the Italians were planning to take over the city, a large crowd invaded the Genoese and Pisan quarters. News of an imminent attack had spread and many Italians were able to get down to the wharves, board ships and sail away long before the mob arrived. Unfortunately, there were plenty of people left behind. Those who tried to resist were soon overcome and the attackers killed anyone they found in the streets, including the elderly, pregnant women and children. The Italian enclave had its own hospital, run by the Knights of St John,

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but even this was not spared and patients were murdered in their beds. The primary victims here were Pisans and Genoese but there does seem to have been a wider anti-Latin agenda. According to some accounts, one of the victims was a clergyman, who had been sent from Rome by the pope, who was decapitated and his head tied to the tail of a dog. The Latin churches in the area were burned down.64 The rioters might have felt that they had struck a blow against the hated Italians but for the Byzantine government the incident was both a commercial and a public relations disaster. Not only were the Italians removed from the empire’s internal trade but in western opinion the massacre was seen as further proof that the Byzantines hated Latin Christians and were, in fact, in league with Muslim powers who hoped to eject the Latins from Jerusalem. Eager to make amends, after the overthrow of Andronicus I in 1185, Isaac II entered into protracted negotiations with both the Genoese and Pisans. In 1192, he made treaties with both, agreeing that compensation would be paid as it had been to the Venetians for the confiscations of 1171: the Genoese received 228,000 hyperpyra. The Italians returned to their quarters in Constantinople which had both been enlarged by the treaties, rejoining their old rivals, the Venetians.65 The treaties did not end the resentment that was felt towards the Italians by the Constantinopolitan populace and the emperors continued to have great difficulty in restraining them. In 1187 another outbreak occurred. A crowd marched on the Venetian quarter but the Italians had set up barricades across the street to stop them. There was pitched fighting from the afternoon until late into the night, during which time the Italians successfully held the mob at bay. At first light the next day, the crowd reassembled to renew the assault but by now some imperial officials had arrived and they urged the people to disperse to their homes. They probably would not have done so, but further bloodshed was averted thanks not to the efforts of the officials but to a ruse on the part of the Italians. Collecting up the bodies of the Byzantines who had been killed in the skirmish the night before, they cut their hair and dressed them in western clothes to look like Latin victims of the mob. When the bodies were displayed, they had a sobering effect on the crowd who decided that they had done enough damage to their enemies and dispersed.66 These anti-Latin outbreaks were a disturbing phenomenon of the late twelfth century, but they were by no means a recurring event throughout the long history of Byzantium. On the contrary, while all societies have their insiders and their outsiders, Byzantine Constantinople for the most part preserved a remarkable flexibility behind the façade of its rigorous ideology. Homosexuals, Muslims, Jews and even some heretics managed to live and prosper there. For a long time, the Latins prospered too until the tension caused by the crusades and the religious schism sharpened popular antagonism. Ultimately it was the Latins who were to inflict the devastating blow that would set the Byzantine capital on the path towards its long decline.

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9 The Latin interlude

According to legend, shortly after Constantinople had been inaugurated in 330, Constantine the Great consulted a famous astrologer, Vettius Valens, to discover how long the city would last. The answer was very precise: 696 years exactly. When the year 1026 came and went with nothing untoward taking place, a succession of prophets of doom arose to predict that the end was nigh and that once Constantinople ceased to be the world would come to an end as well, since it was impossible to conceive the latter without the former.1 Nevertheless, at the turn of the thirteenth century, Constantinople must have seemed as prosperous and secure as it ever had. On the wharves and jetties along the Golden Horn, goods were unloaded and loaded, merchants bought and sold and visitors stared in wonder at the profusion of movable wealth on display. In the domed churches the performance of the liturgical round went on serenely, watched by the silent host of mosaic saints and angels. The tradition of imperial church building continued. Alexios III, wanting the Angelos dynasty to have a suitably splendid burial place, was probably responsible for the construction of a new church in the Kyriotissa monastic complex, near the aqueduct of Valens.2 Out on the periphery, the unconquered Land Walls stood sentinel as they had always done. There was, of course, a long list of external threats to counter. On the eastern frontier, the empire faced a resurgent Seljuk Turkish sultanate, based at Konya and ruled by Rukn al-Din (1197–1204), while in the west there was the perennial threat that southern Italy might be used as a launch pad for an invasion of the Byzantine Balkans. Outlying Byzantine provinces were very vulnerable to attack. Cyprus had been seized by the king of England, Richard the Lionheart, in 1191 while he was on his way to crusade in the Holy Land, and although Alexios III had complained bitterly to the pope, there was still no sign that he was going to get the island back. In 1186 Bulgaria had revolted, and by 1200 was an independent kingdom under its formidable tsar, Kalojan (1197–1207). Much of Alexios’s reign was spent fighting the Bulgars and their Vlach allies in the Balkans. While it cannot be said that Alexios enjoyed great success in this undertaking, none of these enemies posed any direct threat to Constantinople itself. In any case,

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the Byzantine Empire had always been compelled to defend itself against seemingly inexhaustible waves of attackers. Few could have imagined at the time that disaster was about to strike so swiftly. That it did was the result of an unfortunate combination of Byzantium’s volatile internal politics and its ambivalent relations with the Latins. * It was one of the peculiar contradictions of Byzantine life that in spite of the exalted claims made for the person and office of the emperor and of earnest attempts to establish the hereditary principle, in practice the throne was within the reach of anyone who could muster sufficient force to seize it. It made little difference that these days potential usurpers tended to be relatives of the emperor rather than complete outsiders: political life remained an almost unbroken succession of plots and conspiracies and the reign of Alexios III was particularly turbulent. As a usurper who had reached the throne by overthrowing and blinding his brother, Isaac II, Alexios had little moral authority to cow those who were considering doing the same to him. To make matters worse, Alexios III had no obvious successor. Since he had come to the throne relatively late in life, he and his wife Euphrosyne did not have a son who was a Porphyrogenitos, born in the purple chamber of the Great Palace. Indeed they did not have any male heir, only three daughters, Irene, Eudokia and Anna. The best policy in these circumstances was to marry them off to prominent noblemen and so provide a wealthy and able successor. In the case of Eudokia, that did not prove to be an easy task. She had already been married, back in the 1180s before her father’s accession. Her uncle, the unfortunate Isaac II, had negotiated a diplomatic match with the man who was to become ruler of Serbia as Stephen the First Crowned (1196–1228). Eudokia was not destined to reign beside Stephen for long, for the couple fell out disastrously. Eudokia complained about her husband’s amorous affairs, his gluttony and excessive drinking, while Stephen declared that his wife was scabious. He finally got rid of her in 1198 by the tried-and-tested means of trumping up a charge of adultery. He had Eudokia seized and deprived her of most of her clothes, sending her back to Constantinople dressed only in her undergarments.3 In spite of this disgrace, as the daughter of a reigning emperor, Eudokia should have had no difficulty in finding another husband. Unfortunately, once back in Constantinople she entered into a passionate liaison with Alexios Doukas Mourtzouphlos, one of the conspirators who had helped her father to the throne in 1195. Mourtzouphlos was said to have loved Eudokia ‘since the first appearance of hair on his cheek’ but he was already a married man. It is possible that he hoped that he would one day be free to marry her, in which case he would have a claim to the throne.4 Alexios had more success with his other daughters, both of whom were provided with their second husbands during 1199. The eldest, Irene, married Alexios Palaiologos, a member of an old and distinguished family,

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while Anna was given to the rather more obscure Theodore Laskaris. As it turned out, Anna had the better match. The aristocratic Palaiologos died only a few years after the wedding, but Theodore Laskaris soon carved out a high reputation as a soldier. Shortly after his marriage, he took part in an expedition against rebel forces in Philippopolis and proved himself to be able and enthusiastic.5 In all probability, after Palaiologos’s death, Alexios III would have regarded Laskaris as his likely successor, even if no public announcement was made. There were plenty of people who thought that they had a better claim to the throne than the upstart Laskaris. One of these was John Komnenos Axouchos, a great-grandson of Emperor John II Komnenos, who formed a plot against Alexios III in the summer of 1200. Among his co-conspirators was the emperor’s former supporter Mourtzouphlos. On 31 July the rebels broke into Hagia Sophia where an obliging monk crowned John Komnenos as emperor. They then marched across the Hippodrome and forced their way through a doorway below the Kathisma and down the passage into the Great Palace itself. Reaching the audience chamber, John sat himself down on the throne there but it proved unequal to the burden of his considerable weight and collapsed, sending the would-be emperor sprawling on the floor. To add to the chaos, a crowd of looters had by then managed to gain entry to the palace and they were making a spirited attempt to force their way into the chapel of the Holy Virgin of Pharos with its valuable collection of relics and its silver door hinges. While this was going on, however, Alexios III had been preparing a counter-strike from the Palace of Blachernae. A force was sent in boats along the Golden Horn, to disembark just to the north of the Great Palace. Joining up with the Varangian guard, it drove John Komnenos’s supporters from the Hippodrome and then entered the palace to hunt down the usurper. Pursued through the corridors, John Komnenos was overtaken and decapitated. His supporters were soon rounded up. Mourtzouphlos was thrown into prison where he was to remain for the next three years. For the time being, it seemed that any hopes on Eudokia’s part that she might one day be allowed to marry him were permanently dashed. Alexios III’s triumph over John Komnenos did not put an end to the threat to his position. There remained plenty of other candidates with a claim to the throne, not least Alexios’s predecessor and brother Isaac II, who was still alive. Alexios seems to have regarded Isaac as presenting little danger. The former emperor was, after all, completely blind and was securely held as a prisoner at Diplokionion on the Bosporus to the north of Constantinople. Consequently, Alexios allowed him a comfortable existence and permitted visitors to come and go. The emperor even released Isaac’s son, who was also named Alexios, and allowed him to move freely around the city. Perhaps he thought that young Alexios could do no harm since he was not a Porphyrogenitos, having been born before Isaac became emperor.6 If so, he had seriously miscalculated. *

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It was now that the Latins became involved in the tangled skein of the plots against Alexios III. That was nothing new for the contenders in Byzantine civil wars had been recruiting Latin help for years. When the daughter of Manuel I confronted the regency for young Alexios II in the spring of 1181, the first thing she did was to bring in a contingent of Italian mercenaries, men who were ‘wrought of bronze and delighting in blood’ and who were useful to have on one’s side.7 From his confinement at Diplokionion, Isaac II was thinking along the same lines for among his visitors were numerous western Europeans, possibly men who had found favour at court back in the days when Isaac was emperor. Isaac secretly entrusted them with letters to be delivered to his daughter Irene when they returned home. Irene was married to Philip, duke of Swabia and claimant to the German imperial crown, and from her distant home she established contact with her father and brother, promising them help in restoring Isaac to the throne.8 In September 1201, Alexios III unwittingly provided an opportunity for them to take advantage of this offer. For some reason, he took his nephew with him when he marched into Thrace with his army. At an opportune moment, the young man slipped away and made his way to a small port on the Sea of Marmara where a boat was waiting to ferry him out to a Pisan merchant vessel lying at anchor just offshore. His disappearance was soon noticed in Alexios III’s camp but although orders were given to search ships in the Sea of Marmara, the fugitive was not apprehended. It was said that he could not be found by the officials who boarded his vessel because he had cut his hair, had donned Italian clothes and so had become indistinguishable from the rest of the crew. The ship was allowed to proceed and it delivered its passenger safely to the Italian port of Ancona. From there he headed north with a few followers, bound for his brother-in-law’s court in Germany, but he had only got as far as Verona when he received news that must have seemed like an answer to his prayers. In the nearby port of Venice a huge army of French and Flemish knights was gathering waiting to embark on a fleet of Venetian ships. The leaders of this expedition, which later came to be known as the Fourth Crusade, planned to sail to Egypt to fight against the Saracens there and ultimately to recover Jerusalem. Unfortunately, their plans were being hampered by a shortage of money. They were in dispute with the Venetians over the price of their passage to Egypt and were unable to raise the sum demanded. Thus Alexios was able to contact the leaders and offer to solve their difficulties. If they would first accompany him to Constantinople and help him to overthrow his uncle and restore the imprisoned Isaac II to the throne, he would provide them in return with generous financial assistance from the Byzantine treasury for their enterprise in Egypt and the Holy Land.9 So it was that when young Alexios returned to Constantinople in June, he was accompanied by a Venetian fleet of some 200 ships, under the command of the doge, Enrico Dandolo, along with thousands of formidably armed western knights and foot soldiers. At this stage though, the affair must have seemed like just another routine stand-off between two

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claimants to the Byzantine throne. It was usual in these cases for the rebel claimant to make some kind of appeal to the people of Constantinople in the hope that they would take his side and open the gates of the city. It had happened on occasion before and there was good reason to hope that it might work this time. After all, Alexios III was not popular and his nephew was representing the aggrieved party. Young Alexios therefore boarded a galley, was rowed across from the fleet’s anchorage at Chalcedon and stood prominently on deck as the vessel tacked up and down before the Sea Walls to show himself to the crowds that had gathered there. He was not greeted by the catcalls and jeers that were often hurled at rebel leaders but neither did he receive any encouragement. Most of the onlookers responded with stony silence, while a few shouted that they had no idea who the young man was.10 It was a sensible reaction. At this stage of the game Alexios III, secure behind the defences of Constantinople, seemed to hold all the advantages. Doubtless many people were thinking that it really did not matter who prevailed in the end, provided that one avoided being associated with the losing side. When an appeal to the people failed, as it often did, the next step for a would-be usurper was some kind of demonstration of military might which usually fell short of an all-out assault on the city. This is what young Alexios’s western allies attempted on 5 July 1203. The Venetian fleet sailed across from Chalcedon and allowed the army to make a landing close to the suburb of Galata. Once ashore, they were much more successful than they had probably hoped, capturing the Kastellion tower that secured the chain across the Golden Horn on the Galata side. The Latins were therefore able to lower the chain and bring their fleet into the Golden Horn. From there, over the next few weeks, they were able to make assaults on the Sea Walls at their weakest point, where it was possible to bring ships armed with scaling ladders close inshore.11 The resistance that was offered to the crusaders and Venetians was at best half-hearted. One French knight who participated in the day’s fighting noted that as the crusaders sailed across from Chalcedon the Byzantine army on the other side of the strait did not wait for them to arrive or contest their landing but ‘fell back and did not dare wait for them’. Similarly when on 17 July Alexios III led a large army out of the Land Walls to confront the crusaders who had set up camp near Blachernae, it only needed the outnumbered Frenchmen to show willingness to fight for the Byzantine army to beat an ignominious retreat. Clearly, few Byzantines were willing to risk their lives in a conflict between two members of the Angelos family, neither of whom promised to be a much better emperor than the other. When an assault was made on the Sea Walls the same day, the strongest resistance came from Latin mercenaries and from the Pisan traders in Constantinople who were always happy to strike at their Venetian rivals.12 Alexios III was only too well aware of the decided reluctance of his subjects to lay down their lives on his behalf and as the days went by he

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seems to have become increasingly anxious that, now that he no longer looked the firm bet that he had done a few weeks previously, the population might turn against him and he would suffer the same fate as Michael V or Andronicus I. He now took counsel with his eldest daughter and some of the female domestics in the palace, gathered about 1,000 pounds of gold and a collection of imperial diadems and stole out of the Palace of Blachernae by night. Riding out of Constantinople, he made for a town on the Thracian coast of the Black Sea, where he had already made arrangements for his reception. Since Alexios had entrusted almost no one in Constantinople with his plans, the discovery of his absence from Blachernae on the morning of 18 July came as a surprise and a shock not only to the courtiers, but also to most members of his own family. After the initial consternation had died down, a eunuch called Constantine Philoxenites seized the initiative. He and his supporters assumed, wrongly, that the empress Euphrosyne and other close associates of Alexios III must be party to some kind of plot and promptly ordered the Varangian guard to arrest them. Deeming the emperor to have forfeited his throne by his flight, Philoxenites had Alexios’s blinded and imprisoned brother, Isaac II, brought out of imprisonment and placed once more on the imperial throne. Isaac immediately sent word to his son Alexios, who was still with the crusade fleet on the other side of the Golden Horn, inviting him to come into the city. In August 1203, Alexios was crowned as Alexios IV, to rule as co-emperor alongside his father. There followed the inevitable purges. Those who had abetted Alexios III in the coup of 1195 were hunted down and hanged. Known close associates of the runaway emperor among the courtiers and bureaucrats lost their jobs. Those who had been out of favour before 18 July now found that their fortunes had dramatically reversed. Among them was Mourtzouphlos who was released from prison, his part in the events of 1195 apparently forgotten in the light of his later break with Alexios III. It was probably now that Mourtzouphlos was able at last to marry the love of his life, Eudokia. The new regime was not without its tensions. It soon became clear that Alexios IV was the real ruler of the empire and that Isaac II was being sidelined. Isaac resented his relegation but, blind and increasingly feeble as he was, there was little he could do. He contented himself with passing his days defaming his son to anyone who would listen and indulging in crude horseplay with some of the courtiers. Nothing that had taken place during the summer of 1203 was unusual though: it was all part of the rhythm of Byzantine politics as they had been carried on for centuries.13 * It was only in the months afterwards that what had started out as just another periodic upheaval gradually turned into a confrontation between the Byzantines and the Latins. The transformation began when the new emperor Alexios IV turned to paying the bill for the help he had received

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from the French crusaders and the Venetian fleet. He had promised to pay them the sum of 200,000 silver marks as well as to supply provisions for every man in the army and fleet, but while his allies had fulfilled their side of the bargain, he discovered that he would have some difficulty discharging his, for the imperial treasury could not meet the payment. All Alexios could do was hand over what funds were available and then attempt to make up the shortfall by appropriating church goods, particularly the gold and silver frames of icons which he had melted down into coin.14 Unfortunately in his desperate race to please his Latin saviours, Alexios succeeding in alienating a large segment of Constantinople’s population. With an army of thousands of menacing crusaders once more on their doorstep and the emperor apparently selling off sacred objects for their benefit, resentment built up during the hot summer nights of August 1203. The ever-volatile Constantinopolitan mob took to the streets to vent their outrage against the Latins, whether they were associated with the crusading fleet or not. Those closest to hand were the Pisan and Amalfitan merchants who lived along the Golden Horn. Their houses and warehouses were attacked and burned to the ground, regardless of the fact that the Pisans had fought gallantly to defend the Sea Walls against the Venetians and crusaders the previous month. They and all the other Italians were forced to flee the city across the Golden Horn to where the Venetian fleet was anchored and the French crusaders had their camp. Some 15,000 men, women and children made the crossing with only whatever possessions they could carry. With the Latins gone, the fury of the mob was turned on inanimate objects. In one rampage, the colossal bronze statue of the goddess Athena which stood at the edge of the Forum of Constantine was smashed because it was believed that her outstretched arm was beckoning the crusaders to attack the city. Faced with such powerful demonstrations of popular feeling, Alexios IV became increasingly concerned for his safety, warning his western allies that his people ‘hate me because of you; if you leave me, I shall lose my empire, and they will put me to death’.15 From their vantage point on the opposite side of the Golden Horn, the crusaders and Venetians were shocked by the treatment of the Amalfitans and Pisans and became increasingly hostile towards the people of Constantinople. Earlier Byzantine anti-Latin attacks were now recalled and the Byzantines denounced as a treacherous, cowardly rabble. The schism which existed between the churches was also brought to mind, the clergy present with the crusade army assuring the soldiers that fighting against the Byzantines would not be a sin. By December, relations between Alexios IV and his former allies had completely broken down. Hostilities began as the Byzantines launched fireships across the Golden Horn to try to destroy the Venetian fleet.16 By that time, the resentment of the people inside Constantinople had reached fever pitch and they were openly criticizing the emperors Isaac II and Alexios IV in the streets. A large crowd gathered around Hagia Sophia demanding that a new emperor be appointed. The opposition crystallized

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around Mourtzouphlos, who had recently endeared himself to the people by daring to take on the crusaders in a skirmish just outside the Land Walls.17 It all worked itself out in typically Byzantine fashion. On the night of 27–8 January, Mourtzouphlos had Alexios IV seized and imprisoned. Some weeks later, after several attempts to poison him had proved unsuccessful, Alexios was strangled. So shocking was the news of his son’s overthrow that the ailing Isaac II died too, leaving Mourtzouphlos sole ruler as Alexios V.18 The new emperor had come to power as a strong man who would stand up to the Latins, so he had to live up to that reputation. That was easier said than done. The crusaders were not prepared to accept the overthrow of the emperor whom they had placed in power, especially as they knew that the new ruler had no intention of handing over the balance of the money promised by the previous incumbent. Their fleet was still anchored menacingly in the Golden Horn and their armies ranged unopposed outside the Land Walls. Shortly after seizing power, Mourtzouphlos led a sally against a foraging force led by Henry, count of Flanders. The attack ended in disaster when the emperor found himself deserted by his troops and was forced to flee back through the Land Walls. The Latin troops even captured an icon of the Mother of God that Mourtzouphlos’s army had carried with it.19 The following April, the army and fleet of the Fourth Crusade launched an all-out attack on Constantinople. They were able to do so because they had already obtained a crucial advantage, that of bringing their fleet into the Golden Horn. From there, they could manoeuvre their ships close inshore and attack the Sea Walls which, unlike the Land Walls, were only one layer thick: there was no moat or outer wall to provide the first line of defence. The Venetians had equipped their ships very well for the task. They had constructed bridges that were lashed to the masts of their ships and projected forwards. These provided high platforms from which troops could jump between the battlements of the Sea Walls once the vessels were beached on the foreshore of the Golden Horn directly in front of them. After one failed attempt, the crusaders were assisted by a strong breeze which drove their vessels onto the shore. Two of them, the Pilgrim and the Paradise, were beached directly in front of a tower, allowing a number of men to leap onto it. A number of other towers were taken in the same way, while down at beach level the French knights were able to break open several of the gates and enter the city by that route.20 Even at this stage, the defenders might have beaten off the attack. A determined assault on the foothold gained by the crusaders might well have driven them back into the sea. Yet the people of Constantinople, in spite of their antipathy to the Latins, still seem to have believed that all that was happening was another change of ruler. Once the crusaders had gained a foothold on the Sea Walls, resistance appears to have petered out. Mourtzouphlos rode around the city streets, desperately urging the populace to rise up to repel the attack but curiously after all the anti-Latin violence of

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the past, he met only with apathy and indifference. Those who encountered the Latin troops as they cautiously advanced into the city tended to welcome them. Some shouted the name of Boniface, marquis of Montferrat, one of the leaders of the crusader army, in the belief that he was to be the next emperor; others even formed processions with icons and crosses to welcome the conquerors who were, after all, their fellow Christians. Mourtzouphlos, realizing that he no longer had any support in the struggle, followed in the footsteps of Alexios III and fled through the Golden Gate out into the Thracian countryside, taking the ex-empress Euphrosyne and his wife Eudokia with him. Taking advantage of his flight, the Latins occupied the Palace of Blachernae and from that point the city was theirs.21 * For the first time since its foundation, Constantinople had been taken by storm. According to the medieval rules of war, a city that had been taken in this way could be pillaged by the victorious army for three days. It was not really a rule, merely a recognition that once a large body of armed men had forced themselves past the defences, no power on earth could stop them doing whatever they wanted. The crusade leaders moved fast to secure the Great Palace and the Palace of Blachernae for themselves but they left the French and Venetian rank and file to rampage through the rest of the city at will. Inevitably there were rapes and some murders. Choniates witnessed the attempted rape of the daughter of a judge but he managed to persuade some Greek-speaking Latins to come to the rescue and save the girl.22 Most of the victorious Latins were more intent on plunder. Naturally the palaces of the wealthy were a prime target and were stripped of any gold and silver objects, furniture, furs and silks. The Latins were astonished at the sheer amount of booty that was seized, estimated by one of them to be greater than anything that had ever been taken from any city since the creation of the world.23 The victors did not limit themselves to private houses. In spite of being crusaders under oath to fight for the Christian faith, they treated many of Constantinople’s churches in the same way. A crowd of them entered Hagia Sophia to remove the gold and silver candlesticks, the ecclesiastical vessels and the huge gilded canopy over the altar that weighed thousands of pounds. So numerous and heavy were these objects that they had to bring donkeys and mules into the cathedral to carry them all away. Another group went to the Church of the Holy Apostles and burst into the Heröon, the mausoleum where the emperors of the past lay buried. They opened the tomb of the Emperor Justinian and allegedly found that his corpse was miraculously uncorrupted after over 600 years. Awed by the sight, they left the body alone but they stripped off anything of value from the sarcophagus. The tomb of Romanos III in the Church of the Virgin Peribleptos suffered a similar fate. The church of the monastery of Christ Pantokrator and the Sampson hospital were broken into and looted as

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probably were many other ecclesiastical buildings.24 The looters were in search not only of silver and gold but also of something potentially much more valuable that was in abundant supply in Constantinople: relics of the saints. Seven Venetians kicked down the door to the crypt of the Church of the Virgin Chalkoprateia to seize the body of St Simon the prophet. A German bishop ransacked the Church of the Pantokrator and departed with a rich haul that included part of the True Cross, the arm of St James the Apostle and ‘a not inconsiderable piece’ of St John the Baptist.25 The sack of 1204 must have been doubly traumatic as it followed immediately after a sequence of three devastating fires for which the soldiers of the Fourth Crusade were responsible. The first had occurred in July 1203 when the Venetians had made their assault on the Sea Walls. It had been deliberately started by some of the attacking troops to prevent the defenders from using the houses close to the walls as hiding places, and it had devastated a large area alongside the Sea Walls towards the Palace of Blachernae and the suburbs outside the Land Walls as far as the Evergetes monastery.26 Further destruction was wreaked on the night of 19 August 1203 when, after a fight with Byzantines and Arabs at the Mitaton mosque, a few of the retreating Latins took revenge by setting fire to some buildings. Fanned by a north wind, the fire spread quickly south into the city. The Venetian quarter was quickly engulfed and the fire moved south at terrifying speed, passing quite close to Hagia Sophia and crossing the Mese and the Forum of Constantine. Entire porticoes of shops collapsed in ruin, the southern end of the Hippodrome was severely damaged and the flames reached the far side of the city where the Sea Walls overlooked the Sea of Marmara. Only after raging unchecked for a week did the fire finally die down.27 A third fire accompanied the sack of April 1204, started by the Latin troops near Blachernae to discourage resistance to their takeover.28 Devastating though the fires and the sack were, they were by no means unprecedented. Constantinople suffered regular conflagrations, especially in the crowded area alongside the Golden Horn, such as that of July 1197 which caused at least as much damage as that started by the Latins in August 1203.29 Moreover, although Constantinople had never been taken by storm before, it had been pillaged by victorious armies. Following Alexios Komnenos’ entry into Constantinople in 1081, his troops had cheerfully looted both private houses and churches. Indeed the emperors themselves were not averse to robbing churches now and then. When he was hard pressed by the Normans in 1081, Alexios I had stripped the gold and silver off the doors of the Church of the Virgin Chalkoprateia to pay his troops. In 1196, Alexios III Angelos had plundered the imperial tombs in the Holy Apostles in order to buy off the German emperor Henry VI. His nephew Alexios IV had appropriated church treasures in an attempt to pay off his debt to the Venetians and crusaders.30 So the sack of 1204 was to some extent just an extreme version of periodic bouts of looting and destruction that the city had been exposed to over the centuries. In normal circumstances the

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damage would soon have been made good. The tragedy was that the times that followed were not normal: they were the period of the so-called Latin Empire of Constantinople. * With Constantinople securely in their hands, the victors resolved to install a new emperor of their own choosing. An electoral council of six Venetians and six Frenchmen decided on Baldwin, count of Flanders, who was crowned in Hagia Sophia by Bishop Nivelon of Soissons on 16 May 1204. Everything possible was done to make the ceremony look like that of just another Byzantine emperor. Baldwin donned the same robes and purple boots that the Angelos emperors had worn and had around his neck a large ruby that had once belonged to Manuel I.31 Once crowned, the new emperor Baldwin sallied forth with his army into the countryside of Thrace to bring the rest of the empire under his control. Another force crossed the Bosporus into Asia Minor to enforce Latin rule there. Unfortunately, the triumphant initiation of the Latin Empire came to a sudden and violent end. Less than one year after the capture of Constantinople, Emperor Baldwin and his army clashed with the forces of the Bulgarian tsar Kalojan near Adrianople. The heavily armoured Latins proved no match for Kalojan’s speedy Cuman horse-archers and by the end of the day many of the leaders of the Fourth Crusade were dead and their army was in full retreat. Baldwin himself was captured and dragged off to a dungeon in Kalojan’s capital of Trnovo. There, according to some accounts, he suffered the indignity of having his arms and legs lopped off and being thrown into a ravine where he lingered in agony for three days. Whether this story was true or merely wishful thinking, Baldwin was never seen again by his comrades in Constantinople.32 When it was clear that Baldwin was not coming back, his brother Henry, who had been acting as regent, was elected emperor. His reign (1206–16) proved to be the only period during which the Latin Empire enjoyed effective government and its external enemies were effectively held in check. Henry’s death initiated a series of short-reigned and ineffective emperors and the rapid political decline of the Latin Empire. His immediate successor, his brother-in-law Peter of Courtenay, was crowned in Rome in April 1217. He then sailed across the Adriatic with the intention of marching overland to Constantinople. On the way, his army was surrounded and forced to surrender by the Greek ruler of Epiros, Theodore Angelos. Peter, like Baldwin, disappeared into captivity and was never seen again. For the next two years, Peter’s wife Yolanda held the fort as regent in Constantinople until a new emperor finally arrived in the person of her younger son Robert of Courtenay (1221–8). Her elder son, Philip of Namur, had very wisely declined the dubious honour. The new emperor soon succeeded in undoing all the achievements of Emperor Henry, alienating his Byzantine subjects and, thanks to inept diplomacy, uniting his external enemies. He even fell out with his own French knights, who were so outraged by his marrying a

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woman of humble origins that they invaded his bedchamber in the Great Palace one night and dragged her from his bed. Robert fled to Rome and although the pope persuaded him to return to Constantinople, he died on the way back. The last Latin emperor was Baldwin II (1228–61) who was only eleven years old when he succeeded so that a succession of regents ran the empire until 1237.33 Instability and incompetence at the top was only part of the problem with the Latin Empire. The seeds of its weakness had been sown at the time of its inception, when the Venetians and the crusaders had made a pact dividing up the Byzantine Empire between them. The treaty had only assigned to the Latin emperor a fraction of the territories that his Byzantine predecessor had enjoyed, and he had not succeeded even in subduing all of these. The island of Crete, along with other islands and ports, ended up being taken over by Venice and the remainder was parcelled out as fiefs among western knights. As a result, the Latin emperor was unable to bring in the substantial receipts from the Land Tax that his Byzantine predecessors had enjoyed. The Byzantine emperors had had another source of income in the Kommerkion, the 10 per cent levy on all imports and exports into the city and other customs duties and tariffs. Their Latin successors, however, were not able to draw on it nearly as much because it would seem that, as the thirteenth century progressed, Constantinople’s trade went into steep decline. This may have been partly because the disappearance of the Byzantine court and bureaucracy robbed merchants of a lucrative market for luxury goods. It might also have been the result of the devastation of the area to the north of the Black Sea – which had once been a source of furs, wax and amber and a market for exported goods – when the Mongol armies of Genghis Khan swept in during 1221 and 1222. Whatever the precise reason, by 1250 Constantinople was no longer the thriving commercial metropolis that it had once been so that receipts from the Kommerkion plummeted.34 To make ends meet, the rulers of the Latin Empire had to resort to other methods. Baldwin II toured the west begging for money from his relatives in France, Flanders and England and mortgaging his family’s ancestral lands there. When he was particularly hard up in 1248, he even pledged his son, Philip, to some Venetian merchants as security on a loan of 24,000 hyperpyra. The luckless Philip had to remain in Venice as a virtual hostage for some thirteen years.35 The net result was that Constantinople ceased to be the object of imperial patronage as it had been for centuries and became instead a resource that the Latin emperors milked unscrupulously. A particularly valuable asset was the collection of relics housed in the chapel of the Holy Virgin of Pharos within the Great Palace. Following the defeat of Baldwin I at Adrianople in April 1205, Bishop Nivelon of Soissons left Constantinople for the west, taking with him a number of important relics from the chapel, including the head of John the Baptist. He also took the girdle of the Virgin Mary from the Chalkoprateia and part of her robe from Blachernae. These objects were probably taken either to give authority to his appeal for help or simply to be

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sold to raise money for troops and supplies. In the end they provided neither, nor did they ever return to Constantinople. Nivelon died when he had only got as far as Apulia in southern Italy, and in his deathbed will he arranged for the relics to be distributed among a number of churches in France. The elbow of St Stephen went to Châlons-sur-Marne, while the Baptist’s head, a thorn from the Crown of Thorns, the fragment of the Virgin’s robe and other items ended up in the cathedral of Soissons.36 The pattern was set for the future. In 1208, Emperor Henry sent another collection of relics to western Europe to be sold. In 1237, Baldwin II pawned the Crown of Thorns and other relics of the Passion to a Venetian merchant for 13,134 hyperpyra. The True Cross suffered the indignity of having parts of it broken off to be sold separately.37 Another handy resource for the cash-strapped Latin emperors were the antique bronze statues that Constantine and his successors had brought from all over the empire to beautify the new foundation. Their aesthetic qualities were, however, lost on those whom Niketas Choniates labelled ‘haters of the beautiful’. Rather they saw them as a source of metal to be made into coins. One by one the statues were dismantled and melted down in furnaces. One of the first to go, no doubt because it was one of the largest, was the colossal statue of the goddess Hera in the Forum of Constantine, which was pulled down and broken up, a team of eight oxen being called in to drag away the enormous head. The Anemodoulion, the rather eccentric weathervane which stood in the Augousteion, suffered the same fate. The statues that lined the Hippodrome were also removed: Lysippus of Sicyon’s pensive Hercules, the Calydonian boar, statues of victorious charioteers of the past and countless other priceless masterpieces all went into the furnace.38 The ransacking of Constantinople did not end with the bronze statues. In their ceaseless search for something to sell, the Latin emperors went so far as to have the copper and lead stripped from the roofs of buildings, including those of their own residence, the Great Palace, and then to have it sold for scrap.39 Perhaps if the Latin emperors had enjoyed a monopoly in selling off Constantinople’s assets, they might have made ends meet. Unfortunately, a great deal was taken by the Venetians, though they at least preferred to keep what they took as trophies rather than use them to raise cash. The four bronze horses from the Hippodrome, symbols of the chariot races that had taken place there over the centuries, were shipped off to become ornaments on the façade of St Mark’s and entire carved marble panels were lifted from the Church of St Polyeuktos.40 The treasury of the St Mark’s received jewelled chalices, reliquaries, enamelled book covers, gold-framed icons and silver patens, magnificent examples of Byzantine ecclesiastical gold and silverware. An icon of the Virgin Mary, reputedly the Nikopeia that the Byzantine emperors used to carry into battle, ended up there too. Other churches in Venice also benefited. San Giorgio Maggiore received the body of St Paul the New Martyr in 1222.41 Moreover, the Latin emperors were incapable of preventing passing crusaders, clerics, pilgrims or anyone else from helping themselves to

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Constantinople’s treasures. An English priest allegedly took advantage of the chaos in the immediate aftermath of the disaster at Adrianople in 1205, entering the Pharos chapel and breaking off a piece of the True Cross which he took back to the priory of Bromholm in Norfolk.42 Bishop Garnier of Troyes, who had accompanied the Fourth Crusade to Constantinople, sent the head of St Philip back to his home diocese, to be followed shortly after by the relics of St Helen the Virgin.43 There was a strong temptation to carry out such furta sacra or ‘sacred theft’. The possession of a major relic by a church, monastery or cathedral in western Europe would bring pilgrims, and their money, flooding in, so clerics were ready to go to any lengths to secure such a relic in Constantinople for their home church. Some returning crusaders piously presented various precious objects that they had stolen in Constantinople to their local churches. When the German crusader Heinrich von Ülmen got back to Hesse in 1207 he presented the nunnery of Stuben with a silver-gilt, enamelled reliquary, designed to hold a portion of the True Cross. Made in about 964 at the command of the eunuch Basil Lekapenos the Parakoimomenos, it must almost certainly have come from either Hagia Sophia or the Great Palace. A crystal cross reliquary presented by Robert of Clari to the monastery of Corbie in Picardy was possibly taken from the chapel of the Holy Virgin of Pharos. Some well-known relics though, such the Mandylion of Edessa with its imprinted image of the face of Christ, simply disappeared without trace.44 Not everything was pilfered or destroyed. The famous icon of the Hodegetria, which one might have expected to have been sold off with everything else, remained in Constantinople throughout the period of the Latin Empire, housed in the church of the monastery of the Pantokrator.45 A few of the ancient statues in the Hippodrome were left in place. One of the two figures known as the Righteous Judges had its hands and feet lopped off but they escaped the furnace because they were made of marble rather than bronze. The serpent column from Delphi also remained in place, perhaps because it served a practical purpose as a drinking fountain.46 Nevertheless, the conquerors of 1204 had largely annihilated two of the curious and striking aspects of the city, its collection of holy relics and its lifelike ancient statues, within a few short years. * As the Latin Empire sank into poverty, it did still have one remaining prop. The Venetians were a dominating presence in Latin Constantinople and it was largely their fleet that kept potential attackers at bay. Before the city had fallen, in March 1204, the Venetians and the French crusaders had made a pact. The Venetians were guaranteed that, if Constantinople was conquered, they would have all the rights and privileges under the new regime that they had enjoyed under Alexios III and more. They were to have control of a large part of the city, far larger than their origin quarter by the Golden Horn, under its own governor or podestà. The cathedral of

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Hagia Sophia was to fall within their area and they were given the right to choose a patriarch. These terms were implemented after April 1204. The Venetians appointed one of their own citizens called Thomas Morosini as patriarch of Constantinople, to replace John X Kamateros, who had fled.47 The Venetians were also well placed to dominate Constantinople’s trade as well as its church. The Pisans and Genoese were not completely excluded but they were now at a distinct disadvantage and Venetians undoubtedly enjoyed the lion’s share during the Latin Empire.48 Doubtless at first this commanding position must have seemed like a dream come true. It turned out though that the conquest of Constantinople did not prove to be as advantageous as might have been hoped. The Venetians, like the Latin emperors, suffered from the downturn in the Black Sea trade caused by the Mongol invasions. Property prices along the Golden Horn slumped and Venetian merchants increasingly used other ports. The news was not all bad. There were new opportunities opening up. Trade with the Seljuk Turks on the northern coast of Asia Minor was on the increase and some Venetians continued to make their fortunes in Constantinople. Giberto Querini, who settled in Constantinople in 1209, returned to Venice a rich man in around 1250. Overall though, the conquest of Constantinople did not prove to be of huge commercial benefit, especially when the expense of defending the city against the many enemies of the Latin regime is taken into consideration. There was no incentive for the maritime republic to plough in money and resources.49 As the economy wavered, the city’s population seems to have dwindled. The Jewish communities in Egypt found themselves hosting increasing numbers of refugees from Byzantine territory. There is no evidence of persecution under the Latin regime so it is likely that economic uncertainty had driven them to emigrate.50 Greek-speaking Byzantines began to leave too. Many had stayed back after 1204, hoping that they could live with the Latin regime. During the reign of Emperor Henry it looked as if this might be possible, for even a Byzantine was prepared to admit that Henry ‘behaved quite graciously’ to the inhabitants of the city. When a papal legate closed the churches of Constantinople in 1213 because their priests would not acknowledge papal authority, Henry had them all opened again. After Henry died in 1216, his successors saw no need to cultivate the Byzantines and increasing numbers of them slipped away to the provinces.51 The huge contrast in wealth between Constantinople before 1204 had its effect on the city’s great monuments too. The constant building work of previous years came to an abrupt halt. There is virtually no evidence of anything being created or built under the Latin regime. It would seem that Emperor Henry ordered the construction of a church in honour of an Icelandic saint, Thorlac, and the Venetians built a wall around their warehouses on the Golden Horn and a small castle but that was as far as it went.52 As regards Constantinople’s existing churches, some twenty of the larger ones were taken over by Latin clergy, including Hagia Sophia, the Holy Apostles, the

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Forty Martyrs, St George in Mangana, St Paul in the Orphanage and the Mother of God at Blachernae. The Latin mass rather than the Greek liturgy was now celebrated in these buildings. They also served as burial places for prominent Latins such as Doge Enrico Dandolo and Hugh of St Pol, another of the leaders of the Fourth Crusade, who were buried in Hagia Sophia and St George in Mangana, respectively, in 1205.53 Many of the monasteries were transferred to western monastic orders. The Kyriotissa, which Alexios III had been reserving for himself, was handed over to the Franciscans and the Evergetes was bestowed on the Italian monastery of Monte Cassino as a kind of satellite.54 Unfortunately these institutions no longer enjoyed the resources that they had before 1204 for many of the properties that had been given to them by Byzantine emperors in the past to provide for their support were now taken away. The lands of the monastery of the Hodegoi that lay near Chalcedon, for example, were transferred to the Church of Cosmas and Damian in Rome. Before long, the lack of financial resources began to bite. In 1220 the Latin prior of the Holy Apostles complained to the pope that his income was much too small to maintain his church.55 These more prominent buildings where the Latin rite was used did receive some attention. Some work was done to buttress the walls of Hagia Sophia and the Church of the Virgin Kyriotissa was redecorated with frescoes which depict the life of St Francis of Assisi.56 Generally though the period of Latin rule was one of damage and decay. Because the western church used a different liturgy and ceremonial from the Orthodox Church of the Byzantine Empire, insensitive changes were sometimes made. In the chapel of the St Sampson Hospital, which had been taken over by the Knights Templar, the iconostasis, the screen which stood between the altar and the congregation, was taken out and according to one report used as a latrine cover for the patients.57 Those churches that were not taken over for Latin worship fared even worse for they were the ones selected to have the lead stripped from their roofs and sold. With their roofs gone, the churches inevitably fell into ruin while others probably did so just through lack of routine repairs. The Church of St John the Theologian in Hebdomon was in such a bad condition by 1260 that it was used as a stable. Latin churches suffered too as their congregations dwindled: the Venetian church of St Mark was abandoned sometime around 1250.58 It was not just the ecclesiastical buildings that suffered for even the two imperial palaces were in a state of decay. The Palace of Blachernae had been pounded by stones hurled over the Land Walls by Latin catapults during the sieges of 1203 and 1204 and the damage had never been made good. Inside, the mosaic decoration on the ceilings and walls became blackened with soot from the smoky lamps and fires used to light and warm the place. The Great Palace was in a similar dilapidated condition. Even the sculpted figures on the pediments of its columns had somehow got smashed.59 So by 1260, Constantinople was in a sorry state. It is striking that, in contrast to previous centuries, there are almost no travellers’ accounts of Constantinople

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during the period of Latin rule. Those wayfarers who did record a stay there have almost nothing to say about it. The Venetian Marco Polo passed through in 1260 on his way to China but he recorded only his safe arrival and his departure.60 The relics and statues were gone, the churches were in disrepair and the city as a whole was ‘laid waste by fire and blackened by soot, taken and emptied of all wealth’, as Niketas Choniates lamented.61 But Constantinople’s story, like that of the Byzantine Empire as a whole, did not end here. Another, and in many ways remarkable, phase of its existence was about to begin.

Text Box 9: Marino Sanudo Torsello on the Latin empire

S

anudo (1260–1338) was a Venetian who spent most of his life in the areas of the Byzantine Empire seized by Venice after 1204. Here he looks back on the last inglorious days of Latin rule in Constantinople and on how it came to an end: The city of Constantinople was held and possessed by the Emperor Baldwin, count of Flanders and Hainault, his heirs and his noble barons and also by the lord doge and commune of Venice for about 68 years [sic for 57 years]. Such was the mutual esteem that existed between this emperor and his men on the one hand, and the doge and commune of Venice and the Venetians on the other, that I cannot express or tell it properly. Moreover, the Venetians incurred crippling expenses in sustaining Constantinople. In the same way, the Latin emperor and his successors were so short of money that the last emperor Baldwin [II] sold and distributed almost everything that he had in Constantinople, taking off the palace lead and selling it and doing other, graver things. In particular, he gave his only son Philip [of Courtenay] in pawn to certain merchants of Constantinople, Venetians from Ca’ Ferro, in return for a certain quantity of money. Philip was taken to Venice where he stayed for a long time, even after the loss of Constantinople. When the city did fall in 1200 [sic for 1261], the Emperor Baldwin left Constantinople with ships of the Venetian commune along with many Venetians and people of other nationalities, men, women and children, who like him had taken refuge in Venetian vessels. For the podestà of the Venetians, Marco Gradenigo by name, had left the city with a fleet of vessels so that he might go and attack the hostile Greeks and get hold of some land that he had been promised. In fact, he found that he (Continued )

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had been deceived. For while that podestà was a trustworthy man, traitors who were in Constantinople, knowing that the city had been deserted by its people, handed it over to the Emperor of the Greeks, Chyermichali Palialogo [i.e. Michael VIII Palaiologos]. From that time until today that emperor and his heirs have held and possessed it, the Emperor Chyerandronicus being his son and successor. After Andronicus [II], the son of his son now rules in Constantinople [i.e. Andronicus III (1328–41)]. Translated by the author from R. L. Wolff, ‘Hopf's so-called “Fragmentum” of Marino Sanudo Torsello’, The Joshua Starr Memorial Volume, 149–53, New York: Conference on Jewish Relations, 1953: 150–3.

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The capture of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade in April 1204 removed from power at a stroke both the Angelos dynasty and those who had served it. Niketas Choniates, who had been a minister to both Isaac II and Alexios III, found himself traipsing out through the countryside with his family some five days after the city fell. They received little sympathy from the people in the villages they passed through.1 Mourtzouphlos, the short-reigned Alexios V, having escaped from the stricken city with the exempress Euphrosyne and his wife Eudokia in April 1204, travelled through Thrace until he reached the town of Mosynopolis. He had heard that the other refugee emperor, Alexios III Angelos, was residing there and hoped that he might be received favourably. After all, although the two men had had their differences in the past, Mourtzouphlos was delivering Alexios’s wife and daughter safe and sound and, having married Eudokia, he could now present himself as Alexios’s son-in-law. Eudokia’s father certainly extended an affable welcome to the new arrivals but family ties stood for little in the cut-throat world of Byzantine politics. Constantinople may have fallen but the business of making and unmaking emperors went on as usual. Alexios III had no intention of allowing a rival to remain at large and so he artfully invited Mourtzouphlos and Eudokia to refresh themselves after their long journey and take a bath. Once they were naked and vulnerable, on Alexios’s orders armed men burst into the bath house, seized Mourtzouphlos and blinded him then and there, while Eudokia cowered in one of the window bays, screaming hysterically. Since he no longer presented a threat, the now sightless Mourtzouphlos was turned out of Mosynopolis and left to wander across Thrace as best as he could. Before long he was picked up by some patrolling French knights who took him back to Constantinople. After some debate among the Latin emperor Baldwin and other leaders of the Fourth Crusade as to a fitting punishment for the man who had defied them and murdered their protégé, Alexios IV, they decided to dispose of him in a spectacular fashion. In October 1204, he was taken to the top of one of the highest columns in the city, that

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of Theodosius, and, in front of a huge crowd of onlookers, he was then hurled to his death on the flagstones below.2 Alexios III profited little from his treachery. When he heard that a Latin army was approaching, he left Mosynopolis with Euphrosyne and Eudokia and began a series of restless wanderings around the former territories of his empire, in the vague hope that one day they would be restored to the Palace of Blachernae. Arriving in Thessalonica, they stayed only until news came that Emperor Baldwin was on his way to occupy the place. They moved on to Corinth where Alexios disposed of Eudokia by marrying her to Leo Sgouros, a local magnate who had set himself up as ruler of the town. From there, Alexios and Euphrosyne tried to travel to Ioannina in Epiros where a cousin of Alexios, Michael Angelos, was holding power. On the way, some Latin soldiers took them prisoner and sent them off to Italy. They were only released when Michael Angelos paid a substantial ransom demand. Back in the Balkans, when they reached the town of Arta, they separated and Alexios set off alone. The couple were never to meet again, for Euphrosyne died a few years later. By that time Alexios was far away, in Konya in Asia Minor, the capital of the Seljuk Turks and residence of their sultan, Kaikosru I (1192–7, 1204–11). Alexios clearly intended to call in a favour. In the later 1190s, when Kaikosru had been ousted from power by his brother, the sultan had fled to Constantinople and had been hospitably received by the emperor. Now the roles were reversed, for Kaikosru was once more settled in power in Konya and it was Alexios who was the homeless refugee.3 Another refugee from the disaster of 1204 was Alexios III’s son-in-law, Theodore Laskaris who had married his daughter Anna. Laskaris had escaped in the opposite direction, crossing the Bosporus and making for Nicaea. There he had set up a kind of Byzantine government in exile and in 1208 had himself crowned emperor, thus staking his claim to the lost capital city and, by implication, negating Alexios III’s title to the throne.4 That was probably why Alexios III accompanied a Turkish army as it invaded Laskaris’s territory in 1211. When Theodore’s army put up a robust defence, the Turks retreated, leaving the hapless Alexios behind. Taken prisoner, he was sent by Laskaris to a monastery at Nicaea. One can almost picture him there, forgotten and unloved, passing the long days in reflection on his own chequered career, from his stay as a refugee from the tyranny of Andronicus Komnenos at the court of Saladin, through his seizure of power and eight years as emperor to the time when he was a wanderer once more. Perhaps he sometimes even paused to consider the part he had played in bringing Constantinople to the sad situation that it was now in. Thus it was that of all the Constantinopolitan elite of the period before 1204, it was Theodore Laskaris and his family who prospered. His son-inlaw and successor as emperor-in-exile at Nicaea, John III Vatatzes (1221– 54), went on to defeat the forces of the Latin Empire of Constantinople at the Battle of Poimamenon in 1225 and to reoccupy many lost imperial territories in Asia Minor and the Balkans. In 1235, he made a treaty with the

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Bulgarians and they mounted a joint siege of Constantinople, but the Land Walls were as strong as ever and in the autumn the siege was reluctantly abandoned.5 Feeble though the Latin regime was and in spite of having lost most of its territory outside the capital, it could cling on behind the security of Constantinople’s defences and the Venetian fleet. * It would be pleasant to think that the Byzantine recovery of Constantinople from the Latins came about through some heroic showdown but of course it did not. Rather, when it did happen, it was strangely reminiscent of so many previous transfers of power. In 1258, a child of seven, John IV Laskaris, inherited the throne in Nicaea, a situation always fraught with danger in Byzantine politics. Within a short time, power was seized by one of the ablest and most ruthless generals, Michael Palaiologos, who was appointed as regent after probably having had the previous regent murdered during a church service. Once he was secure in power, just like Andronicus I, the regent had himself crowned emperor as Michael VIII (1259–82) and had his young charge sidelined. Shortly afterwards, Constantinople was delivered into Michael’s hands by a similar process that brought Alexios Komnenos into the city in 1081. In July 1261 one of his generals was in Thrace with his army, close to the Land Walls when some men from Constantinople reached his camp. They told him that the city was virtually undefended because the Venetian podestà, tired of being perpetually on the defensive, had embarked most of the garrison on to a small fleet of ships to attack a nearby island held by Michael VIII’s troops. They also told him that one of the small gates in the Land Walls had been left open, doubtless by supporters on the inside. A party of fifteen men was sent forward to reconnoitre and found that there was indeed a way in. They grabbed the only sentry on the battlements and pitched him over the wall, then set about opening the rest of the gates so that the whole army could enter. Their appearance in the streets came as a complete surprise. Men rushed to the monasteries to take sanctuary and women hid in doorways and alleyways as the soldiers rushed past but there was no wholesale massacre of Latins as might have been expected. The few who were still in the city, including Emperor Baldwin II, realized that the situation was hopeless and made for the nearest ship. By dawn, Constantinople was securely occupied by the troops of Michael VIII.6 The emperor was on the Asian side of the Bosporus with another part of the army when the news of the capture of Constantinople arrived. It was very early in the morning and the emperor was still asleep in his tent. The news was given to Michael’s sister Eulogia, who went into the emperor’s tent to pass it on. The emperor proved to be a very heavy sleeper and only by pulling his big toe and tickling his feet with a feather did Eulogia succeed in waking him and telling him what had happened. At first Michael did not believe it, but then a messenger arrived bringing the

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crown and sceptre of the Latin emperor, which Baldwin II had left behind in his rush to escape.7 Shrewd political operator that he was, Michael VIII made full use of this spectacular coup. He chose to wait nearly two weeks before entering the city himself so that he could do so on 15 August, the Feast of the Dormition of the Virgin Mary, the patron and protector of Constantinople. By then, preparations had been made for a suitable ceremony to mark the return of the city to the rule of an emperor and a patriarch who adhered to the true Christian faith rather than the erroneous version preached by the Latins. Michael VIII made his entry through the Golden Gate which had been flung wide for the occasion. There he was met by clergy carrying the icon of the Hodegetria which had been found safe and sound in the Church of the Pantokrator. From there he proceeded on foot, behind a chariot in which the icon had been placed, as far as the Stoudios monastery where the icon was reverently lodged in the church. The emperor then mounted his horse and rode along the Triumphal Way and the Mese to the cheers of the crowds that lined the road. At Hagia Sophia he said prayers before an icon of Christ and then crossed the Augousteion to take up residence in the Great Palace.8 With the capital secure, Michael felt strong enough to dispose of the previous emperor, John Laskaris. Although John was still only a child, Michael had him blinded and immured in a castle on the Sea of Marmara. Even by the standards of Byzantine political life, this was an atrocious crime and Michael was swiftly excommunicated for it by the Patriarch of Constantinople, Arsenios. Typically, Michael responded by dethroning Arsenios and replacing him with someone more pliant who promptly lifted the excommunication.9 In spite of protest and criticism, the emperor weathered the storm of protest and the Palaiologos dynasty was destined to rule Byzantine Constantinople for the rest of its existence as a Christian city. * Michael VIII did not only exploit the propaganda value of the recapture of Constantinople on the day of his entry in 1261. Throughout his reign he promoted the idea that just as Constantinople had been founded by the saintly emperor Constantine, so he was the ‘new Constantine’ who would refound the city that his illustrious predecessor had inaugurated and restore it to its former glory. He adopted the name as a title, put it on his seal and used it when signing official documents. He even had a portrait of himself as the new Constantine embroidered into a great silk awning which was then strung between two of the porphyry columns at the west end of Hagia Sophia. The message was obvious: no one should think that the ignominious ejection of the Byzantine emperor from Constantinople in 1204 in any way altered the pre-eminent position among Christian rulers that Constantine the Great had established and that Michael was dedicated to restoring.10

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In accordance with that image, almost as soon as he was in control of Constantinople, Michael began an intensive series of building works. First and foremost, the Sea Walls along the Golden Horn were raised to prevent a repetition of the tactics used by the Latins in April 1204. Wooden screens covered with leather hides were added to make them higher and to prevent anyone from using the towers fixed to the front of ships to overtop them. Later some kind of second, outer wall was added so that the Sea Walls matched their land counterparts.11 Also on the agenda was the restoration of Constantinople’s social services and everyday infrastructure. The Orphanage was provided with a new school and new hospitals were founded. Streets and porticoes were repaired and harbours restored to use.12 And of course there was the question of the imperial residence. The Palace of Blachernae was in such a state that for the first ten years, Michael lived in the Great Palace where some buildings were usable. In the meantime, Blachernae was refurbished and redecorated with scenes of Michael’s many victories. Significantly the walls were covered not with the traditional mosaics but with frescoes, painted onto plaster. This may well have been an economy measure as fresco is considerably cheaper than mosaic and Michael could not afford to be too lavish in view of all that remained to be done.13 Michael also ensured that he was seen to be assiduous in that other imperial duty, the founding and beautification of churches and monasteries. Hagia Sophia, in many ways the symbol of Constantinople, was an obvious candidate for patronage. As well as the gigantic silk portrait of Michael, a new mosaic of the Deesis, a figure of Christ between the Virgin Mary and St John the Baptist, was commissioned. To celebrate its return to Orthodox worship, it received new communion vessels and altar cloths.14 Many other churches were refurbished, redecorated or received new roofs of tiles or lead and new furnishings to replace those stolen by the Latins: the Holy Apostles, the Peribleptos, the Mother of God at Blachernae and possibly the Kyriotissa. Michael made sure that his generosity was recorded. At the Peribleptos, the new mosaics included one showing Michael himself, along with his wife and one of his sons. Outside the Church of the Holy Apostles, he set up a column, topped by a statue of the Archangel Michael. Before him knelt the figure of an emperor, presenting him with a model of Constantinople. Contemporary observers would have understood that what the emperor depicted could have been either Constantine, the founder of the city, or the new Constantine, Michael himself, whose personal patron saint the Archangel was.15 Lastly, like his predecessors, he selected a place to serve as his place of burial and that of his family: the monastery of St Demetrius which stood at the apex of Constantinople’s triangle. It had originally been founded by one his ancestors but had largely fallen into ruin during the Latin occupation. He and his successors would make a point of visiting the monastery every 26 October, the feast of St Demetrius.16 In the end, Michael never did come to be interred in the monastery that he had prepared for the purpose. When he died in December 1282, the church

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decreed that he was unfit to be buried in Constantinople. It was not his violent usurpation or blinding of John Laskaris that was held against him but his negotiations with the pope to end the schism between the Byzantine and Latin churches. In an attempt to head off western powers that wanted to restore the Latin Empire, Michael had agreed to recognize papal authority over the Byzantine Church at the Council of Lyon in 1274. His son and successor, the 24-year-old Andronicus II (1282–1328), quickly abandoned the union of Lyon and had his father buried quietly in a provincial monastery. Andronicus even made a visit to the blind John Laskaris in his castle and tried to assuage his conscience by providing for the comfort of the prisoner. When Laskaris died, his body was brought to Constantinople and ironically was buried in the Palaiologos family’s monastery of St Demetrius, perhaps in the very tomb originally prepared for Michael.17 Andronicus was a very different man from his father, renowned for his piety and for his patronage of learning and scholarship, rather than for brutal expediency. He liked to preside over gatherings where literary and philosophical subjects were discussed, and contemporaries likened his court to the Stoa of ancient Athens. Nevertheless, he followed his father’s policy of restoring Constantinople to its former glory. During his reign, the harbour of Sophianai on the southern shore of the city was dredged and brought back into use: ‘a very great work for the city’, enthused a contemporary, ‘most worthy to be seen’. Hagia Sophia was given an overhaul and buttresses were added to the walls to give greater support to the heavy dome. The statue of Justinian that stood on its column outside the cathedral was repaired too, and the orb that had fallen out of its hand was replaced.18 There was, however, a limit to the patronage that Andronicus could bestow on the monuments of Constantinople. The empire that Michael VIII had reconstituted in 1261 was smaller than that ruled over by Alexios III Angelos in 1200. It consisted only of about a third of Asia Minor, a strip of territory across the Balkans, part of the Peloponnese and some of the Aegean islands, and this shrinkage of territory meant that the Palaiologan emperors received only a fraction of the tax receipts that their predecessors had enjoyed. In the sixth century, when Justinian had rebuilt so many of Constantinople’s great buildings, the empire had enjoyed an annual revenue of about five or six million gold pieces a year, but that had now shrunk to one million hyperpyra, and these coins were of lower value because they had a much smaller gold content than the gold coin of Justinian’s day.19 With the needs of defence paramount, building work had to be put to one side. Andronicus was only able to repair Hagia Sophia because he inherited a considerable sum of money from his Italian wife, but he never completed the projected works because of the internal upheavals in the empire after 1317.20 Instead, in the years after 1261, the emperor’s relatives and wealthy subjects stepped in and used their private resources to restore and beautify their favourite churches and monasteries. Theodora, the widow of Michael VIII and mother of Andronicus II, took two monasteries under her wing.

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One of them was the Virgin of Lips, situated close to the Holy Apostles, which had originally been founded by a nobleman called Constantine Lips some three hundred years earlier. Theodora oversaw the refurbishment of the complex, the addition of a new church and the establishment of a hospital. Perhaps because St Demetrius had been given over to John Laskaris, the Lips monastery became the burial place of the Palaiologos dynasty and Theodora herself was buried there in 1303.21 Another patroness was Andronicus’ halfsister, Maria, an illegitimate daughter of Michael VIII. She arrived back in Constantinople in 1282 after the death of her husband, the Mongol khan Abaka. Rather than restore an existing institution, Maria founded a new one, the small convent of the Virgin of the Mongols.22 Wealthy courtiers and military men who were not related to the royal family played their part too. To restore the monastery of the Resurrection, which had supposedly been founded by Constantine’s mother Helena, George Akropolites, one of Michael VIII’s closest political advisers, shelled out 17,000 hyperpyra and thereafter gave up counting. He even took part in the building work himself.23 The Church of the All-Blessed Virgin (Pammakaristos) was refurbished by a successful general named Michael Glabas, and after his death in 1304 his widow converted the south aisle into a side chapel in his memory.24 The wealthiest and most prominent of the patrons at this time was Theodore Metochites (1270–1332), chief minister of Andronicus II in the latter part of his reign. Metochites was both a statesman and a scholar, a prominent member of the emperor’s literary circle as well as a powerful personality who dominated the court. He amassed a considerable fortune through his tenure of office, though some said, probably rightly, that much of it was amassed through the selling of offices and pocketing of bribes. He expended a good deal of his wealth on a magnificent new palace for himself and his family which lay close to the Land Walls and the Palace of Blachernae. He provided it with marble floors, gardens, piped water, baths, a colonnaded courtyard and every other possible luxury.25 There was plenty of money left over for a pious project though, and Metochites became the patron and restorer of the nearby Holy Saviour in Chora, the monastery that had once been outside the city and had been brought in when the Land Walls were constructed in 413. The complex of buildings was now largely in ruins but around 1316, at the request of Andronicus II, Metochites set to work to have the site completely cleared so that new buildings could be put up. Among them was a library which became the largest in Constantinople.26 The main church was given lavish new mosaic decoration depicting the lives of Christ and the Virgin which Metochites boasted were ‘lovely, beauteous works’.27 Alongside the church, Metochites built a side chapel to house his own tomb and decorated it most appropriately with frescoes depicting the Last Judgement. These frescoes were remarkable works in their own right, showing a vivacity that is sometimes lacking in stiff and formal Byzantine mosaics.28 Situated close to

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Figure 15  Theodore Metochites from the Holy Saviour in Chora (Paul Williams/ FunkyStock).

the Palace of Blachernae and the Church of the Mother of God, Metochites’ Chora became one of the most important monastic houses of fourteenthcentury Constantinople. Thanks to the efforts of Michael VIII, Andronicus II, Empress Theodora, Theodore Metochites and the other patrons, Constantinople was now once more a place that inspired awe and wonder in its visitors. Its very size still excited comment. A Jewish merchant who spent twelve years in the city in the 1280s and 1290s told his friends in Damascus that it took from morning to noon to cross from one side to another. An Arab traveller, Ibn Battuta, who arrived in 1332, described it as ‘enormous in magnitude’. The sheer number of churches and monasteries still impressed, and Ibn Battuta reported that the skies shook when all their bells rang together.29 The highlight of any visit was still Hagia Sophia. As a Muslim, Ibn Battuta was not allowed inside but the cathedral and its complex of buildings struck him as a kind of city in its own right. For those who did go inside, the most striking feature was, as it always had been, the soaring dome. ‘It is impossible to describe its greatness or beauty,’ wrote a Russian deacon in the 1390s. One of his compatriots climbed up onto the gallery to count the windows at the base of the dome. The mosaic of Christ Pantokrator which stared down from the middle of the dome was of especial fascination. Renewed in around 1355 following the earthquake damage, the head measured the width of twenty-eight palms, but to the viewer below it looked as if it were of normal size.30 There was much to engage the interest of visitors at ground level too. The well head on which Christ had sat when he spoke to the Samaritan woman was still

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Text Box 10: A portrait of Theodore Metochites Nikephoros Gregoras, Metochites’ pupil and friend, gives an impression of Metochites’ immense personal charisma and intellect: By the size of his body, the harmony of its limbs and other features, and by the brightness of his eyes he drew all eyes upon himself. In his natural ability as a speaker, his capacity for work, strength of memory and clear understanding of all branches of knowledge he achieved great heights. He was so fluent in replying to all questions, whether about antiquity or the present day, as if his tongue were a book, that his friends had little or no need of books. For he was a living library and a ready store of information, far excelling all previous men of learning. The only criticism that one might make of him is that he did not make it his policy to model his own style in imitation of any of the ancient writers, and he did not soften the weightiness of his thought by genial or graceful style or show a disposition to place any restraint on the productiveness of his intellect. …. The most remarkable fact about him was that, while public affairs were in such a state of confusion, with the impending storm and a whole series of responsibilities continually flooding into his mind, nothing ever prevented him from reading and writing. So skilled was he in both spheres of activity that he could work from early morning until evening in the palace, entirely devoted to the administration of public business and dispatching it with great enthusiasm, as if he had no literary interests at all. Leaving the palace late he would then devote himself completely to reading, as if he were a scholar entirely detached from public life. From N. G. Wilson, Scholars of Byzantium, 2nd edn, London: Duckworth, 1996: 256–7, reproduced by kind permission of Bloomsbury Publishing.

there, as well as the stunning mosaic decoration and the pillars of different coloured marble. Guides still told the tale of the cathedral’s guardian angel keeping his eternal vigil as he waited for the boy to return.31 The other great churches still impressed too. Ibn Battuta was astonished at how beautifully they were adorned with marble and mosaic.32 In the Mother of God in Blachernae, the great pillars of green jasper were remarked upon, as was the gilding and mosaic decoration which looked as if it had only just been completed. At the Peribleptos, the great jasper sarcophagus of Emperor Romanos III could still be seen.33 Visitors to the Pantokrator monastery could admire the mosaics there that ‘shone like the sun’. The marble slab on which the

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body of Christ had been laid after the crucifixion was still there. It had probably been too bulky for the Latins to prise off and remove.34 Similarly, in the Holy Apostles, there was still the cavernous interior and the very column to which Christ had been tied when he was scourged was on display. The tombs of the emperors were still to be seen, even if they had lost their gilding and jewels.35 Out on the streets, the great columns of Theodosius and Arcadius still dominated the skyline.36 In the Augousteion, although the Anemodoulion had gone, visitors were invariably struck by the statue of Justinian, high up on its column, although they often thought that the figure on horseback was either Constantine the Great or Heraclius.37 As in the past, the Hippodrome was ever a source of fascination and visitors still marvelled at the size of the space, the central spine and the banks of seating rising up on either side of the race track. Chariot races were no longer held there for Constantinople probably now lacked the huge population needed to fill the place. Instead, it was a venue for tournaments and archery practice. The classical statues had all disappeared, though their pedestals remained and the bronze serpent column and the Egyptian obelisk of Theodosius were still to be seen. The red marble statue of two seated figures known as the Righteous Judges had survived even if they had been chipped and damaged over the years and one of them had lost its hands and feet. The superstitious awe that attached itself to Constantinople’s statues had survived too. The Righteous Judge that still had its hands was believed to have the remarkable facility of assessing the right price in a transaction. The buyer would place coins in one of its palms and the hand would supposedly close when the correct sum was reached.38 Next to the Hippodrome, the Great Palace may not have been the emperor’s preferred residence but several impressive buildings with stunning mosaic decoration could still be seen, reminders of the days when the complex was the centre of imperial ceremonial and diplomacy.39 While most of the classical statues had gone for ever, another of Constantinople’s claims to fame had been restored. Before 1204, its claim to be a holy city like Rome or Jerusalem had largely been based on the hundreds of relics of the saints that had filled its churches. During the period of Latin rule, the vast majority of them had been shipped off to the west, sent as diplomatic gifts, pawned to raise cash or simply stolen. Yet now, miraculously, most of them were back. The city seems to have acquired a complete new set of relics of the Passion to replace those lost from the Pharos chapel. They were now normally kept in a sealed chest in the monastery of St George of Mangana but they were always publicly displayed in Hagia Sophia during Holy Week. They included the purple robe in which Christ was mocked, the Crown of Thorns, the sponge soaked in vinegar that he was offered to drink from on the cross, part of the much-divided True Cross and the spear that pierced his side.40 Even in the Middle Ages the sudden reappearance of these items gave rise to questions. While Russian pilgrims happily accepted them as genuine, Latins were sometimes more sceptical. The English traveller known as Sir

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John Mandeville who visited around 1334 was puzzled to hear that the Crown of Thorns was in Constantinople. He was well aware that the crown that had originally been in Constantinople was now in Paris. The king of France, Louis IX (1228–70), had paid off the debt to the Venetian merchant to whom it had been pawned by the Latin emperor Baldwin II in 1237. Having had the precious relic shipped to his capital city, Louis had built the soaring Gothic Sainte-Chapelle to house it. Mandeville himself had seen it there but he charitably concluded that the crown must have at some point been divided into two, so that both crowns were authentic.41 It was not only the relics of the Passion that had miraculously reappeared. Even Constantinople’s churches were once more filled with holy objects for the veneration of the faithful. A Russian priest, Stephen of Novgorod, who visited in 1348 went from church to church and from monastery to monastery to kiss the bones of the holy men and women that he found there. At the Peribleptos, he kissed the hand of John the Baptist; at the Holy Apostles, the bodies of St Spyridon and St Polyeuktos; at the Stoudios monastery, the bodies of St Sabas the Cook and St Solomonis; and at the Pantokrator, the headless body of St Michael the monk. At the Church of the Mother of God in Chalkoprateia, the Virgin’s girdle was once more on display and her robe was once more to be seen at Blachernae even though Bishop Nivelon had supposedly taken at least part of both relics with him when he headed west to appeal for help in 1205.42 Visitors to Blachernae would no longer have been able to see the wall painting that once used to perform the daily miracle of the rising curtain – that had vanished for good. Many other miraculous icons though were back and were once more on display in the churches, including the one known as the Kyriotissa, the one that spoke to an emperor and the one that had supposedly spurted blood when it was stabbed by a Jew. There were new ones too, like the image of Christ that had suddenly and inexplicably appeared on the wall of a church and an icon was reputed to heal the sick, although only on Sundays.43 The procession which took place every Tuesday when the icon of Virgin Hodegetria was borne through the streets was a regular tourist attraction. The large and very heavy icon was born aloft by four men in flowing red robes, all of whom had inherited the role from their fathers and grandfathers. When the procession reached one of Constantinople’s squares, the icon was set down and hymns and prayers were sung by the accompanying priests who would touch it with balls of cotton wool which they would then distribute to the crowds. The highlight of the proceedings came when an elderly man, dressed in the customary red robes, would emerge from the crowd and kneel and pray before the Virgin. He would then stretch out his arms: the heavy icon would be placed on his back and he would single-handedly carry it back to the head of the procession. As if the weight of the huge gilded frame and its encrusted jewels were not enough, the man would be blindfolded so that the Virgin herself would guide his steps back to the monastery of the Hodegetria. ‘It is terrible to see’, wrote Stephen of Novgorod, ‘how it pushes him this way and that.’

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Another spectator ensured that he attended every single procession of the Hodegetria during his stay, so entranced was he by the spectacle.44 Thus Constantinople in the fourteenth century was as much a source of wonder and amazement as it had been before 1204. Stephen of Novgorod exclaimed, ‘There is much that amazes one there, which the human mind cannot express.’45 It was almost as if nothing had changed, which was exactly what the Byzantines wanted outsiders to think. * There were, of course, marked differences between the Constantinople of 1300 and that of a century before. Visitors may have still waxed lyrical about the city’s size, its churches and its relics but they no longer extolled Constantinople’s wealth the way that they once had or said that it was richer any city anywhere in the world. Gone were the days when the emperor had been a fountain of gold to all and sundry. While King Sigurd and his followers had been delighted with the purses of gold given to them by Alexios I, the Catalan mercenaries of Andronicus II complained that the coins he paid them were ‘not worth three Barcelona sous’.46 On the other hand, even if it was no longer exceptionally wealthy, Constantinople was still a large city with a flourishing commercial life. The markets that were held in its great squares such as the Forum of Theodosius were as vibrant and crowded as ever with spices, sugar, silk, cotton, wine and numerous other commodities on offer. With more settled conditions in southern Russia, the Black Sea trade had revived and commodities from that area were now once more arriving on the Golden Horn. Some new commercial opportunities had opened up as well. Constantinople was now a centre for the export of wheat from its hinterland of Thrace and Macedonia, probably because with its smaller population, less was now needed for domestic consumption.47 The economic upturn no doubt helped to restore another of Constantinople’s distinctive pre-1204 characteristics: its diverse population. Under the Latin regime, the population appears both to have dwindled and to have narrowed. The virtual Venetian monopoly of the city’s trade would have ensured that fewer merchants from elsewhere would visit Constantinople. The Arabs were certainly not welcome for the Latins had tried to destroy the Mitaton mosque, and the Genoese and Pisans were largely edged out as well. Jews seem to have been leaving Byzantine territory during the Latin interlude.48 With Michael VIII’s takeover in 1261, Constantinople soon began to recover its international character. The Arabs returned in the wake of a treaty that Michael made with the Mamluk sultan of Egypt, Baibars I (1260–77), soon after 1261. As in previous agreements with Muslim powers, the treaty included clauses providing for the mutual good treatment of merchants and for the provision of a mosque in Constantinople. When some Egyptian envoys arrived in 1262, Michael proudly showed them the new building and

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they handed over the curtains, candelabra and other furnishings that Baibars had sent over for it. The Arabs were given their own dedicated quarter in Constantinople, surrounded by walls whose gates were closed at night. They were allowed to appoint their own official, the qadi, to govern them and look after their interests.49 The Jews came back, if they had ever been away, although they no longer dwelt in Galata. Their new home was around the harbour of Vlanga, on the southern shore of the city, where they too had a wall to protect them. They resumed their roles as tanners, craftsmen and merchants. Some worked as doctors, though certain firebrand clergymen urged their congregations not to employ them. At least one Constantinople Jew worked as a translator, interpreting at the Byzantine court whenever Arab delegations paid a visit.50 Plenty of Russians seem to have headed for Constantinople after 1261 as well, not only merchants but also priests and monks who took up residence in the Stoudios monastery.51 Then, of course, there were the Latins. The French and Venetians might have been responsible for the capture and sack of Constantinople in 1204 and for the establishment of the Latin Empire, but that did not mean that the Byzantines had lost faith in all westerners. They were still very able soldiers to have on one’s side. Eight hundred Italian knights had fought valiantly alongside Theodore Laskaris when he defeated the Seljuk Turks in 1211 and Latin mercenaries had even helped Michael VIII to seize power by murdering the rival regent for the young John IV in 1258.52 So after Constantinople was recaptured in 1261, Latins resumed their previous role as part of the city’s defence even if not in quite the same numbers as they had before 1204. In 1303, a large contingent of Catalan mercenaries arrived in Constantinople. Their leader Roger de Flor was appointed Grand Duke and was married to the niece of Andronicus II before the Catalan force was dispatched east to confront the Turks. Latins still made up the emperor’s personal Varangian guard and on important occasions they would line up before him, clash their axes against their shields and wish him a long reign in their own language.53 The Latins were also needed to run Constantinople’s maritime trade and that meant bringing back the merchants of the Italian city states. Michael VIII and the Byzantines in general were still naturally wary of the Venetians, whose fleet had brought the Fourth Crusade to Constantinople and had acted as the main prop of the tottering Latin Empire. When Michael’s troops had marched in in 1261, the houses of Venetian merchants alongside the Golden Horn had been burned down and their owners all fled the city.54 Instead, Michael had entered into an alliance with Venice’s deadly enemies, the Genoese. They were given the old exemptions from the Kommerkion and other duties that they had enjoyed before 1204 and they flocked to Constantinople to fill the void left by the Venetians. They did so in such numbers that Michael feared they might spark resentment among the Byzantine population. So in 1267, rather than re-establish them permanently in their old haunt along the Golden Horn, Michael granted the Genoese their

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own quarter in Galata on the other side of the harbour, the area where the city’s Jews had once lived. They were to be governed by their own podestà, as the Venetians had under the Latin regime, but the emperor made sure that the Genoese did not get the idea that they were somehow independent in their town across the water. On visits to the Palace of Blachernae, the podestà was expected to bow down and kiss the emperor’s hand and foot and Genoese ships on their way to or from the harbour at Galata were supposed to salute the emperor as they passed the Great Palace.55 Other groups of merchants were reinstalled in Constantinople after 1261. Although their city had greatly declined in commercial importance since 1204, the Pisans returned to their old quarter on the Golden Horn, where their ruling official was known as the consul. They were joined by the merchants of Ancona in 1308.56 These days, the Italians no longer had a monopoly. In 1320 Andronicus II entered into a commercial treaty with the king of Aragon, allowing his Catalan merchants to take up residence in Constantinople alongside the Italians and to enjoy the same immunity from customs duties.57 The thinking behind these concessions was doubtless that it was better to have many different groups contending for Constantinople’s trade rather than for one or two to monopolize it. That kind of reasoning was probably behind the decision to allow the Venetians back in as well. While their role in the Fourth Crusade and the Latin Empire might be remembered and resented, given that they were now the foremost naval power in the region they could not be left out in the cold as potential enemies. So in 1268 a treaty was made whereby Venice promised not to ally itself against Byzantium and in return received its old trading concessions once more. The Venetians returned to their quarter on the Golden Horn where they had their own wharves, warehouses and churches as in the past. They were not now to be governed by a podestà, however, as they had under the Latin Empire. Their chief official was henceforth to be known as the baillie: the change of name may have been deliberately designed to remind them that they were there on sufferance and not the masters as they had been under the Latin Empire.58 * As Constantinople was once again the multi-ethnic, international city that it had been before 1204, it had to contend with the difficulties to which that diversity gave rise. The problem no longer lay with the volatile people of Constantinople. They still deeply resented the Latins but that resentment no longer led to violent attacks on the Latin quarters along the Golden Horn. It was not that provocation was lacking. In 1275, a Genoese was heard boasting that his people would soon have Constantinople as well as Galata. A Byzantine sailor stepped forward and slapped his face, whereupon the Genoese ran him through with his sword and killed him. There was no violent outbreak in response like that of 1182, and it was left to the emperor

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to extract compensation from the podestà of Galata.59 Perhaps the citizens of Constantinople were no longer numerous enough to gather a large mob so they instead expressed their hostility in sullen antagonism towards visitors from the west. A Dominican monk living in Galata complained that the locals would break a cup out of which a Latin had drunk as if it were somehow contaminated.60 Much more dangerous to the status quo was the violence that was likely to break out between the Latins themselves whenever one group suspected that their commercial interests might be under threat. In 1303, the Genoese in Galata heard that the company of Catalan mercenaries under Roger de Flor was being received by Emperor Andronicus II at the Palace of Blachernae. The Genoese feared that some agreement might be being hatched to admit Catalan merchants into Constantinople’s commerce. Resentment was further fuelled by the Catalan company’s failure to repay some 20,000 hyperpyra that had been borrowed from the Genoese to pay for the company’s passage to Asia Minor. A Genoese called Rosso of Finar gathered a large crowd of his fellowcountrymen and they rowed across the Golden Horn to Blachernae where they put up barricades in the streets surrounding the palace. The Catalans responded to the challenge and a pitched battle broke out. The emperor, looking on from a window of the palace, sent an official called Stephen Mouzalon to call for calm, but both Mouzalon and his horse were hacked to death. The Catalans soon overwhelmed the Genoese, killing Rosso of Finar and many of his followers. They would have continued over the water to sack Galata had the emperor not finally succeeded in restraining them.61 The deadliest encounters of all were between Genoese and their old rivals the Venetians, even though their quarters were now conveniently separated by the waters of the harbour. In the summer of 1296, a Venetian fleet of sixty-nine vessels unexpectedly appeared in the Golden Horn. Andronicus II feared that an attack like that of April 1204 was imminent and quickly rounded up and imprisoned the Venetians in the city. He need not have worried for Constantinople was not the target. The Venetian fleet headed instead for Galata and for the heavily laden ships in its harbour. The Genoese had anticipated the move and managed to get their families across to Blachernae where the emperor allowed them to take refuge. They then scuttled their merchant ships, hoping to salvage the cargo from the waters of the harbour when the danger was passed. Foiled, the Venetians had to depart empty-handed. Six months later, the Genoese took their revenge. They sailed across the Golden Horn and broke into the Venetian quarter. They mercilessly killed anyone they found in the streets and then advanced out of the Venetian area into the city proper. They were looking for the Venetian baillie, Marco Barbo, whom they knew to have been imprisoned after he had incurred the emperor’s displeasure. They surrounded the prison and when Barbo attempted to escape his fate by breaking out onto the roof, they caught him and cut him into pieces. Honour having been satisfied, they withdrew to Galata.62

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The powerlessness of the Byzantine emperor to prevent these outrages from taking place in his capital was a measure of the extent to which the military and economic power of the Italian republics had grown while his had dwindled. Venice was now mistress of an extensive empire of its own and a stronger power than Byzantium. Genoa’s strength lay in the possession of Galata, or Pera as the Latins preferred to call it. When it had originally been given to the Genoese in 1267, Michael VIII had been at pains to ensure that it was understood that this was a merely temporary grant not a permanent cession. He had insisted on demolishing the wall that had surrounded the suburb before the Genoese took possession. Before long though the wall had been rebuilt and Galata was looking like a Genoese rather than a Byzantine town. The Latin mass was said in its churches and it had two monasteries, one for Dominicans and one for Franciscans.63 More worryingly, it had also developed from merely a commercial quarter to a major port in its own right and a rival to Constantinople. Increasing numbers of ships, not only those flying the Genoese flag, chose to load and unload their cargoes there rather than on the other side of the Golden Horn. The harbour at Galata had the advantage of deeper water so that even the largest galleys could moor right next to the quayside with no need to ferry goods ashore in smaller boats.64As a result, it was the Genoese podestà who received their customs duties rather than the Byzantine emperor. It was estimated that by the midfourteenth century the Genoese earned 200,000 gold pieces in duties a year in this way, while the Byzantine treasury received a mere 30,000. As in the past, the loss of revenue was to some extent compensated for by the value of the Italian maritime cities as allies. By the early fourteenth century, Andronicus II had given up maintaining a Byzantine fleet, which he could no longer afford. Instead, he relied on the Venetians and Genoese for seaward defence.65 In spite of that and in spite of his treaties with his allies, the emperor was almost always in dispute with them over one thing or another. Some of the bones of contention were fairly trivial. Jews who lived in Venice, Crete or the republic’s other colonies were entitled to receive the same exemption from the Kommerkion as other Venetian citizens if they came to Constantinople to trade. But when they did, most of them preferred to reside in the Jewish quarter at Vlanga rather than in the Venetian enclave on the Golden Horn. The Byzantine emperor decided that those who did so lost their exemption. The Venetian government resolutely insisted that they should retain it. The wrangling went on for years.66 There were endless incidents where overly zealous Byzantine officials overstepped the mark. In the 1290s, a Genoese merchant called Ranieri Boccanegra gave passage to some Byzantine merchants and their goods from Alexandria to Constantinople for a promised payment of 500 hyperpyra. When the ship arrived in the Golden Horn, rather than wait for payment, Boccanegra simply helped himself to the merchants’ goods to the value of their passage money. Soon after, a message arrived from the eparch inviting Boccanegra to come and visit him. When the Genoese

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arrived he was promptly arrested and told that he would not be released until he repaid what he had taken. The government of Genoa took up his case along with many other similar ones.67 Every now and then, the emperors attempted to bring their difficult allies to heel although they never attempted anything as drastic as Manuel I had in 1171. By 1274, Michael VIII was becoming seriously alarmed at the monopoly that the Genoese had established over the Black Sea trade and the piratical activities of some of their vessels which preyed on Byzantine and Venetian shipping. The emperor complained to the podestà but nothing was done, so when news arrived that one such pirate ship was on its way back to Galata with its ill-gotten gains, war galleys were sent to intercept it. The weather helped the Byzantines at first, as the large, lumbering Genoese ship had been becalmed at the mouth of the Golden Horn when the prevailing north wind had dropped. On the other hand, the light, low-slung Byzantine galleys found it difficult to inflict much damage on the Genoese ship which towered over them. Greek fire was of no use because the Genoese crew had taken the usual precaution of hanging ox hides over the sides of their ship. To make matters worse, the north wind then began to pick up and the Genoese ship started to move towards the sanctuary of Galata. It looked as if the quarry was going to escape until someone advised the emperor to order a large Catalan vessel that was riding at anchor nearby to move to the north. By doing so, it lessened the force of the wind striking the sails of the Genoese ship and allowed the Byzantines to catch up and board it. It was a rare success in the long saga of Constantinople’s ambivalent relations with its Italian allies.68 This was Constantinople in its Indian summer. It had its political and economic problems but that had always been the case. These difficulties in no way detracted from the myth, even if the emperor were defied by his difficult Italian allies, even if the city no longer housed a third of the world’s wealth, even if its churches and monasteries were not quite as numerous and splendid as they once were. But the time would come when events would take such a turn for the worse that the city and its myth would both pass away.

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11 The ruin of Byzantine Constantinople

Byzantium’s fortunes began seriously to wane from the 1280s onwards. Conscious of the threat of an invasion from western Europe to reconquer Constantinople after 1261, Michael VIII had concentrated most of the imperial forces in the western part of the empire, leaving the eastern frontier in Asia Minor weakly defended. The semi-independent bands of nomadic Turks who lived there took advantage to mount raids into Byzantine territory and, when they encountered almost no opposition, they began to settle there. By 1330, almost the whole of Asia Minor was lost. In the face of the disaster, opposition to the rule of the ageing Andronicus II and his chief minister Theodore Metochites grew ever more strident, and gathered around the person of his youthful grandson, also named Andronicus. In May 1328, young Andronicus and his supporters forced their way into Constantinople and compelled the old emperor to abdicate. With his patron gone, Metochites too fell from power. A mob attacked his mansion near the Chora monastery and, having stripped it of anything of value, razed it to the ground. Even the marble pavement was prised up and sent off as a gift to a foreign ruler. Metochites himself was banished to a provincial town in Thrace where he was forced to endure harsh conditions, in contrast to the wealth and luxury that he had once enjoyed, and worst of all, he was cut off from the centre of civilization, the Great City. A charitable monk took pity on him and sent him a case of wine. He wrote in profound gratitude, ‘You showed yourself both as a noble and useful person when I was precisely in most urgent need to have the indispensable use of wine.’1 After two years in Thrace, Metochites was allowed to return to Constantinople and to take up residence in the Chora monastery which he had rebuilt and refurbished in happier days. His last years were sad, troubled by illness and by the view from his window which looked out on the desolate spot where his house had once stood. He died on 13 March 1332, one month after his former master, Andronicus II who likewise had spent his final years immured in a monastery.

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By then both men were largely forgotten for the accession of the young Andronicus III (1328–41) had seemed to open a new era and promise of recovery from the depressing decline under his predecessor. Realizing that there was no hope of regaining Asia Minor for the time being, the new emperor made peace with the Turks and recognized their conquests. He then concentrated on the western half of the empire where he was successful in recovering a swathe of lost territory. Sadly, the resurgence proved to be short-lived for in June 1341 Andronicus III died, aged only forty-five. His son and heir, John V, was just nine years old and the inevitable result was civil war as Andronicus’s right-hand man and leading general, John Kantakouzenos, fought for power with the empress-mother, Anna of Savoy, and the patriarch of Constantinople who were acting as regents for the young emperor. This particularly destructive conflict raged for six long years, with periodic outbreaks for a decade afterwards, and it led to the loss of most of the empire’s territory as neighbouring rulers took advantage of the situation. The Serbs helped themselves to most of Thessaly and Macedonia, thus negating all the reconquests under Andronicus III. Even more serious were the gains made by the Turkish Ottomans, who ruled the north-western section of Asia Minor. They seized first Tzympe, on the European side of the Sea of Marmara, and then Gallipoli on the Dardanelles. From this latter bridgehead, they began the systematic conquest of Thrace, taking Adrianople during the 1360s and leaving Constantinople as an isolated outpost in the midst of Ottoman territory. * No one in Constantinople could have been unaware of these worrying events. By the 1350s, the Ottoman advance in Asia Minor and Thrace meant that the land that could be seen from the Land and Sea Walls was no longer Byzantine territory. Nor could the people of Constantinople ignore the crowds of refugees that daily arrived from the conquered provinces. Many were completely destitute and were forced to live in squalor on the city’s rubbish dumps.2 The disastrous economic impact of the civil wars must have been apparent too for it had brought the Palaiologos family to near bankruptcy. To pay for her struggle with John Kantakouzenos, Empress Anna had sold all the gold and silver plate in the Palace of Blachernae and had pawned the crown jewels to the Venetians in return for a loan of 30,000 ducats.3 The deteriorating situation was made worse by a series of natural disasters. In 1346, a major earthquake rocked the city, bringing down part of the dome of Hagia Sophia and causing damage to the Land Walls. Soon afterwards, Constantinople became one of the first European cities to be struck by the Black Death, which was probably brought in on a Genoese ship returning from the Black Sea to Galata in the summer of 1347. The epidemic raged for a year and among the thousands of victims was John Kantakouzenos’ thirteen-year-old son Andronicus.4

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In spite of everything, even now there was hope. Although the civil war had lasted so long and had cost so much in terms of land and treasure, its ultimate outcome was relatively restrained by the standards of Byzantine political life. John Kantakouzenos finally won the contest in 1347 when his supporters managed to admit him through the Land Walls and he duly had himself crowned as John VI (1347–54). But there was no massacre of his opponents as there had been when Andronicus Komnenos seized power in 1182. His rival, the young John V Palaiologos, was not blinded but married to Kantakouzenos’ daughter and then sent off with his mother Anna to be governor of Thessalonica. After seven years on the throne, John VI abdicated and handed power back to John V. He then changed his name to Joasaph and took monastic vows, spending the rest of his life writing theological tracts and his own political memoirs. The Palaiologos dynasty was thus restored to power after the brief interlude and John V ruled on for decades until his death in 1391. Constantinople also recovered from the natural disasters. The damage done to Hagia Sophia in the 1346 earthquake was repaired. The gigantic figure of Christ Pantokrator was put back into the centre of the dome and a mosaic portrait of John V was placed on the eastern arch below.5 Even the high death toll of the Black Death was probably made good. In fact, with its wide streets and open spaces, Constantinople may well have fared rather better than the crowded cities of western Europe which were struck by the plague the following year. Most important of all, the Ottomans made no move to attack the city, even though they now controlled all the land round about. For most of the 1370s and 1380s, they were preoccupied by their rivalry with the Serbs for mastery of the Balkans, a struggle in which the Byzantine emperor played no part. So the inhabitants of Constantinople, who were secure behind its fortifications, could even now still cling to the view that the imperial city was all that mattered. In spite of everything, the old political theory was trumpeted more loudly than ever. The emperor in Constantinople, the patriarch proclaimed, was emperor ‘wherever men have the name of Christians’ and a Bavarian visitor was informed in 1427 that there was ‘no worthier nor more highly born emperor than the emperor of Constantinople’.6 Untoward events in the provinces were somehow just temporary upheavals. This curious dream world lasted until the final decade of the fourteenth century. For on a June day in 1389, the Ottomans clashed with the Serbs at the Battle of Kosovo. Victory went to the Ottomans whose domination of the Balkans was now assured. In the very moment of victory, however, the Ottoman emir, Murad I (1362–89), fell victim to the knife of a Serbian assassin. Murad had been a cautious man who was well aware that the Ottomans were a Muslim minority in the overwhelmingly Christian Balkans. He had avoided attacking Constantinople probably because he feared that the Venetians and other Latins would come to the rescue of such an

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important trading hub. His son and successor Bayezid I (1389–1402) was a man of a very different stamp: arrogant, impetuous and ambitious. He saw no reason to preserve what had become an anomalous enclave in the middle of his empire and in the winter of 1393–4, he summoned the Byzantine emperor, now Manuel II (1391–1425), to an interview at the Macedonian town of Serres where he bullied and browbeat him, no doubt with a view to persuading him to surrender his capital city. When that did not happen and the emperor fled from Serres by night, the sultan made ready for war. In September 1394, he moved an army up to the Land Walls. Bayezid may have been impetuous but he was also a very good soldier and strategist. He had no illusions whatsoever about the difficulty of the enterprise and made no attempt at a direct assault. Instead, he surrounded both Constantinople and Galata on land and mounted a blockade by sea, then waited until hunger and privation would force the emperor to open his gates. That did not happen as rapidly as he would have liked. Bayezid’s fleet was a small one and it could not stop Venetian and Genoese merchant vessels from reaching the Golden Horn with supplies. The great cisterns under the streets ensured that there was no shortage of water. Conditions in the besieged city were still not easy: food and firewood were very scarce. Many of its citizens saw no hope in remaining and fled the city, letting themselves down by ropes from the Land Walls during the night. Even Emperor Manuel II departed, heading west to see if he could persuade the Latin powers to intervene and leaving his nephew John in charge of the capital. Despite all the privations, the defences still stood firm and the city held out for year after year.7 Then in the early summer of 1402, the garrison on the Land Walls noticed that the Ottoman troops were packing up to leave. Within a few weeks they were gone, marching east across Asia Minor to do battle with a new enemy, Timur the Lord of Samarkand. They never returned: Bayezid’s army was shattered at the Battle of Ankara that July and he ended his days as a prisoner of Timur. This unexpected and miraculous salvation against all odds seemed to confirm what the Byzantines had known all along: that the Virgin Mary really did have the city under her personal protection. ‘She who was a captive has become free,’ triumphantly proclaimed one of the officials at the Palace of Blachernae, ‘and the cause of this change is the Virgin alone!’8 If anything, the belief in the God-guarded city was now stronger than ever, perhaps because the Byzantines had nothing else to fall back on. The rumour spread that even if the enemy ever did succeed in breaching the Land Walls, they would only advance as far as the Forum of Constantine. Then an angel would descend from heaven and would present a sword to an unknown man standing by the column. He would lead the counter-attack and drive the invaders from the city.9 This confidence was vindicated in 1422 when the Ottomans came again and mounted a direct attack on the Land Walls. The soldiers who drove back the assault reported seeing the Virgin on the walls in the midst of the fighting. Moreover the ancient defences proved themselves able to withstand new technology. This time the Ottomans had

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with them a number of cannon which they aimed at the towers of the Land Walls. Although one tower was hit seventy times, it still held firm.10 In spite of the euphoria, Constantinople’s survival had come at a terrible cost. The population had shrunk drastically during the years of Bayezid’s blockade and many of those who remained had been reduced to desperate poverty. ‘Sad and poor’ was how one visitor described them. The eight-year trauma had also left its mark on the city’s buildings. Firewood for cooking had been in desperately short supply during the blockade and the roof timbers and beams of the great houses, palaces and perhaps some churches too had been ripped out to supply it. By 1403, many of those buildings had been abandoned and lay in ruins. Vineyards and cornfields were planted in the open spaces which had now opened up. Even some of the great churches and monasteries that had for so long been landmarks were now beginning to fall into decay. The huge Holy Apostles church was not being maintained and by 1420 was in a very dilapidated state, although the tombs of the emperors and the flagellation column could still be seen there.11 The roof of the Church of the Mother of God at Blachernae was in noticeably poor repair and then one January night in 1434, the building caught fire and was burned to the ground. That was not the first time it had happened but after this conflagration, it was never rebuilt: a sad end for what had once been one of Constantinople’s showpieces.12 The cathedral of Hagia Sophia remained as splendid as ever, though when repairs were needed the Byzantine government had to petition the ruler of Novgorod to send donations. Moreover, while the cathedral itself was maintained, the buildings around it had been allowed to decay. Even the Palace of Blachernae had not been spared. Many parts of it had been abandoned and the imperial family resided only in a cramped suite of rooms in one corner. In the Augousteion, the orb had once more fallen from the hand of the great statue of Justinian and this time it was not put back. It was a token, opined one visitor, that the emperor had ‘lost a great part of his lordship’.13 Even at this very late stage, Constantinople retained much of its allure and it was still regarded as one of the great cities of the Christian world. There were still plenty of visitors. Some, like the Russian deacon Zosima who arrived in 1419, followed the traditional trail from church to church, kissing the relics as he went.14 These pilgrims had now been joined by a new kind of visitor. As the study of ancient Greek and Latin revived in Italy, humanists and scholars were drawn to Constantinople to view its relics – not of the saints but of the ancient past. Cyriac of Ancona came several times to make sketches of the architecture of Hagia Sophia and to study the columns of Justinian, Arcadius and Theodosius.15 The hospitals attached to the monasteries still functioned and had a high reputation. People would travel from far afield to seek medical treatment or to study medicine there. Constantinople was still a centre of production for luxury goods such as gold embroidered fabrics.16 Above all, it was still an international commercial entrepôt. While much of the trade had been diverted through Galata and the emperor reaped much less in the way of revenue, his subjects were able to

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take advantage by importing and exporting goods on Venetian and Genoese vessels and drawing a handsome profit. Constantinople’s great monuments may have been crumbling but a few of its citizens had become fantastically wealthy through trade. The towers of their great houses became a new feature on the skyline. The existence of this moneyed elite may explain why not all the great Byzantine churches were in disrepair. The Peribleptos and St George in Mangana appear to have been much as they ever were in the early fifteenth century and it might well be that it was these wealthy citizens who were paying for their upkeep. They had indeed already taken over the burden of maintaining the Land Walls from the impoverished emperor: their names were recorded in inscriptions placed on the section that they had paid for.17 So the dilapidation of Byzantine Constantinople did not necessarily spell the end. Although the empire had been virtually wiped out, given time and peace, the city might have developed into something new, perhaps a kind of city state along the lines of Venice or Genoa. But that was not to be. * In February 1451, while relaxing in his palace at Adrianople, the Ottoman sultan Murad II suffered an apoplectic fit and died. Some in Constantinople were inclined to rejoice, for it had been Murad who had launched the abortive attack of 1422. He was succeeded by his young and inexperienced son, Mehmed II (1451–81), who might have been expected to tread carefully, at least until he was more securely settled on the throne. Such naïve hopes were soon disabused. Murad had been tired and world-weary: he had long since given up any thought of taking the Byzantine capital. Young Mehmed, on the other hand, was restless and ambitious and uneasily aware that he was by no means secure in power. At some point in the months after his accession, he seems to have come to the conclusion that the only way to make himself safe from overthrow was to pull off a spectacular victory, the capture of Constantinople. Secretive and obsessive, he was consumed day and night with the project he had set himself and he went about planning his attack with painstaking thoroughness. He pondered endlessly over various strategies, pored over lists of reserve troops, tax revenues, supplies and weapons. He traced out the line of the Land Walls with pen and paper.18 In the spring of 1452, as the first step, he marched east to the village of Anaplous on the Bosporus. There, at the point where the strait was at its narrowest, he began work on building a castle, taking some of the building materials from the ruins of the nearby Church of the Archangel Michael. This new fortress of Rumeli Hisar was specially designed to provide a platform for cannon and its purpose was to close the passage to ships and supplies coming from the Black Sea. When it was completed in August, Mehmed issued a decree that all vessels that passed the castle, whatever flag they were flying, were to heave to and pay a toll. In November, when a Venetian galley tried to sail past without paying, a well-aimed shot smashed through its decking and sent it to the bottom.19

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The construction of the castle and this awesome display of its potential was a wakeup call to the Byzantine emperor Constantine XI (1449–53) and proof that Mehmed II was in deadly earnest. During the autumn of 1452 and spring of 1453, envoys were sent to the west in a search for Latin allies and a ditch was dug around the vulnerable section of the Land Walls at Blachernae. The emperor ordered that a report be made on how many able-bodied men were available for the defence. Worryingly, he received the paltry figure of 4,973 Byzantines, along with 200 foreigners. That figure almost certainly did not include the Italians, however. In January a Genoese mercenary called Giovanni Giustiniani arrived with two shiploads of men to bolster the defence and the crews of the Venetian vessels in the Golden Horn decided to stay and to man the Blachernae walls. The Genoese of Galata helped too. Even though they had ostensibly given an undertaking to the sultan that they would not get involved, they still secretly sent troops to help defend the Land Walls. It is ironic that in the final hour, the Italians who had been so often at loggerheads with the Byzantine emperor in the past now stood shoulder with him against a common enemy.20 Even with these Latin reinforcements, the defenders were still hopelessly outnumbered when Mehmed II moved against Constantinople in April 1453. He had gathered what was probably the largest force that had ever attacked the city throughout its long history. Estimates of the number of Ottoman troops varied from 200,000 to 80,000, but even if the lower figure is accepted the army was a huge one by medieval standards. Moreover, unlike his great-grandfather Bayezid, Mehmed had a fleet of several hundred vessels, enough to make a blockade by sea a reality. He drew his army up along the entire length of the Land Walls but concentrated his strength at the wellknown weak spots at the Mesoteichion and Blachernae.21 Notwithstanding its huge numerical superiority though, Mehmed’s army still had to face the formidable defences that had foiled so many attackers in the past, including his father Murad II in 1422. The Land Walls had never before been breached and as usual the entrance to the Golden Horn had been blocked by the heavy chain that was strung between Galata and the city. Mehmed may well have considered the best strategy to be to aim for a repeat of the success of the Fourth Crusade in 1204 by storming the Sea Walls along the Golden Horn and his immense reserves of manpower enabled him to circumvent the obstacle of the chain. Some fifty of his ships were beached at Diplokionion and then hauled overland behind Galata to be relaunched in the northern reaches of the Golden Horn. The feat was achieved in a day. Horrified by this coup, Constantine XI ordered an attempt to burn the Ottoman vessels in the Golden Horn with fireships. When that failed, the defenders probably expected an attack from that quarter and they garrisoned the Sea Walls to prepare for it, thus spreading themselves even more thinly.22 In the event, the Ottoman fleet merely lay at anchor on the far side of the Golden Horn for the rest of the siege and when the breakthrough came it was not at the Sea Walls.

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In the epic sieges of the seventh and eighth centuries, the Byzantines had had a technological advantage over their attackers. Now it was the other way round, as Mehmed had been able to take advantage of technical advances and equip his army with cannon that were far more powerful than those used by his father in 1422. The largest of them, constructed by a Hungarian engineer, had a barrel that measured over eight metres long and fired stones that weighed over 650 kilograms. It was therefore able to have a considerable impact on masonry, even that as mighty as the Land Walls. Mehmed had this monster gun dragged down from Adrianople by a team of sixty oxen and set up, along with a number of others, opposite the Mesoteichion. When this and other guns opened fire, they had a devastating effect on walls that were not designed to withstand this kind of bombardment, shattering the great blocks of masonry and shooting out shards of rock that mowed down anyone standing nearby. These large cannon did not deliver an instant victory to the sultan. They were fairly crude devices and so difficult to load that they could only be fired seven times a day. The defenders were also able to repair the breaches that the flying stones had made, using mounds of earth and branches. These ad hoc defences proved surprisingly effective, for the cannon could do little damage to them: their stones merely embedded themselves harmlessly in the soft earth.23 Even so, with the outer and inner Land Walls breached, an attacking army might well be able to get through and as the relentless bombardment went on, fear and despondency began to spread through the city. At times of crisis like this, the people of Constantinople had always turned to their protector, the Mother of God. As the siege began, her icon of the Hodegetria was already in the Palace of Blachernae as was customary around Eastertime, and it was then moved to the Chora monastery in order to remain close to the scene of fighting at the Land Walls. Every Tuesday, it emerged from the monastery for the usual procession in time-honoured fashion. On one such occasion during May 1453, something untoward happened: the icon suddenly slipped from the hands of the bearers and it fell face down on the ground. The bystanders had great difficulty raising the picture up again, so heavy was the jewel-encrusted frame. When the procession resumed, there was another ill omen. The column of people was caught in a violent downpour of rain and hail, which threatened to sweep away the small children and against which it was impossible to go on.24 In the atmosphere of increasing anxiety, these and other perfectly natural events were given a sinister interpretation. When a dense fog covered the whole city, some said that this was a token of the divine presence wrapping itself in cloud as it abandoned Constantinople to its fate. A partial eclipse of the moon was also interpreted as the fulfilment of a prophecy made by Constantine the Great that his city would fall when the moon was darkened when it should be full. Some remembered another prophecy that Constantinople would fall in 1492, the year 7000 since the creation of the world, and wondered if perhaps the sums had been a few years out.25

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Mehmed II launched his final attack during the late evening of 28 May, concentrating the assault on the badly damaged section of the Land Walls between the Gate of Adrianople and the Gate of St Romanos. Although they were heavily outnumbered, the Byzantines, Genoese and Venetians fought valiantly and wave after wave of attackers were beaten off so that, by the early hours of 29 May, there was still no sign of an Ottoman victory. Then, when the fighting was still raging fiercely, the Genoese commander, Giovanni Giustiniani, was hit by an arrow or crossbow bolt. He retired from the scene to seek treatment even though Emperor Constantine begged him to stay. Their charismatic leader gone, the defenders wavered and noticing that Mehmed’s troops pressed their attack even harder. Even now, the Ottomans might not have broken through had not some of Mehmed’s elite Janissary troops found a small sally port that had been left open by the defenders to make it easier for them to pass between the inner and outer walls. The janissaries slipped through and got themselves up onto the Blachernae battlements. Discovering that the enemy was now both behind and above them, many of the defending troops on the outer wall panicked and fled through the gate of St Romanos. By dawn, Ottoman soldiers were pouring into the city and many of the surviving defenders were making for the Golden Horn in a last attempt to escape by ship.26 There were some who remained on the Land Walls and fought on bravely until they were hacked down. Among them was Constantine XI, the last of the line from Constantine the Great. No one knows where he was buried, if he was at all. There was no porphyry sarcophagus for him.27 Following the breakthrough at the Land Walls, Constantinople was subjected to the customary three days of merciless pillage. Once it was clear that the defence had evaporated, the victorious Ottoman soldiers fanned out through the streets, eagerly searching for anything of value: money, vestments and clothing, books, anything made of silver or gold, or of copper and tin for that matter. One of the first buildings to be pillaged was Metochites’ monastery of the Chora, since it lay very close to where the breakthrough had occurred. Entering the church, the soldiers found the icon of the Hodegetria at the altar. It was pulled to the ground and its precious golden frame was ripped off and hacked into four pieces which were then shared among the looters. That pattern was repeated across the city and the victorious soldiery smashed their way into churches, monasteries and private houses as they moved eastward towards the Augousteion. On board the Ottoman fleet, the sailors could see what was happening and set sail to join the free for all. The ships in the Golden Horn crossed to the Sea Walls while those in the Bosporus sailed round to the southern shore of the city and disembarked at Vlanga to rob the houses of the Jews. As well as movable wealth, the looters were also in search of people since captives could command a high price as slaves. Indeed, many of the victors later expressed annoyance that so many of the inhabitants had been killed, thus robbing them of the chance of profit. It was reckoned that some 50,000

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people were rounded up and sold into slavery.28 It was left to a Byzantine who was fortunate enough not to be in Constantinople on the day of the catastrophe to pronounce the epitaph: As for the great city of Constantine, raised to a great height of glory and dominion and wealth in its own time, overshadowing to an infinite degree all the cities around it, renowned for its glory, wealth, authority, power and greatness, and all its other qualities, it thus came to its end.29 *

Traumatic though the sack was, it did not, in itself, destroy Byzantine Constantinople. The city was looted and pillaged but most of its buildings and monuments were left unharmed. Indeed, Sultan Mehmed II was anxious that they should remain so for he did not wish to inherit a collection of ruins. After all, given its size and prestige, Constantinople would have to become the new Ottoman capital. So when Mehmed rode into the stricken metropolis in the early afternoon of 29 May, he was horrified at the destruction that had been wrought and even shed a tear, groaning ‘What a city we have given over to plundering and destruction!’ Arriving at Hagia Sophia, he dismounted from his horse and walked in with his attendants only to discover that one of his soldiers was smashing the marble pavement of the floor. When the sultan asked the man why he was doing this, he replied, ‘For the faith,’ though in all probability he was hoping to sell the marble. Incensed, Mehmed drew his sword and hit the soldier on the head with the flat of it, declaring angrily that there were plenty of treasures and captives for the rank and file but the city and its buildings belonged to him. While his unconscious victim was dragged out by his feet, the sultan continued his tour of inspection. Out in the Augousteion, he ordered that the equestrian statue of Justinian be protected to prevent its falling victim to looters.30 Later, when the frenzy had died down and order had been restored, he gave instructions for much of the infrastructure of the conquered city to be repaired. The Land Walls may have fallen victim to the sultan’s cannon but they had held his army off long enough to prove that they were still a formidable defence. Mehmed II had the damage made good, though he did dismantle the Golden Gate and replace it with a fortress known as Yediküle or Seven Towers. He had the aqueducts repaired and he restored the porticoed colonnade around the periphery of one of Constantinople’s great forums. He even made sure that the serpent column in the Hippodrome was maintained by ordering the removal of a mulberry tree that had begun to grow up from its base. Not everything could be restored. Even before the conquest, many of Constantinople’s grand buildings had been in a ruinous state, including the Great Palace and the Palace of Blachernae. They both had to be abandoned and Mehmed ordered the construction of a completely new palace close to

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the Forum of Theodosius.31 In due course, he decided that this palace was not impressive enough and ordered another one to be built to the north of the Augousteion, on raised ground facing Galata across the entrance to the Golden Horn. Like the Great Palace, this imperial residence, which was to become known as the Topkapı, was a complex of buildings, set among gardens and fountains. Mehmed also, like his Byzantine predecessors, wished to designate a place for his tomb. One of the hills of the city seemed a suitably prominent place but it was already occupied by the Church of the Holy Apostles. Though the building was large and impressive, it was by now in poor repair and in 1463 it was demolished. In its place the magnificent Mosque of the Conqueror was erected with Mehmed’s tomb nearby. Like a Byzantine monastery, the mosque was surrounded by other buildings offering various services to the poor and needy.32 In the immediate aftermath of the conquest, there was some difference of opinion as to exactly what form the city would now take. There seems to have been a wide body of opinion, fostered by the clergy with Mehmed’s army, that it should be thoroughly Islamized and all trace of its Christian past eradicated. The sultan had no desire to alienate those who held that view. He declared that the city popularly known as Estambol should now be called Islambol: ‘abounding in Islam’. His first act after the conquest was to have Hagia Sophia rededicated as a mosque. In the presence of the sultan himself, a muezzin climbed up into the pulpit and recited the bidding prayer. Other churches and monasteries were converted for Muslim use in the years that followed. Anna Dalassena’s Christ Pantepoptes became a mosque, St George of Mangana and St Marina were turned into Dervish convents and the Kyriotissa into a mosque with a hostel for travellers: the latter was probably just a continuation of the role that it had played before 1453.33 Other ecclesiastical buildings were taken over for quite different uses. The Pantokrator was occupied by some fullers and shoemakers to provide workshops. St Irene became an armoury and the Stoudios monastery was given as a gift by the sultan to his admiral, Hamza. Some provided living space for newly arrived Turkish families or were left in ruins after the lead was taken from their roofs to be reused in Mehmed’s new palaces. The relics that they had once housed were taken away to be used as bargaining chips in negotiations with western powers. New mosques were built, including one that commemorated those who had died in previous, unsuccessful Muslim sieges in 674–8 and 717–18.34 On the other hand, Mehmed was no religious bigot, even if he was a ruthless political operator. He took a personal interest in Christian philosophy, art and religion, and invited a number of Byzantine nobles to his court.35 He was well aware too that ‘infidels’ might be useful in helping to restart Constantinople’s trade, industry and commerce, so he encouraged Christians and Jews as well as Turks to settle there. Like the Byzantine emperors before him, Mehmed perceived the value of the Italian merchants. He allowed the Genoese to remain in Galata and even to retain

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their immunity from customs duty, though he had the town’s defensive walls demolished to punish the podestà for sending help to the Byzantine emperor. A year after the fall of the city, the Venetians returned too. The terms they received from the sultan were not, of course, as generous as those they had once had from the Byzantine emperor. They now had to pay a customs duty of 2 per cent and they no longer had their quarter on the Golden Horn. Instead they had to move over to Galata and live alongside the Genoese.36 These non-Muslim settlers came to constitute a sizeable minority. By 1477, there were 3,523 Christian and 3,151 Jewish households in Constantinople to 8,851 Muslim. In Galata, which had been untouched by the sack, Christians remained in the majority.37 The Christian inhabitants of Ottoman Constantinople would need their clergy and places of worship and the sultan was happy to accommodate that. Within a few months of his conquest, he had seen to it that the vacant office of the patriarch of Constantinople had been filled and a certain number of churches reopened their doors around the same time.38 The Pammakaristos became the new seat of the patriarch of Constantinople and the Peribleptos provided the church for the city’s newly arrived Armenian population. Some monasteries resumed their original function: there were certainly monks and nuns living in the Myrelaion monastery once more by 1455.39 Some Christian buildings were bestowed by the sultan as a gift on specially favoured Christians and so protected from further damage. The monastery of St John in Petra was given to the Christian mother of one of his viziers and the little thirteenth-century Church of the Virgin of the Mongols to the Byzantine architect who had built the Mosque of the Conqueror.40 Over in Galata, an even greater proportion of churches survived. In his settlement with the Genoese, the sultan had specifically promised that they could keep their churches and that they would not be turned into mosques. These now served all the Latin Christians living in the suburb and Mehmed himself was even said to have once attended a service in the Franciscan church there.41 Even those churches that had been converted into mosques retained their outward appearance for the new function provided a strong incentive to maintain it. They even preserved much of their internal decoration. In theory, the pictorial representations of the human figure in their mosaics and frescoes were incompatible with strict Islamic views on idolatry. The Turkish writer Khoja (1539–99) later exulted that the churches that were reused in this way ‘were emptied of their vile idols and cleansed of their filthy and idolatrous impurities’.42 In practice, though, there was clearly no systematic policy of destroying the mosaics for visitors to Constantinople recorded seeing them for years afterwards.43 Thus by the time of Mehmed II’s death in 1481, Constantinople would have looked much as it had before 1453, in spite of the complete eradication of the previous Byzantine regime. A map made by the Italian Giovanni Andrea Vavassore, which shows the city as it was in 1479, displays the same familiar skyline of domes and columns, with the odd minaret here and there.44 It was only in the century

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and a half that followed the death of Mehmed II that the slow, grinding process of eradication worked itself out. * Mehmed was succeeded by his dull but pious son Bayezid II (1481–1513). The new sultan was shocked by his father’s laxity in the practice of his ancestral religion. He discovered that Mehmed had adorned his private apartments in the Topkapı palace with racy pictures by Italian artists and the new sultan had them all removed.45 In the more religious atmosphere of the new reign, more and more churches were taken over and converted into mosques and the process continued steadily long after Bayezid’s death. The Pantokrator monastery was reclaimed from the fullers and shoemakers and the Chora, Myrelaion and Stoudios churches were all taken over at some point between 1495 and 1511. The Pammakaristos monastery remained untouched for some time because it was the seat of the patriarch of Constantinople but in 1587 that too became a mosque and the patriarch moved out to a newly built church to the north.46 The same process went on in Galata where the Dominican church became a mosque in 1535 and the Franciscan in 1697. By the early years of the eighteenth century, only a few of the original Byzantine churches of Constantinople were still used for Christian worship. Those that remained were simply left to crumble and their ruins were used as pens for animals.47 The mutilation or destruction of the mosaic decoration of these converted churches seems to have speeded up too. Sometimes it was deliberately defaced, the heads of the figures removed to deflect any temptation to idolatry.48 Even now though, there does not seem to have been a systematic policy of destroying the mosaics. Often they were whitewashed over or just left to decay gradually over the years. Those in the dome of Hagia Sophia, presumably including the gigantic figure of Christ Pantokrator, could be seen in 1597, although they were rather the worse for wear and had in some cases been defaced. The mosaic of the Virgin and Child in the apse was seen by a visitor in 1680 and others were still visible as late as 1718. There were still wall paintings in the Stoudios church in the 1570s, long after it had become a mosque.49 The secular and pagan monuments of Byzantine Constantinople disappeared one by one. The column of Theodosius, from which Mourtzouphlos had plummeted to his death in 1204, was demolished in around 1517 to make way for some new bath houses. The equestrian statue of Justinian in the Augousteion was taken down in the 1540s so that its metal could be used in casting cannon.50 The classical statues that remained in the city had little chance of survival, for the Turks were much less tolerant of their pagan associations than the Byzantines had been. The ox and lion at the harbour of Boukoleon were still there in 1532 but they too disappeared in the years that followed, probably consigned to the melting pot like Justinian

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and his horse.51 One sixteenth-century Dutch visitor was present when some Turkish workmen accidentally dug up an ancient statue of an armed soldier. They immediately smashed it to pieces with hammers and when the western Europeans voiced their dismay at this vandalism, the workmen laughed and ‘asked whether we wished, in accordance with our custom, to worship and pray to it’. Not everyone was blind to the beauties of the works of the ancients. One Turkish pasha brought back a bronze statue of Hercules as part of the booty from a campaign in Hungary and had it set up in the Hippodrome. After his death, however, it was almost immediately pulled down and sent to the furnace. Only the serpent column in the centre of the Hippodrome survived, again probably because of its useful function as a fountain.52 Much of what remained of Byzantine Constantinople was buried under the gigantic building projects that transformed Constantinople into a worthy capital city of the Ottoman Empire. Mehmed II’s successors and their viziers vied with each other to display their piety and wealth by building at least one külliye, a complex of religious, educational and charitable buildings, of which a mosque was the central feature. One of the most striking of these is the vast Süleymaniye, built between 1550 and 1557 for Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent (1520–66). The huge dome of the central mosque is surrounded by no less than 400 smaller domes that cover a hospital, an orphanage, a soup kitchen, an insane asylum, a library, baths, a hospice for travellers, and Süleyman’s own tomb. Between the buildings are colonnaded courtyards with fountains. The mosque provoked just as much awe and astonishment among visitors as the great Byzantine churches once had. A group of ten Latins, who were allowed to enter in the mid-seventeenth century, shouted ‘Maria, Maria!’ as they looked up into the dome and declared the mosque to be superior to Hagia Sophia.53 Great imperial foundations such as this often covered over the remains of the Byzantine buildings that had been there before. The mosque built in memory of Süleyman’s vizier, Rüstem Pasha, in the 1560s was constructed on the site of a Byzantine church, though no one knows which one. The Mosque of Sultan Ahmed, better known as the Blue Mosque, buried the last vestiges of the Great Palace when it was built in 1609.54 A few monuments fell victim to sudden natural calamities. In 1508, an earthquake brought down the Gate of the Forerunner in the middle of the city which still survived from the old wall built by Constantine the Great. The Church of the Peribleptos was gutted by a series of fires that destroyed the tomb of Romanos III, the mosaics of Michael VIII and everything else that had once made it such an object of admiration.55 The last vestiges had a far less dramatic exit and simply crumbled away, such as St George of Mangana and St Paul in the Orphanage which both had completely disappeared by the middle of the sixteenth century. Their demise was doubtless hastened by the plundering of marble columns and pavements for use in new buildings.56 The same happened to the ruins of the Palace of Blachernae. By 1597, they were being used to house a menagerie, just as they had in Byzantine times, but

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by then very little remained.57 The column of Arcadius lasted longer, though in the end it became decidedly unsafe and it had to be demolished in 1729.58 By then Byzantine Constantinople had given way to the Ottoman city. On the skyline, the tall columns had been replaced by minarets, and the crosses on the domes by crescents. Only the Land Walls and the mosque Hagia Sophia provided any obvious and substantial clue to the Byzantine past. * In the Latin west, there had been an outcry when news arrived of the fall of Constantinople in 1453, even though very little help had been sent to the hopelessly outnumbered defenders. The pope called on western Christians to launch a crusade to wrest the city back from the Ottomans for although the Byzantines had been at odds with the Roman Church, they had at least been Christians. Now Constantinople was in the hands of an Islamic superpower that made no secret of its ambition to expand to the west. While this understandable fear of the Ottomans persisted for centuries, memories of the regime that had preceded them in Constantinople soon began to fade. Only a few scholars learned in Greek and who could read the works of Byzantine historians such as Procopius of Caesarea or Michael Psellos preserved any kind of knowledge of this vanished world. One of them was a Frenchman Pierre Gilles (1490–1555) who was sent to Constantinople in 1544 to collect Greek manuscripts for the library of the king of France at Fontainebleau and to gather information about the government and life of the Ottoman Empire. He ended up staying rather longer than he had expected because when the French king died in 1547, Gilles found himself abandoned in Constantinople without the money to get home. During his enforced stay, he wandered through the streets and behind the façade of the new, searching for lingering traces of the Byzantine past, trying to link up what he saw with what he had read. It was not an easy task. He had learned from Procopius that there had been a great church dedicated to the Mother of God in the northwest of the city, the area once called Blachernae, but he was unable to find any trace of it whatsoever. He also knew that there had been a Church of the Holy Apostles where the Mosque of the Conqueror now stood but there was nothing to be seen of it, apart from the ruins of an old cistern that had once provided its clergy with water. He did find the statue of Justinian but it had already been toppled from its column and was lying in pieces on the ground, waiting to be taken off to the foundry. He watched sadly as another antique column was dismantled and taken away to be incorporated into a mosque, complaining that ‘the inhabitants are daily demolishing, effacing and utterly destroying the small remains of Antiquity’.59 He did have one stroke of luck, though. Wandering in the area behind the mosque of Hagia Sophia, he noticed that the local people were able to draw up freshwater fish from their wells. It so happened that Gilles met a

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man whose house lay close to one of those wells. Taking him down into the basement, the man showed him a secret passage that led down to a subterranean world in which a vast lake stretched away into the darkness beyond the flickering light cast by a flaming torch. The owner of the house produced a small skiff and rowed Gilles through a forest of columns that held up a towering vaulted roof while the shadowy shapes of large carp moved in the waters beneath. The Frenchman realized that he had stumbled upon nothing less than the Basilika cistern which had been built by Justinian to keep Byzantine Constantinople supplied with water and whose very existence was now unsuspected by the people living above even when they fished for carp in the well.60 More travellers with an interest in Constantinople’s Byzantine past arrived in the years that followed. Gilles’s compatriot, Nicolas de Nicolay (1517–83), made a short visit in 1550. He was fascinated by the city’s Christian past but he did not have the time, or perhaps the stamina, to tramp the streets in the way that Gilles had. He contented himself with examining the mosque of Hagia Sophia and the monuments that still stood in what remained of the Hippodrome. Stephan Gerlach (1546–1612) made an extensive stay in the 1570s as a chaplain to the ambassador of the Holy Roman Emperor. The Byzantine legacy that interested him most was the Orthodox Church and its patriarch, for as a staunch Lutheran he hoped that some common ground could be found against the papacy. It would seem though that he too went in search of relics from the Byzantine past, though he found it rather frustrating that none of the locals could enlighten him when he enquired after this or that palace or church. He seems to have made some sketches of what he did find: the column of Arcadius and the monuments of the Hippodrome, including the serpent column and the Egyptian obelisk.61 In the autumn of 1610, an Englishman arrived. George Sandys (1578– 1644) was finding refuge in travel from an unhappy, arranged marriage and a pending lawsuit brought by his wife’s relatives. As his ship sailed into the Golden Horn, Sandys was delighted with the view from the deck and after he had docked, he lodged in Galata, in the house of the English ambassador, Sir Thomas Glover. From there he began his explorations of the city. It is clear from his account that his interest was in Constantinople’s Byzantine past rather than its Ottoman present. He considered Hagia Sophia to be not only the most impressive of Constantinople’s mosques but of all buildings in the world. On his visit to the building, he experienced something of what a medieval visitor would have seen, for the dome was still covered in mosaics. He found too that many of the old Byzantine superstitions lived on. The Turks were accustomed to wiping their handkerchiefs on one of the columns of the former cathedral as they believed that the condensation that it exuded had curative powers. When he had finished in Hagia Sophia, Sandys ambled over to the Hippodrome. The banks of seating had by now disappeared under the houses which ringed the open space, leading Sandys

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to compare the Hippodrome to Smithfield Market in London. Still there, however, were the column with its three serpent heads, the Egyptian obelisk of the emperor Theodosius and the column of Constantine Porphyrogenitos which Sandys described as a ‘colossus built of sun dry stone’. Elsewhere he remarked upon the column of Arcadius, which he considered to be superior to those of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius in Rome, and within the gateway of the Topkapı palace he visited a church, probably that of St Irene, which still contained many of the weapons taken from the defeated Byzantines in 1453. He even found some remnants of the Great Palace, though they had now been converted into ‘a stable for wilde beasts’. In spite of all these discoveries, Sandys was disappointed with Constantinople, concluding as he departed in January 1611 aboard the Trinity of London that ‘there is not in the world an object that promiseth so much a far off to the beholders, and entred so deceiveth expectations’. What saddened him most was that the Byzantine monuments that he had seen were ‘all the remains that are left … of so many goodly buildings, and from all parts congested antiquities, wherewith this sovereign city was in past times so adorned’. Along with the buildings, he discovered, had perished all memory of the society that had constructed them, so that even the local Greeks were completely ignorant of the history of their forebears.62 Apart from a few scattered survivals, Byzantine Constantinople had apparently vanished forever. Only with the arrival of the twentieth century did some of its long lost remains re-emerge into the light of day.

TEXT BOX 11: An Englishman in Constantinople, 1610 George Sandys was particularly fascinated by the mosque of Hagia Sophia and his description of it is remarkably similar to that of pilgrims who visited it in Byzantine times when it was still a cathedral. [Constantinople] stands on a cape of land neare the entrance of the Bosphorus. In forme triangular: on the east side washed with the same and on the north side with the haven; adioyning on the west to the continent. Walled with bricke and stone, intermixed orderly: having foure and twentie gates and posterns; whereof five do regard the land and nineteene the water; being about thirteene miles in circumference. Than this there is hardly in nature a more delicate object, if beheld from the sea or adioyning mountains: the loftie (Continued )

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and beautifull cypresse trees so entermixed with the buildings that it seemeth to present a city in a wood to the pleased beholders. Whose seven aspiring heads (for on so many hils and no more, they say it is seated) are most of them crowned with magnificent mosques, all of white marble, round in forme, and coupled above being finished on the top with gilded spires, that reflect the beames they receive with marvellous splendour: some having two, some foure, some sixe adioyning turrets, exceeding high and exceeding slender. … No mosque can have more than one of these turrets, if not built by an emperor. But that of Sancta Sophia, once a Christian temple … exceedeth not onely the rest, by whose patterne they were framed, but all other fabrickes whatsoever throughout the whole universe. A long labour it were to describe it exactly: and having done, my eyes that have seene it, would but condemne my defective relation. The principall part thereof riseth in an oval: surrounded with pillars admirable for their proportion, matter and workmanship. … The roofe compact and adorned with mosaike painting: An antique kind of work, composed of little square pieces of marble, gilded and coloured according to the place that they are to assume in the figure or ground. … The rest of the church, though of another proportion, doth ioyne to this with a certain harmonie. The sides and floore all flagged with excellent marble: vaulted underneath and containing large cisterns, replenished with water from an aqueduct. Before the entrance there is a goodly portico, where the Christians that visite it upon curiositie, as well as the Turks, do leave their shooes before they enter. Within on the left hand, there is a pillar covered with copper, ever sweating (I know not why unless being past through by some conduit) which the Turks wipe off with their handkerchers: through a vain superstition perswaded that it is of sacred and soveraigne virtue. The doores are curiously cut through, and plated: the wood of one of them fained to be of the Arke of Noe, and therefore left bare in some places to be kissed by the devouter people. From George Sandys, A Relation of a Journey Begun in An. Dom. 1610, London: W. Barrett, 1621: 30–1.

12 Byzantine Constantinople today

In September 1918, after having chosen the losing side in the First World War, the government of the Ottoman Empire sought an armistice from the Allied powers. A few weeks later a fleet of British, French and Italian warships entered the Bosporus and started to disembark troops along the Golden Horn. The French contingent was quartered in the area known as Gülhane, a park alongside the Topkapı palace, and from there it carried out its duties of occupation for some years. The task must have been a tedious one for the French soldiers, especially during the long hot summers. One of the few comforts that they had was a glass of wine in the evening but the soaring temperatures made it difficult to keep the bottles cool. So the men started digging pits in the park to bury them and as they did so, they found something. Not far below the surface, the ground gave way to reveal a series of high-vaulted cellars, perfect for storing the wine. News of the discovery spread and officers ambled over to investigate. It soon became clear that the serendipitous wine cellars were of some antiquity and archaeologists were called in to assess what it was that had been unearthed. Further excavation revealed that the substructures were not Ottoman but definitely Byzantine, for among the finds was a white marble plaque of the Virgin Mary. There was no other clue but given the location, the archaeologists were inclined to believe that the French soldiers had uncovered the remains of the church and monastery of St George in Mangana.1 The march of political events ensured that the theory could never be put to the test. By autumn of 1923, Turkey had been proclaimed a republic, the last sultan had departed for exile and the new nationalist government of Kemal Atatürk had adopted a hard line towards the foreign presence in Turkey. The Allied forces in Constantinople withdrew the following year and the exposed ruins at Gülhane were covered over once more. After all, the republican government could hardly be expected to have much interest in Constantinople’s remote past. Its main programme was to modernize Turkey and free it from the archaic baggage of the Ottoman period. Constantinople was too deeply associated with the old regime, so

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the seat of government was transferred to Ankara in the centre of Asia Minor. Even the name Constantinople was abolished and in 1926 Istanbul became the city’s official designation. If the nationalists thought that they had substituted a truly Turkish word though, they were mistaken. The name Istanbul was already in use in Byzantine times as a way of referring to Constantinople. It is derived from the Greek words ‘eis tin polin’, meaning ‘to the city’.2 Uncompromising modernizers though Atatürk’s nationalists were, one central aspect of their programme did work to the advantage of those who wished to investigate Istanbul’s Byzantine past. Whereas the Ottoman sultanate had been closely entwined with the religion of Islam, the sultan also being the caliph, Atatürk wished to establish a secular state. It was no longer the government’s duty exclusively to promote a particular religion, a matter which in theory was to be left to the conscience of the individual citizen. Istanbul’s surviving Byzantine buildings could now be seen in a different light. Atatürk’s view was that Hagia Sophia should be regarded as a historical monument rather than as a place of worship and in 1931 he invited a team from the Byzantine Institute of America to work on removing the whitewash and restoring the cathedral’s surviving Byzantine mosaics. It was in July of 1934 that the whitewash was peeled off to reveal once more the mosaic of Empress Zoe with her third husband, the wayward Constantine IX Monomachos (see Figure 12, p. 86). Five months later, Hagia Sophia was declared to be no longer a working mosque but a museum.3 Two other former Byzantine churches were accorded the same change of status. The Kariye mosque, once the church of the Chora monastery, became a museum in 1945. Since it was no longer used for Islamic worship, the Byzantine Institute of America was able to uncover and restore its largely intact mosaic and fresco decoration. The Fethiye mosque, the former Virgin Pammakaristos and seat of the patriarch of Constantinople between 1455 and 1587, was made a museum in the late 1940s.4 The change in regime also provided new opportunities for investigating what remained of Byzantine Constantinople below ground. The Ottoman government had always steadfastly refused to grant excavation licences within the old city. Archaeologists had to content themselves with what was visible at ground level. It was only due to a devastating fire to the south of the Blue Mosque in 1912 that Ernest Mamboury and Theodor Wiegand were able to survey some of the remnants of the Great Palace that had appeared when the buildings above them collapsed.5 Now, under the republic, archaeologists were given access to some of the most significant Byzantine sites. In 1927, a British team of archaeologists began work on the Hippodrome, uncovering the remains of the curved and colonnaded southern end or sphendone.6 The most spectacular discovery came in the next decade, in an excavation that had a very unpromising beginning. In 1932, James Houston Baxter, a professor of ecclesiastical history at the University of St Andrews was contacted by an English spiritualist named Wellesley Tudor Pole. Pole claimed that he had been contacted by the spirit

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of a deceased Russian prince who had told him about a ruin to the south of the Blue Mosque known as the House of Justinian. According to his ghostly adviser, there were subterranean tunnels beneath this structure filled with ancient documents, holy relics and a glittering hoard of treasure. Baxter had already been considering excavating in Istanbul but this information seems to have given him some extra impetus. He duly applied to the Turkish government for permission for the Walker Trust of the University of St Andrews to excavate in the area and work began in 1935. The excavators discovered no documents, relics or treasure but they did come across something else, almost as exciting. Not far from the House of Justinian they uncovered the remains of a rectangular courtyard surrounded by a colonnaded walkway or peristyle. On the floor of the peristyle was a mosaic pavement which was still partially intact and was decorated with animals, trees and huntsmen. It probably belonged to some great ceremonial hall that was part of the Great Palace and it is likely that the feet of a good number of the Byzantine emperors had paced over its mosaic floor over the centuries. As for the House of Justinian which had sparked off the whole enterprise, that was probably part of the Boukoleon, another of the separate halls that made up the complex.7 Only now did the layout of the Great Palace, which scholars had been guessing at for years, start to make some kind of sense. The discoveries have continued ever since. These have sometimes been the result of formal, archaeological excavations such as the one which unearthed remnants of the Brazen Gate to the Great Palace in 2003.8 More often though the discoveries are an accidental by-product of building work, since it is difficult to dig a hole in Istanbul without finding something. The reconstruction of the Palace of Justice near the Hippodrome during the 1960s revealed the stone base of one of the statues that had once adorned the stadium. The inscription made it clear that the pedestal was once surmounted by a statue of the ancient Greek poet Theophanes of Mytilene. Of the statue itself there was no sign: it may have been one of those melted down during the period of Latin rule.9 In the Balat area, close to where the Palace of Blachernae once stood, the remains of an impressive bath house have been found, complete with hypocaust heating: it may have formed part of the palace complex. In the south of the city, the demolition of a building in 1998 revealed the brick substructure of what had once been the Church of Peribleptos monastery, the splendid foundation of Emperor Romanos III who allegedly thought that nothing in the whole world was good enough for his church.10 The most sensational unwitting discovery was made during the construction of a tunnel under the Bosporus to carry the new metro system between the Asian suburbs and the city centre. In November 2004, on the plot of land marked out for a huge interchange station at Yenikapı on the southern side of the old city, thirty-seven sunken ships, dating from the fifth to the early eleventh century, were found buried in the mud of what has now been identified as the harbour of Theodosius. They included fishing boats, merchant ships and war galleys and some of the later wrecks appear to have

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all been sunk at the same time in some violent event, probably a storm. Three of the merchant vessels still had their cargoes intact: ceramics, wine amphorae, coins and even thousand-year-old shipping ropes and anchors all preserved in almost perfect condition.11

TEXT BOX 12: The Discovery of the Peristyle Mosaic in the remains of the Great Palace, 1935 Here, in the dry language of an archaeological report, is a description of one of the most significant discoveries ever made of Istanbul’s Byzantine past: The chief discovery was a rectangular Peristyle in the south corner of the upper palace terrace. … On the northwest side of the excavation has only advanced far enough to uncover a corridor 4 metre wide with a vaulted cellar-passage beneath it of the same width. On the northeast side there were no rooms belonging to the Peristyle. … The mosaic pavement formed the floor of the colonnades. … [It] consists of a central panel, 5.88 metres wide on the northeast and southwest sides, 6.68 metres on the northwest side, surrounded on either side by a triple border strip 1.66 metres wide. The central panel was ornamented by single figure or objects or scenes. The figures 1. An armed man fighting a tiger (recovered length of the scene 92 centimetres). The man kneels on his right knee; with his left hand he holds his shield over his head. The man’s face is pink; the reflection of light on the flesh is shown by the use of green; the eye and the eyebrow are black; the mouth and the shadow below the nose, dark red. In the left leg there is chequering of pink and green. He wears a short-sleeved tunic, with a patch of green and blue on the right shoulder and a triangular ornament on the chest; a wide sash in two strips of colour, a subligaculum [i.e. a waistband] and red kneebreeches. He is armed with an oval shield and a short sword with a ribbed handle. The tiger’s body is grey-red and brown, the face with dark modelling. The lights on the side of the face, forelegs and belly are blue-grey. 24. Two boys, one leading (height 67 centimetres), the other driving (height 74 centimetres), two birds which most resemble geese. The lines of the first boy’s face are mainly horizontal: the face is coloured (Continued )

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in a warm red, outlined in green. The eye and eyebrow are dark; dark grey shadows surround the features. Both arms, and what is visible of the legs, are heavily outlined. He wears a short, red tunic and is barefoot. The birds conform to the formula stated above, in that the second is in every point a shade darker than the first. The main colours of the first are white and light grey, of the second dark grey and black. The second boy drives them with a long stick. His head is noticeably large: the colours of the flesh are pale pink and green. Face, arms and legs are heavily outlined. He wears a similar grey tunic, with a collar resembling that of a sailor’s blouse.12 G. Brett, W. J. Macaulay and Robert B. K. Stevenson, The Great Palace of the Byzantine Emperors, being a First Report on the Excavations Carried out in Istanbul on Behalf of the Walker Trust (The University of St Andrews), 1935-1938, London: Oxford University Press, 1947: 4–5, 64 and 75, reproduced by kind permission of Oxford University Press.

Kariye Museum (Chora Monastery)

Edirne Kapısı (Gate of Adrianople)

Tower of Galata

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Fetiye Museum (Pammakaristos) d.

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Kız Taşı (Column of Marcian)

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Land Walls

Fatih Mosque (Holy Apostles)

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Column of Arcadius

Zeyrek Mosque (Pantokrator) Süleymaniye Kalenderhane Mosque (Kyriotissa) St Polyeuktos Topkapı Palace Çemberlitaş (Column of Constantine) Ayasofya Bodrum Mosque (Hagia Sophia) (Myrelaion) Blue Mosque At Meydani Kenne dy C d. (Hippodrome)

Kenne d y Cd.

Imrahor Mosque (Studios Monastery)

Yeni Kapı Meydani

Yediküle (Golden Gate)

MAP 4  Modern Istanbul with some surviving Byzantine sites.

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Thanks to discoveries and renovations like these, there is much more to be seen of Byzantine Constantinople above ground today than there was when George Sandys visited in 1610 and visitors to Istanbul can gain some impression of what the medieval city used to be like. They can follow the route from the periphery to the centre taken by their predecessors in 1200 which was traced in the first chapter of this book. They can enter the old city through the opening in the Land Walls that corresponds to the Gate of Adrianople, just as the visitors of 1200 did. These days the area is known as Edirne Kapısı, but it means the same, for Edirne is the Turkish name for Adrianople and kapı the word for ‘gate’. The gate itself is gone, and has been replaced by a large gap in the walls that lets in two lanes of thunderous traffic. On either side of the Gate of Adrianople, the Land Walls still stretch from the Golden Horn to the Sea of Marmara. In the far south, where the Golden Gate once stood, is Mehmed II’s Yediküle or Seven Towers fortress and at the northern end the bulge in the fortifications at Blachernae is clearly visible. In between, while the tall towers and the inner wall are mostly intact, the outer wall is in much worse condition and the moat, stockade and outworks have largely disappeared. The section between the Gate of Adrianople and the Gate of St Romanos, which was known as the Mesoteichion in Byzantine times, still bears the marks of Mehmed’s cannon. The Land Walls suffered further damage in the earthquake of 17 August 1999 and somewhat controversially, parts of the fortifications have been rebuilt in recent years, although that may have been the only way to preserve them. Whatever view one takes of that, the Land Walls remain one of the great surviving monuments of Byzantine Constantinople, their towers standing sentinel as far as the eye can see as they did for centuries under the rule of the emperors.13 To the north of the Adrianople Gate, there are some traces of one of the two main residences of the Byzantine emperors, the Palace of Blachernae. Much of what remains is underground: a series of chambers which may have served as storerooms or dungeons. All that can be seen above ground are some towers. One is named after Emperor Isaac II Angelos because it bears an inscription recording that he had it repaired in 1188. Isaac is reputed to have spent the last part of his period of imprisonment following his deposition in 1195 in this tower, before he was restored to the throne in 1203. There is, however, no contemporary evidence to support that: Niketas Choniates says only that Isaac was incarcerated within the palace.14 Nearby is another Byzantine building, known now as Tekfur Sarayı, which may have been a later addition to the palace, perhaps under the emperors of the Palaiologos family (Figure 8, p. 61). The Church of the Mother of God, where the Maphorion was kept, stood somewhere in this area and although it is long gone, the spring that flows there is still a place of pilgrimage.15 It is still possible to go from the Gate of Adrianople and Blachernae to the Hippodrome on foot, for Fevzi Paşa Caddesi more or less follows the route of the old Mese. It is not a particularly congenial walk, passing through

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some very busy and congested streets but the route does go by a number of important Byzantine sites. Heading east from the Edirne Kapısı, the road passes just to the south of what was originally the church of the Chora monastery, now the Kariye museum (Figure 11, p. 81). The building houses some of the best surviving Byzantine art in Istanbul, mostly dating from the early fourteenth century when the church was refurbished by Theodore Metochites. It was thoroughly looted on the morning of 29 May 1453 but its mosaics and frescoes were spared and some of them remained visible throughout its time as a mosque. Not that there was no damage over the years. Apparently, in the period between the wars, there used to be a street vendor who sat outside the mosque selling small gilded cubes of marble. The absence of much of the gold background of some of the lower mosaics inside the building suggests where he might have got them from. On entering the church, the visitor is confronted with a mosaic portrait of Metochites himself, bearded in the Byzantine fashion, wearing an elaborate robe and sporting a flamboyant hat. The chief minister is shown kneeling before Christ, offering him the church that he had restored at such great expense.16 The ceilings of the narthaxes or entrance halls are covered with mosaics depicting the life of Christ and of the Virgin Mary. To the right of the entrance is the side chapel where Metochites’ tomb can still be seen, along with the fresco depictions of the Resurrection and Last Judgement. Most impressive of these is the depiction of the Resurrection in the apse of the chapel, showing the risen Christ dragging Adam and Eve out of Hades while Satan lies bound at his

Figure 16  Resurrection from the Church of the Holy Saviour in Chora (Zzvet/Shutterstock.com).

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feet. It is a sobering thought, however, that magnificent though these mosaics and frescoes are, they are only chance survivals. In its heyday, Constantinople possessed a score of churches far more magnificent than this. One can only imagine the impact of St George in Mangana, the Peribleptos or the Mother of God at Blachernae. Such is the enormity of our loss. Returning to Fevzi Paşa Caddesi, the road heads east but visitors today seldom catch sight of the Golden Horn thanks to the taller buildings that block the view. Nor do they pass the great mansions and palaces of grandees like Niketas Choniates. They will arrive at where the Church of the Holy Apostles once was but there is almost nothing now remaining of it and the site is occupied by the Mosque of the Conqueror (Fatih mosque). This is not, unfortunately, the one built by Mehmed II but a replacement constructed in 1771 after the original had been flattened by an earthquake. An archaeological survey in 2001 did unearth what may be the base of one of the walls of the Holy Apostles but archaeologists do not agree on that.17 Beyond the Mosque of the Conqueror, the road passes what remains of the aqueduct of Valens on the left and on the right the ruins of the Church of St Polyeuktos. The foundations of this substantial sixth-century church were uncovered in a series of archaeological excavations in the 1960s and they are now surrounded by a small park. In its day it was one of the grandest churches in Constantinople and Justinian was said to have rebuilt Hagia Sophia on such ambitious lines deliberately to outdo it. It had fallen in to ruin long before 1200 though.18 Hidden away in a nearby side street is a survivor of the many columns that once used to dot the skyline, that of Marcian (Kız taşı) that originally supported an equestrian statue of the emperor of that name. Medieval visitors who took this route would have had a good view of the columns of Theodosius and Arcadius. That of Theodosius is gone but the crumbling monumental base of the column of Arcadius still stands, covered in ivy, in Haseki Kadın Sokak.19 Visitors in 1200, of course, would have been primarily interested in the holy relics that were housed in the churches. For them an essential stop at this stage of the journey would have been the church and monastery of the Pantokrator whose main attraction was the slab on which the body of Christ was laid after the crucifixion. After the Ottoman conquest, it became the Zeyrek mosque and although it went through a phase of deterioration during the twentieth century, it is now slowly being restored. What remains are three buildings joined into one, a north and a south church and a chapel in the middle where emperors of the Komnenian dynasty were buried. Nothing remains of the imperial tombs or of the marble slab but the building has retained its wonderful inlaid mosaic floor, a carved doorway and some traces of its stained glass.20 From here, Fevzi Paşa Caddesi continues until it eventually links up with Ordu Caddesi in the approximate area once occupied by the Forum of Theodosius. Although the column no longer stands at its centre, some fragments of the triumphal arch that dominated one side of the square do

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survive and they lie piled up on the right-hand side of the road, close to the busy Aksaray bus station. Their curious teardrop pattern is still clearly visible (Figure 1, p. 9). Ordu Caddesi then leads on to the site of the now vanished Forum of Constantine of which the only survival is its column. It is known now as Çemberlitaş, or the burned column, thanks to the fire in 1779 which left it blackened and scorched (Figure 2, p. 11). The column of Constantine looks rather decrepit now and it is held together by iron hoops. It should be borne in mind though that it has had to have the hoops ever since it was damaged by an earthquake in the fifth century.21 After Constantine’s column, the road descends to Sultanahmet square which is the site of the Augousteion and is still an open space in front of Hagia Sophia. The square is occupied now by flower beds and park benches and there is no trace of Justinian’s column and equestrian statue, the Anemodoulion or

Figure 17  The serpent column in the Hippodrome (Santirf/IStock).

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the Milion arch. On one side of it, as in Byzantine times, lies the Hippodrome (At Meydanı) which can be traced rather than seen for the banks of seating have all long gone. Even so, it is easy enough to see where the racetrack would once have been and down the hill at the far end, something of the curved southern end is visible thanks to the excavations in the 1920s. The central spine of the Hippodrome can also be discerned, for it is still marked by three monuments that were there in Byzantine times, the Egyptian obelisk of Theodosius (Figure 4, p. 31), the serpent column of Delphi and the column of Constantine Porphyrogenitos. The last two are no longer at their best. The serpent column has been reduced to just a stump and the heads of the snakes have disappeared. No one knows when they were broken off, but they were certainly intact in 1718.22 The column of Constantine Porphyrogenitos has lost the bronze cladding which once covered it and is now just a rather enigmatic white pyramid. Ironically, it is the oldest of the three, the ancient Egyptian obelisk, which is in pristine condition and at its base, the scenes of Emperor Theodosius I presiding over the Hippodrome from the Kathisma can still be seen (Figure 14, p. 120). It is perhaps worth pausing at this point to remember some of the dramatic events that took place here, such as the Nika riot of 532 and the lynching of Emperor Andronicus I. The Great Palace which used to stand next to the Hippodrome is no longer there. Its site is completely covered by the Blue Mosque and other buildings but there are surviving fragments of it, scattered here and there. The nearby mosaic museum houses parts the mosaic pavement from the Peristyle that was unearthed during the Walker Trust archaeological excavations in the 1930s. Down the hill from the Hippodrome, there is a section of wall punctuated by three large marble-framed windows and a gateway. This probably formed part of the complex known as the Palace of Boukoleon and would have been situated close to or on the waterfront, giving access via a marble staircase to the harbour where the imperial galley was moored (Figure 7, p. 60). In 1959, however, the shallow waters at this point were filled in to permit the building of a new road, later named Kennedy Caddesi, along the shoreline so that the palace wall now stands back some way from the sea. There are other such fragments scattered among the houses, apartment blocks and shops of the area: part of the wall built by Nikephoros II Phokas to keep out the rowdy populace, a mosaic pavement, now in the basement of a carpet shop, and four bricked-vaulted rooms beneath a mosque. How these perplexing structures fit into the Great Palace complex as a whole is hotly debated by archaeologists and scholars but it is extremely unlikely that anyone will ever know for certain.23 Hagia Sophia (Ayasofya) still stands across what was the Augousteion from the Hippodrome. Outwardly it is little changed, although the four minarets and a number of small buildings were erected close to it during the period when it was a mosque. Even in a world of towering buildings, Hagia Sophia can still impress by its sheer size and by the way its dome seems to hover over the nave with no visible means of support. The columns of different

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coloured marble are still there as are some of the mosaics, uncovered in the 1930s: the portraits of Zoe and Constantine IX and of John II Komnenos and Empress Irene, the Deesis commissioned by Michael VIII and the Virgin and Child in the apse. Ironically though, its interior is a far gloomier and darker place now that it is a museum than it ever was in Byzantine times. Most of the mosaic decoration that was once its glory has disappeared apart from those few isolated examples. The gigantic Christ Pantokrator in the centre of the dome is long gone. So the dome is not seen now as it was meant to be seen, with the light illuminating the colours of the mosaics as it moved round during the day. As in 1200 though, Hagia Sophia is the culmination of the long walk from the Gate of Adrianople and is still the most memorable and breathtaking monument of Byzantine Constantinople. * For those who want to explore the remains of Byzantine Constantinople beyond the obvious, it is still possible to range far and wide through the streets like Pierre Gilles and to find remnants tucked away in unlikely corners. A significant number of churches survive although most of them are still working mosques. Their interiors tend to be completely plain with the original mosaic or fresco decoration having been removed or fallen away. Among them is the Küçük Ayasofya mosque which was once the Church of St Sergius and St Bacchus. Built by Justinian in around 536, it stands to the south of Hagia Sophia and has a distinctive pumpkin-shaped dome. Inside, there is everything one would expect to find in a mosque, from the mimbar or pulpit to the mihrab indicating the direction of Mecca. Rather incongruously, however, a carved inscription in Greek runs the length of the gallery, praising ‘our sceptred Justinian’ who ‘honours with a splendid abode the servant of Christ, Creator of all things, Sergius’.24 The only places in Istanbul where you can gain an impression of what the interior of a Byzantine church would have looked like are the Chora church, already discussed, and the Pammakaristos which is in the district known as Fener, close to the current seat of the patriarch of Constantinople. Now the Fethiye Museum, its mosaics and frescoes were uncovered and restored between 1949 and 1963 and it is once more open to the public after a long period of closure. The building has preserved some particularly striking mosaics in its side chapel, dating from the early fourteenth century, when the building was refurbished by the Byzantine general Michael Glabas and his widow Maria. They are nearly contemporary with those in the Chora church and include a figure of Christ Pantokrator high up in one of the domes, surrounded by twelve prophets.25 Another former Byzantine church that has been carefully restored is that of the Myrelaion monastery built by Emperor Romanos I Lekapenos in the early tenth century. During the Ottoman period it became the Bodrum mosque and it has now resumed that function but it was thoroughly investigated by art historians in the summer of 1965. No surviving mosaics were found but

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in the basement there was a fresco of a woman kneeling before what was probably once the Virgin Mary. Romanos had a private residence next door to the monastery which commanded a good view of the Sea of Marmara and its foundations have been excavated. It seems to have been a large hall with two smaller wings around a colonnaded courtyard.26 A few fragments of the original decoration are still visible in some other former Byzantine churches. Some mosaic figures, apparently representing the ancestors of Christ, can be made out on the inside of one of the domes of the Kilise mosque. It is clearly a Byzantine building, probably from the twelfth century, but nothing whatsoever is known about its history or even about its original name.27 Even without their original decoration, the remaining church mosques are well worth visiting, if only for their historical associations. The Gül mosque which stands close to the Golden Horn has been tentatively identified as the Church of St Theodosia, dedicated to the lady who had her throat cut with a ram’s horn after rushing to the aid of the icon on the Brazen Gate. The Kalenderhane mosque was once the Church of the Virgin Kyriotissa that was renovated by Alexios III, and the Fenari Isa mosque is probably the Virgin of Lips that was restored by Theodora, the widow of Michael VIII Palaiologos. Eski Imaret mosque was the Church of Christ the All-Seeing or Pantepoptes, which was built by Anna Dalassena, the formidable mother of Emperor Alexios I Komnenos, sometime before 1087. It lies sequestered in the streets behind the Mosque of the Conqueror and it was close to this church that Alexios V Mourtzouphlos stationed himself in April 1204 when preparing to do battle with the attacking fleet of the Fourth Crusade. Although converted into a mosque very shortly after the Turkish conquest, the building still preserves its gallery which would have been reserved for the empress Anna and her entourage.28 Justinian’s Church of St Irene (Aya Irini), the largest surviving Byzantine church in Istanbul after Hagia Sophia, has never been a mosque. After the Ottoman conquest it was incorporated into the first courtyard of the Topkapı palace and served as an arsenal for the elite Janissaries until they were disbanded in 1826. Nowadays it is used as an exhibition and concert venue. It preserves in its apse a rare relic from the iconoclast era: a plain mosaic cross. It probably dates from the eighth century and after the restoration of icon veneration in 843 it may have been covered first by the conventional Virgin and Child. When that gradually fell off during the Ottoman era, the cross below was revealed once more. Finally the tiny Virgin of the Mongols has particular significance as it is the only Byzantine church in Istanbul which is still used for its original purpose. Built in the late thirteenth century, during the reign of Andronicus II, it provides the setting for the celebration of the Greek Orthodox liturgy, a rite almost unchanged since Byzantine times.29 Not all of the surviving churches are in a good state of repair and they require a greater effort of imagination to conjure up their past. The church of the Stoudios monastery, where Michael V met his fate in 1042 and Symeon the New Theologian was excessively pious, was a working mosque and in

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a good enough condition in the late nineteenth century to be recommended as an essential stop for visitors. Unfortunately, in 1894 it was seriously damaged by an earthquake which left it little more than a roofless shell. One striking feature does remain. There is a marble pavement which depicts animals and scenes from classical mythology which it is hard to imagine would have met the approval of Theodore the Stoudite. Sadly, the pavement was not on public display at the time of writing.30 The great three-aisled basilica of the Mother of God at Chalkoprateia where the Virgin’s belt was once kept is now just a few surviving pieces of masonry.31 And of course, others have disappeared entirely, not only the Holy Apostles and the Mother of God at Blachernae but also the Nea Ekklesia, the Forty Martyrs, the Kosmidion and the Holy Virgin of Pharos. While the Land Walls and the churches provide the most obvious reminders of Byzantium, there are all kinds of other survivals scattered throughout Istanbul. Two of the gigantic cisterns that stored water and made Constantinople independent of outside supplies are still in existence and have recently been restored and opened to the public. One, known as the thousand and one columns (Binbirdirek), is misnamed as there are, in fact, only 244. Its name in Byzantine times is not known for certain, though it may have been the cistern of Philoxenos. The other, known in Turkish as ‘the underground palace’ (Yerebatan Sarayı) is an extraordinary vaulted structure of 336 columns. It can be identified as the Basilika cistern that was built by Justinian and rediscovered by Pierre Gilles in the sixteenth century. A visit these days can hardly hope to reproduce the thrill of discovery experienced by Gilles when he first beheld the forest of columns by torchlight: much of the cistern is occupied by shops and cafes. Nevertheless the sheer size of this subterranean space cannot fail to amaze and the cistern preserves two rare survivors of the hundreds of classical statues and sculptures that once adorned Byzantine Constantinople. In the far left-hand corner are two square slabs of marble carved as Gorgons’ heads. Probably originally from some dismantled pagan temple, they were reused during Justinian’s reign to provide bases for two of the columns in the cistern and have remained there ever since.32 Another survival is very easy to miss. Though not as impressive as the Land Walls, some stretches of the Sea Walls are still intact, although thanks to changes in the coastline they are no longer on the water. The longest is to be found along Kennedy Caddesi, and one of the towers still stands intact some 200 metres above the Galata bridge. Other fragments can be seen along the Golden Horn and the southern shoreline, some with inscriptions in Greek recording the restoration of the wall by Emperor Theophilos during the ninth century: ‘Possessing Thee, O Christ, a Wall that cannot be broken, Theophilos, emperor and pious autocrat, erected this wall upon new foundations.’33 Across the Golden Horn, Galata has a very different feel from the historic centre of old Istanbul. Throughout the Ottoman period, it was the place

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where foreign legations were based and where non-Muslims constituted the majority of the population. Even today, its centre at Taksim Square has an international feel. In spite of all the new buildings, the area does preserve reminders of the days when it was the powerbase of the Genoese merchants and their podestà. The very prominent Galata tower was built in 1348 as part of the walls that the Genoese put up to protect their commercial enclave. Mehmed II had the walls demolished but the tower was retained to act as an observation post. Much more difficult to find is the small and unpretentious Arap mosque, which was once the church of the Dominican convent. Tombstones of Genoese merchants and other Latins have been found there, including that of two English knights, William Neville and John Clanvowe, who died in Galata in 1391. Their memorial is now housed in the Istanbul Archaeological Museum.34 Back in Istanbul proper, there are no more intact survivals to see but broken bits and pieces of Byzantium can be found all over the place, many far from their original context. Reused materials from Byzantine buildings, for example, can be seen in many of the great Ottoman monuments. In the mosque complex of the Süleymaniye, some of the marble pavement slabs have been shown to have originally been in Hagia Sophia. The columns of porphyry marble that hold up the porticoes are also Byzantine and may have come from some part of the Great Palace. It was not only the great imperial mosques that reused Byzantine material. The Davitpaşa mosque, built close to the column of Arcadius in 1485, has Byzantine pillars holding up its front porch.35 Other survivals have found their way to the city’s museums. The Military Museum preserves some links from what purports to be the chain that was stretched across the Golden Horn during the last siege of 1453. The Archaeological Museum houses numerous artefacts from the period. Among the highlights are the St Francis frescoes from the Church of the Virgin Kyriotissa that probably date from the Latin occupation of 1204–61. There are two fifth-century marble pedestals honouring the popular charioteer Porphyrius that were found in the Hippodrome and the upper jaw of one of the now vanished heads from the serpent column. Perhaps most poignant of all are the two stone lions which flank one of the museum’s staircases. They used to stand on some remnants of the Boukoleon which overlooked the harbour of the same name. These ruins were demolished in 1871 but the lions were preserved. Dating from the sixth century, they must once have looked down on the marble steps that led to the mooring for the imperial galley and watched the emperors as they came and went from the Great Palace.36 Outside the Archaeological Museum are some very substantial and imposing marble sarcophagi. So substantial and imposing, that they were almost certainly used for the burial of emperors and were probably taken from one or other of the two imperial mausoleums that were attached to the Church of the Holy Apostles. In most cases, it is impossible even to guess which emperor might have occupied which sarcophagus, but there is

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Figure 18  Marble sarcophagus outside the Archaeological Museum, Istanbul (Evren Kalinbacak/IStock).

an exception. One of them stands out because it is a different colour. It is made of an off-white, translucent marble and adorned with plain crosses on its sides. It was unearthed as recently as 1969 in the grounds of the Topkapı palace. Contemporary records suggest that only one imperial tomb was made of that kind of marble. It was in the mausoleum of Justinian and housed the remains of Emperor Heraclius.37 There are many other structures and artefacts that are clearly Byzantine in origin just lying scattered around although their purpose and identity are often unknown. That is certainly the case with the single Byzantine column that lies in the grounds of Aksaray metro station. It must have once been part of some large and prestigious structure but that is all that can be said about it. Sometimes even the precise function of these remnants is a complete mystery. In Müsir Süleymanpaşa Sokak, in the south of the city, a brick wall and three barrel-vaulted red brick rooms have been found. The structure apparently once extended further south and opened up to tunnels

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that ran to the north. Clearly, these are the remains of a major Byzantine building but at the present time there is no clue whatsoever as to what it was and what purpose it served.38 * Even though it is probably easier now to gain an impression of Byzantine Constantinople at street level than it has been at any time since around 1500, there is one great obstacle to the preservation and appreciation of Istanbul’s Byzantine past. It is nothing new. Pierre Gilles noted it during his visit in the 1540s: ‘Though all other cities have their periods of government, and are subject to the decay of time, Constantinople alone seems to claim to herself a kind of immortality and will continue a city, as long as the race of mankind shall live either to inhabit or rebuild her.’39 Istanbul is a living, developing, working metropolis, not a museum. Even if it is not the capital, it is by far the largest city in the Turkish republic. A huge and sprawling urban conglomeration of some sixteen million people, it extends far beyond the limits of Constantine the Great’s narrow promontory alongside the Golden Horn. Its suburbs stretch up both sides of the Bosporus towards the Black Sea, westwards out towards the Atatürk airport beyond what was once Hebdomon, and on the Asian side along the Sea of Marmara almost as far as Izmit, or Nikomedeia as it once was. Beyond Galata, tall, gleaming towers provide office space for banks and multinational companies. Within this metropolitan area, traffic congestion frequently reaches gridlock, particularly in the old city and the completion of the metro system is an urgent necessity. Two mighty bridges now link Europe with Asia across the Bosporus and a third is currently nearing completion. A third airport is at the planning stage. So while something of Byzantine Constantinople can still be found in modern Istanbul, many of the Byzantine monuments stand isolated among the intensive urban development that has taken place around them. The Church of the Myrelaion, for example, is now closely hemmed in on all sides by buildings; such is the pressure on space for housing. As a result, it is by no means easy to find the church that Romanos I built as his own burial place, and the same applies to many of the other Byzantine churches. With the possible exception of the Hippodrome and Sultanahmet square, Istanbul has no Byzantine equivalent of the Acropolis in Athens or the Forum in Rome, a dedicated space set aside from the everyday life of the city to preserve an important aspect of its past. So to form an idea of Byzantine Constantinople, it is necessary to look elsewhere. The mosaics and frescoes of Hosios Loukas monastery in central Greece and the Church of St Pantaleimon at Nerezi in the republic of Macedonia, for example, date to the eleventh and twelfth centuries. They are thus much earlier than those in the Chora and Pammakaristos churches in Istanbul and give a better impression of what visitors would have been likely to see in 1200. There is one place above all others that preserves something

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of the ghost of Constantinople and that is the island city of Venice. It was never captured or sacked in the way that Constantinople was in 1204 and 1453, apart from minor damage from aerial bombardment by the Austrians, first from balloons in 1849 and then from aeroplanes during the First World War. The twentieth century largely passed it by, with development being restricted to Mestre on the mainland. So while Venice may lack the youthful vibrancy of the streets of Istanbul, it has preserved its medieval buildings largely intact. Its streetscape and skyline is, of course, very different from that of Byzantine Constantinople: narrow streets, canals and small squares or campi, rather than broad streets and forums. On the other hand, the two cities were closely intertwined for centuries, from the time when Venice was an outpost of Byzantine rule in Italy, through the years when Venice dominated Constantinople’s internal and overseas trade and propped up the Latin Empire, to the last days of Byzantium in 1453 when Venetian volunteers fought on the walls alongside the Byzantines and Genoese against the Ottomans. This long association was bound to leave its mark on Venice and it can be seen everywhere. In the days when Byzantium was the superpower and Venice the client state, it was only natural that Byzantine styles in art and architecture should be followed by those who wanted to make an impression. The rulers of Venice even brought in artists from Constantinople to work on the mosaic decoration of their churches. The most prominent surviving monument to this period is the Church of St Mark itself. Completed in 1064, its interior mosaic decoration is clearly influenced by Byzantine styles, and may even have been the work of Byzantine artists. Byzantine influence is visible on the outside too. The church has five domes, arranged in the form of a cross, and may therefore reflect the architecture of the Church of the Holy Apostles. Thus in Venice you can see what is no longer visible in Istanbul.40 Venice may also provide a clue to the appearance of long-vanished secular buildings in Constantinople, particularly the houses of great magnates such as Niketas Choniates and Theodore Metochites. Several of the palaces along the Grand Canal in Venice, such as the Palazzo Dandolo-Farsetti, were built in the thirteenth century, and with their loggias and the rounded arches of their windows they probably reflect Byzantine models.41 As well as mirroring Byzantine architectural and artistic influence, Venice is full of objects brought from Constantinople in the wake of the Fourth Crusade. Many are housed in the treasury of St Mark’s, such as a silver and gold reliquary that once contained a phial of the blood of Christ and is thought to be a model of the Church of the Holy Apostles.42 Others are visible outside. The most famous are the four bronze horses that stand on the façade of St Mark’s and which were taken from the Hippodrome as a trophy by the victorious Venetians. By the fourteenth century, they had become a familiar landmark though memories of where they came from and how they got there had faded over the years. It was only relatively recently that the documentary trail was followed to trace the horses back

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to Constantinople. These days, thanks to the pollution drifting across the lagoon from the chemical plants at Mestre, the originals are kept inside the church and those on the façade are replicas.43 Objects brought from Constantinople can be seen everywhere in and around St Mark’s Square. Two free-standing carved piers there have been shown to have come from the Church of St Polyeuktos: like the Ottomans, the Venetians filched bits of Byzantine buildings to adorn their own. On a side wall of St Mark’s there is a series of marble reliefs depicting Saints Demetrius and George and various classical themes such as the labours of Hercules. They are all of Byzantine origin.44 Below the façade, close to the entrance to the Palace of the Doges in St Mark’s Square, stand four enigmatic figures made of porphyry marble, clasping each other around the shoulders (Figure 19). During the later Middle Ages, various legends evolved to explain their presence in Venice. Some said that they were four impious Saracens who had been turned to stone for trying to rob the treasury of St Mark’s. Others claimed that they were statues of four brothers from Albania. They had arrived in Venice by ship with a large treasure but they then paired off and both plotted to poison the other two to get sole possession of the hoard. The two pairs ended up killing each other. Later art historians suspected that the group was of Constantinopolitan manufacture and depicted a group of imperial rulers, possibly either the Tetrarchs who had divided the empire between them in the early fourth century or else the sons of Constantine the Great. Their origin in Constantinople was confirmed in 1965, when an excavation at the Myrelaion monastery in Istanbul unearthed a porphyry foot which exactly matched that missing from one of the figures in Venice. With the Constantinopolitan origin confirmed, it is possible to speculate that the four figures may have been the sculpture known as the Philadelphion that had once stood near Constantine’s wall.45 Thanks to the wholesale larceny of 1204, visitors to Venice can come face to face with one of the lifelike figures that made such an impression on medieval travellers like King Sigurd and his Scandinavians. Some of these plundered objects have poignancy all of their own. One is the icon of the Virgin Mary that sits above the altar in a side chapel of St Mark’s. This is reputedly the icon known as the Nikopeia or Bringer of Victory that had for centuries been carried by the Byzantine emperors into battle and may even have been that which was lost by Alexios V Mourtzouphlos early in 1204 when he unsuccessfully clashed with a party of crusaders led by Henry of Flanders. Whether this is true or not can never now be known, but the icon is clearly Byzantine and highly enough prized to be enclosed in a jewelled and enamelled frame.46 Another relic of Byzantium is hidden away, far from busy St Mark’s Square, in the quiet Campiello de Ca’Angaran close to the Church of San Pantalon. On a wall above two doorways is a large marble roundel bearing the sculpted image of a bearded Byzantine emperor. In his right hand he holds a sceptre and in his left, like the statue of Justinian in the Augousteion, a crowned orb. Behind him a sunburst pattern suggests

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Figure 19  The Tetrarchs, Venice (Mountainpics/Shutterstock.com).

his radiance and glory (Figure 20). How it came to be in this obscure corner of Venice will never now be known. Some returning mariner perhaps carried it home and fixed it onto the wall of his house to let posterity know that he was there when Constantinople was conquered in 1204. Nor is there any certainty as to who the emperor depicted on it might be. The roundel gives no clue to his name, but since it dates from the twelfth century it might well be Alexios III Angelos whose adventures have been traced in this book. It is the kind of tangible and identifiable link to the Byzantine past that is hard to find in the crowded streets of Istanbul.47 Whereas the whole of Venice has long since been designated a World Heritage site, in Istanbul only four zones of the old city have received this protection. Even they are under pressure, as the recent construction of three gigantic towers blocks, known as Onaltıdokuz, perilously close to the Land Walls heritage zone, clearly demonstrates. The pressure on space means that it is impossible to preserve every single Byzantine corridor that comes to light when the road is dug up but it would be a tragedy if, in the rush to modernize, Istanbul lost sight of the Byzantine and Ottoman past

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Figure 20  Roundel depicting a Byzantine emperor, Venice (Jonathan Phillips).

that has defined it. One encouraging thought is that much of that past is probably perfectly safe underground. The substructures found at Gülhane by the French army in 1921, which may have been part of the monastery of St George in Mangana, were covered over again but they are still there. The discovery of the Great Palace mosaics in the 1930s and the ships and their cargoes at Yenikapı in 2004 might well be just a foretaste of what may yet be found, lying undisturbed beneath the streets.

Appendix A: Timeline

Political events

Eighth century

700: (Circa) City of Byzantion founded by settlers from Megara

Assyrian Empire

512: Byzantion captured by the Persians

560: Accession of Cyrus, king of Persia

150: Treaty between Byzantion and Rome

146: Roman conquest of Carthage

196: Byzantion surrenders to Septimius Severus

193: Proclamation of Emperor Septimius Severus

bce

Sixth century bce

Second century bce

Second century ce

Fourth century ce

Fifth century ce

324: Constantine lays out the boundaries 306: Constantine proclaimed emperor at York of Constantinople 312: Constantine defeats 330: Inauguration of Constantinople Maxentius at the Milvian 360: Dedication of first cathedral of Bridge Hagia Sophia 337: Death of Constantine 370: Dedication of the Church of the Holy Apostles 393: Completion of Forum of Theodosius 404: Hagia Sophia destroyed by fire 413: Construction of the Land Walls 415: Dedication of second cathedral of Hagia Sophia 439: Construction of the Sea Walls 447: Land Walls reconstructed after earthquake 450–7: Erection of Column of Marcian 473: Foundation of the Church of the Mother of God at Blachernae

408: Accession of Emperor Theodosius II

The Christian Church

Western Europe 753: Traditional date for the foundation of Rome

100: (Circa) completion of St John’s Gospel

Appendix A: Timeline

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Period

303: Beginning of Diocletian’s persecution 325: First Ecumenical Council at Nicaea 381: Second Ecumenical Council at Constantinople 431: Third Ecumenical Council at Ephesus 451: Fourth Ecumenical Council at Chalcedon

476: Deposition of last Roman emperor in the west

Sixth century ce

Seventh century ce

ce

Ninth century ce

Tenth century ce

553: Fifth Ecumenical Council at Constantinople

597: St Augustine lands in England

626: Persian and Avar siege of Constantinople 674: First Arab siege of Constantinople begins

681: Sixth Ecumenical 634: Beginning of Arab Council at invasion of Byzantine eastern Constantinople provinces 642: Arabs capture Alexandria

717: Second Arab siege of Constantinople begins

726: Probable initiation of policy of iconoclasm

787: Seventh Ecumenical Council in Nicaea

732: Arab invasion of France halted at Poitiers

864: (Circa) Construction of the Pharos chapel in the Great Palace 880: Completion of the Nea Ekklesia

843: Restoration of Icon veneration

867: Brief ‘Photian schism’ between the Byzantine and western churches

800: Coronation of Charlemagne 899: Death of Alfred the Great of Wessex

920s: Construction of the Myrelaion monastery

919: Romanos Lekapenos seizes power 945: Constantine VII becomes sole emperor

Appendix A: Timeline

Eighth century

527: Accession of Justinian I 532: Nika riot 565: Death of Justinian 537: Dedication of third cathedral of Hagia Sophia 550: Dedication of the new Church of the Holy Apostles 558: Partial collapse of Hagia Sophia 563: Reopening of restored Hagia Sophia

225

Political events

The Christian Church

Western Europe

Eleventh century ce

1042: Popular uprising 1022: Death of Symeon the New overthrows Emperor Theologian Michael V 1030: (Circa) Construction of the 1081: Alexios I captures Peribleptos monastery Constantinople and founds 1050: (Circa) Construction of St George the Komnenian dynasty in Mangana 1082: Special commercial privileges given to Venice

1054: Papal legates excommunicate the patriarch of Constantinople

1066: Norman conquest of England 1095: Launch of the First Crusade

Twelfth century ce

1136: Foundation of the Pantokrator monastery 1171: Arrest of Venetian merchants 1182: Massacre of Genoese and Pisans

Thirteenth century ce

1215: Fourth Lateran 1204: Fourth Crusade captures Constan- 1208: Theodore Laskaris Council crowned at Nicaea tinople; establishment of Latin Empire 1274: Council of Lyons 1259: Usurpation of Michael 1235: Siege of Constantinople by John VIII Palaiologos III Vatatzes 1282: Accession of Andronicus II 1261: Recapture of Constantinople by Michael VIII Palaiologos 1267: Genoese established in Galata (Pera)

Fourteenth century ce

1316: Work begins to restore the Holy Saviour in Chora 1394: Ottoman sultan Bayezid I lays siege to Constantinople

1145: Launch of Second Crusade 1187: Launch of Third Crusade 1198: Launch of Fourth Crusade

1180: Death of Manuel I Komnenos 1182: Usurpation of Andronicus I 1185: Overthrow of Andronicus I, Isaac II Angelos emperor 1195: Alexios III Angelos seizes power

1341: Death of Andronicus III, beginning of civil war 1347: John VI Kantakouzenos captures Constantinople

1378: Beginning of papal schism

1248: Completion of the Sainte Chapelle in Paris

1337: Beginning of Hundred Years, War between England and France

Appendix A: Timeline

Constantinople

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Period

1422: Unsuccessful Ottoman attack on Constantinople 1434: Destruction of the Church of the Mother of God at Blachernae 1453: Fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks 1463: Demolition of the Church of the Holy Apostles

1451: Accession of Sultan Mehmed II 1481: Accession of Sultan Bayezid II

1439: Union of Florence between the Byzantine and western churches

Sixteenth century ce

1517 (circa): Demolition of the column of Theodosius 1544: Pierre Gilles in Constantinople 1587: The Pammakaristos church becomes a mosque

1520: Accession of Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent

1517: Beginning of Protestant reformation 1545: Opening of Council of Trent

Seventeenth century ce

1609: Construction of Blue Mosque on site of Great Palace 1610: George Sandys in Constantinople

1683: Ottoman siege of Vienna

Twentieth century ce

1921: French army excavation of Mangana site 1926: Constantinople renamed Istanbul 1934: Hagia Sophia becomes a museum

1923: Proclamation of the Turkish Republic

Twenty-first century ce

2004: Rediscovery of harbour of Theodosius at Yenikapı

1434: Florence under the control of the Medici 1492: Columbus’ voyage to America

1618: Outbreak of Thirty Years’ War 1620: Voyage of the Mayflower 1965: Reconciliation between the pope and patriarch of Constantinople

Appendix A: Timeline

Fifteenth century ce

227

Appendix B: List of Emperors

Byzantine emperors 306–37 Constantine I 337–61 Constantius II 361–3 Julian 363–4 Jovian 364–78 Valens 379–95 Theodosius I 395–408 Arcadius 408–50 Theodosius II 450–7 Marcian 457–74 Leo I 474 Leo II 474–91 Zeno 491–518 Anastasius I 518–27 Justin I 527–65 Justinian I 565–78 Justin II 578–82 Tiberius I Constantine 582–602 Maurice 602–10 Phokas 610–41 Heraclius 641 Constantine III 641 Heraclonas 641–68 Constans II 668–85 Constantine IV 685–95 Justinian II 695–8 Leontios 698–705 Tiberius II 705–11 Justinian II (again) 711–13 Philippikos 713–15 Anastasius II 715–17 Theodosius III 717–41 Leo III

Appendix B: List of Emperors

741–75 Constantine V 775–80 Leo IV 780–97 Constantine VI 797–802 Irene 802–11 Nikephoros I 811 Staurakios 811–13 Michael I Rangabe 813–20 Leo V 820–9 Michael II 829–42 Theophilos 842–67 Michael III 867–86 Basil I 886–912 Leo VI 912–13 Alexander 913–20 Regency for Constantine VII Porphyrogenitos 920–44 Romanos I Lekapenos 945–59 Constantine VII Porphyrogenitos 959–63 Romanos II 963–9 Nikephoros II Phokas 969–76 John I Tzimiskes 976–1025 Basil II 1025–8 Constantine VIII 1028–34 Romanos IV Argyros 1034–41 Michael IV 1041–2 Michael V 1042 Zoe and Theodora 1042–55 Constantine IX Monomachos 1055–6 Theodora (again) 1056–7 Michael VI 1057–9 Isaac I Komnenos 1059–67 Constantine X Doukas 1068–71 Romanos IV Diogenes 1071–8 Michael VII Doukas 1078–81 Nikephoros III Botaneiates 1081–1118 Alexios I Komnenos 1118–43 John II Komnenos 1143–80 Manuel I Komnenos 1180–3 Alexios II Komnenos 1183–5 Andronicus I Komnenos 1185–95 Isaac II Angelos 1195–1203 Alexios III Angelos 1203–4 Isaac II (again) and Alexios IV Angelos 1204 Alexios V Mourtzouphlos

229

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Appendix B: List of Emperors

Latin emperors 1204–5 Baldwin I 1206–16 Henry 1217 Peter of Courtenay 1221–8 Robert of Courtenay 1228–37 John of Brienne (regent for Baldwin II) 1228–61 Baldwin II 1208–21 Theodore I Laskaris 1221–54 John III Vatatzes 1254–8 Theodore II Laskaris 1258–61 John IV Laskaris 1259–82 Michael VIII Palaiologos 1282–1328 Andronicus II Palaiologos 1328–41 Andronicus III Palaiologos 1341–91 John V Palaiologos 1347–54 John VI Kantakouzenos 1391–1425 Manuel II Palaiologos 1425–48 John VIII Palaiologos 1449–53 Constantine XI Palaiologos

Notes

Chapter 1 1 Sturluson 1961: 284–7. 2 Villehardouin 2008: 34; Anonymous 1995: 119; Fulcher of Chartres 1969: 79; Odo of Deuil 1948: 62–3; Clavijo 1928: 88; Macrides 2002: 193–212. 3 Constantine of Rhodes 2012: 21; Choniates 1984: 317; Psellos 1966: 114; Komnene 2009: 39; Georgacas 1947: 358–66. 4 Ralph Coggeshall 1875: 150; Villehardouin 2008: 34; Jacoby 1961: 109; Dagron 2002: 394–5; Magdalino 1996: 61–6. 5 Sturluson 1961: 285–6. 6 Berger 2013: 63, 265; Anonymous 1996: 128; Nicholas Mystikos 1973: 70–1. 7 Robert of Clari 1936: 108–9; Harun Ibn-Yahya 1932: 155; Van Millingen 1899: 59, 73; Bassett 2004: 212. 8 Liudprand of Cremona 2007: 239; Fulcher of Chartres 1969: 78; Majeska 1984: 44–7; Ciggaar 1996: 39–40, 46. 9 Odo of Deuil 1948: 65; Clavijo 1928: 87–8. 10 Procopius of Caesarea 1940: 41; Berger 2013: 199; Talbot and Johnson 2012: 211–13. 11 Choniates 1984: 317; John Mauropous in Kazhdan and Epstein 1985: 255; Dvornik 1958: 138–80. 12 Anonymous 1996: 121–2; Robert of Clari 1936: 112; Majeska 1984: 186, 333–7. 13 Mesarites 1957: 864–7. 14 Procopius of Caesarea 1940: 48–55; Constantine of Rhodes 2012: 181–217; Mesarites 1957: 867–9; Anonymous 1995: 121; Robert of Clari 1936: 108; Anthony of Novgorod 1889: 101–2; Janin 1969: 41–9; Dark and Özgümüş 2013: 83–96. 15 Constantine VII Porphyrogenitos 2012: ii. 642–3; Anonymous 1995: 121; Choniates 1984: 263; Mesarites 1957: 891–2; Skylitzes 2010: 50, 69–70, 115, 164; Janin 1969: 49. 16 Constantine VII Porphyrogenitos 2012: ii. 644–5; Choniates 1984: 357; Mesarites 1957: 892–3. 17 Mundell Mango 2001: 29–51; Dark 2004: 83–107; Janin 1964: 200. 18 Pseudo-Kodinos 2013: 175; Striker and Kuban 1997: 11.

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19 Robert of Clari 1936: 112–13; Choniates 1984: 125; Anthony of Novgorod 1889: 105–6; Kalavrezou, 1997: 53; Janin 1969: 515–23; Ousterhout 2001: 133–50; Cormack 1985: 200–11. 20 Paton 1916–18: iii. 433; Constantine of Rhodes 2012: 21; Janin 1964: 84–6; Freely and Çakmak 2004: 62–5. 21 Constantine of Rhodes 2012: 37; Gilles 1988: 196–9; Liebeschuetz 1990: 273–8; Janin 1964: 82–4. 22 Berger 2013: 83; Robert of Clari 1936: 110–11; Gunther of Pairis 1997: 116–17. 23 Theophanes Confessor 1997: 107, 193; Marcellinus Comes 1995: 27; Robert of Clari 1936: 110–11; Constantine of Rhodes 2012: 32–7; Janin 1964: 81–2; Bassett 2004: 208–12. 24 Berger 2013: 69, 75, 83; Choniates 1984: 353, 358. 25 Berger 2013: 83–5. 26 Berger 2013: 53–7; Janin 1964: 68–70; Bassett 2004: 248–9. 27 Sturluson 1961: 287; Mango 1963: 64–7. 28 Berger 2013: 63, 79; Anonymous 1996: 128; Dagron 1984: 85–97. 29 Malalas 1986: 174; Constantine of Rhodes 2012: 21; Zonaras 1841–97: ii. 18; Komnene 2009: 342–3; Glykys 1836: 617; Janin 1964: 77–80; Bassett 2004: 192–204. 30 Berger 2013: 51, 123; Choniates 1984: 305–6, 357; Jenkins 1947: 31–3; Janin 1964: 62–4; Bassett 2004: 188–92, 204–8. 31 Procopius of Caesarea 1940: 32–7; Paton 1916–18: v. 192–3; Robert of Clari 1936: 107; Constantine of Rhodes 2012: 21–2; Tafur 1926: 140–1; Mango and Parker 1960: 236; Kostenec 2007: 7–9; Janin 1964: 59–62; Bassett 2004: 238–40. 32 Berger 2013: 69–71, 191; Harun Ibn-Yahya 1932: 160; Choniates 1984: 183, 314, 358; El Cheikh 2004: 209. 33 Constantine of Rhodes 2012: 25; Berger 2013: 147, 225; Leo the Deacon 2005: 175; Procopius of Caesarea 1940: 82–7; Liudprand of Cremona 2007: 184. 34 Constantine VII Porphyrogenitos 2012: i. 364–9; Al-Marwazi 1950: 462; Leo the Deacon 2005: 80–1; Sturluson 1961: 286–7; Komnene 2009: 459–61; Choniates 1984: 160, 172, 192–4. 35 Gilles 1988: 77–80; Janin 1964: 192–3; Bassett 2004: 219–22; Freely and Çakmak 2004: 42–3. 36 Gilles 1988: 80–1; Bassett 2004: 86. 37 Paton 1916–18: v. 381–3; Cameron 1973: 4–12. 38 Paton 1916–18: v. 217; Choniates 1984: 285, 358–9; Bassett 2004: 152–4. 39 Paton 1916–18: v. 155; Choniates 1984: 67–8, 285, 305, 358–62; Anonymous 1995: 119; Berger 2013: 101–3; Freeman 2004: 29–31; Janin 1964: 183–94; Bassett 2004: 214, 222–3. 40 Herodotus 1920–5: iv. 254–5; Pausanias 1918–35: iv. 443; Choniates 1984: 359; Madden 1992: 111–45; Bassett 2004: 152–4, 213, 224–7.

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41 Berger 2013: 95–7, 111. 42 Theophanes Continuatus 1838: 379; Choniates 1984: 305; Mango 1963: 61–2. 43 Paul the Silentiary 1894: 46; Procopius of Caesarea 1940: 16–17; Mango and Parker 1960: 237–8; Anonymous 1995: 125; Robert of Clari 1936: 106; Anthony of Novgorod 1889: 97; Choniates 1984: 315; Janin 1969: 455–70. 44 Munitiz et al. 1997: lx–lxi; Anthony of Novgorod 1889: 88; Mango 1959: 60–72; Anonymous 1995: 120; Majeska 1984: 206–7; 224–6. 45 Robert of Clari 1936: 106–7; Anthony of Novgorod 1889: 90. 46 Sullivan, Talbot and McGrath 2014: 163–5; Anonymous 1995: 127; Anthony of Novgorod 1889: 99. 47 Choniates 1984: 183; Berger 2013: 179–81. 48 Liudprand of Cremona 2007: 202; Komnene 2009: 293–4; Choniates 1984: 68. 49 Clavijo 1928: 76.

Chapter 2 1 Komnene 2009: 426–7; Constantine VII Porphyrogenitos 1967: 67. 2 Anonymous 1996: 107–11. 3 Anonymous 1996: 111–13; Kazhdan 1987: 212–15. 4 Anonymous 1996: 115–23; Theophanes Confessor 1997: 23; Eusebius of Caesarea 1999: 80–2; Malalas 1986: 172; Kazhdan 1987: 219–22. 5 Anonymous 1996: 127; Adamnan 1958: 107–9; Zosimus 1982: 37. 6 Berger 2013: 89, 145; Philostorgius 2006: 24–6; Paton 1916–18: v. 85. 7 Whitby and Whitby 1989: 17; Malalas 1986: 175; Berger 2013: 33; Georgacas 1947: 354–8. 8 Theophanes Confessor 1997: 47; Socrates Scholasticus 1844: 62–3; Sozomen 1846: 48–9; Eusebius of Caesarea 1999: 140; Berger 2013: 25–9; Kazhdan 1987: 235–9. 9 Eusebius of Caesarea 1999: 176–7; Berger 2013: 29–31, 141. 10 Berger 2013: 63, 79; Dagron 1984: 85–97; Anonymous 1996: 128, 133–5; Theophanes Confessor 1997: 41–2. 11 Anonymous 1996: 128; Socrates Scholasticus 1844: 62–3; Whitby and Whitby 1989: 15–16; Theophanes Confessor 1997: 46; Berger 2013: 33–7. 12 Berger 2013: 39–41. 13 Liudprand of Cremona 2007: 270; Komnene 2009: 39; Psellos 1990: 36–7; Kinnamos 1976: 165–6; Nicol 1988: 59–60. 14 Anonymous 1996: 141–2; Berger 2013: 35; Choniates 1984: 244; Nicol 1988: 55. 15 Paton 1916–18: v. 194–7; Malalas 1986: 174; John Lydus 1983: 245; Berger 2013: 5–13, 21; Anonymous 1996: 126; Procopius of Caesarea 1940: 56–7; Gregoras 1829–55: i. 305; Georgacas 1947: 348–53; Dagron 1984: 62–3, 79–80.

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16 Strabo 1917–32: iii. 280–5. 17 Herodotus 1920–5: iii. 26–7, 153, 173; Thucydides 1928–35: i. 160–1 and iv. 330–1. 18 Tacitus 1931–7: ii. 406–7. 19 Malalas 1986: 155; Berger 2013: 23–5, 37. 20 Zosimus 1982: 38; Berger 2013: 101; Eusebius of Caesarea 1999: 143; Socrates Scholasticus 1844: 63; Krautheimer: 1983: 60–1. 21 Eunapius of Sardis 1952: 383; Zosimus 1982: 36–8; Berger 2013: 115–17. 22 Anonymous Valesianus in Ammianus Marcellinus 1935–9: iii. 526–7. 23 Herodotus 1920–5: ii. 289–91; Pliny the Elder 1938–62: ii. 174–5; Ovid 1937: 50–1; Dagron 1974: 43–7; Krautheimer 1983: 45. 24 Gregory of Nyssa 1863: 557. 25 Malalas 1986: 187; Stevenson 1989: 117, 362; Dagron 1974: 46, 54, 458, 480; Dvornik 1958: 138–80. 26 Jacoby 1961: 81–109; Allen 1979: 10; Dagron 1974: 55–60, 524–5. 27 Zosimus 1982: 39. 28 Whitby and Whitby 1989: 34, 48. 29 Whitby and Whitby 1989: 49–50, 54–5; Theophanes Confessor 1997: 107; Bassett 2004: 152–4; Freely and Çakmak 2004: 42–7; Van Millingen 1899: 63, 338–9; Janin 1964: 446–9. 30 Jerome 1956: 232; Pliny the Elder 1938–62: ix. 156–9; Strabo 1917–32: iii. 107; Berger 2013: 77; Bassett 2004: 152–4. 31 Berger 2013: 91, 101, 109; Krautheimer 1983: 50–5; Bassett 2004: 219–22. 32 Themistius in Van Millingen 1899: 42. 33 Zosimus 1982: 111–12; Whitby and Whitby 1989: 59, 64. 34 Procopius of Caesarea 1940: 13, 21. 35 Berger 2013: 75, 231–71; Glykys 1836: 497–8; Tafur 1926: 144–5; Anonymous 1995: 126; Theognostos 2013: 61; Dagron 1984: 200–1, 207–8, 303–4. 36 Procopius of Caesarea 1935: 70–5, 92–3, 98–9, 142–5, 222–3; Evagrius Scholasticus 2000: 232–3. 37 Procopius of Caesarea 1914–28: i. 219–39; Malalas 1986: 275–81; Whitby and Whitby 1989: 114–27. 38 Procopius of Caesarea 1940: 29–33; Malalas 1986: 297, 303; Agathias of Myrina 1975: 143–4; Berger 2013: 269–71; Emerson and van Nice 1951: 94–103. 39 Whitby and Whitby 1989: 33; Constantine VII Porphyrogenitos 2012: ii. 646, 811–12. 40 Procopius of Caesarea 1940: 48–53; Berger 2013: 275–9; Malalas 1986: 290; Theophanes Confessor 1997: 331; Constantine VII Porphyrogenitos 2012: i. 644; Mesarites 1957: 891–3; Janin 1969: 41–9. 41 Mango 1986: 34–5; Berger 2013: 177. 42 Procopius of Caesarea 1940: 39–41; Majeska 1984: 186, 333–7.

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43 Attaleiates 2012: 253; Clavijo 1928: 79–80. 44 Procopius of Caesarea 1940: 37, 45. 45 Procopius of Caesarea 1940: 86–9; Theophanes Confessor 1997: 314. Malalas (1986: 285) says that Justinian only moved the Milion. For a description of Constantinople at the end of Justinian’s reign, see Croke 2005: 60–86.

Chapter 3 1 Alexander 1962: 341–7; Shepard 2003: 92–4. 2 Andrew Salos 1974: 215. 3 Paton 1916–18: i. 77–9; Whitby and Whitby 1989: 169, 178, 180; Theophanes Confessor 1997: 447; Grumel 1958: 194, 201; Theodore Synkellos in Belting 1994: 495–6; Anonymous 1995: 128; Pentcheva 2002: 2–41; Baynes 1955: 254–9; Limberis 1994: 89–92, 149–58. 4 Janin 1969: 237–42; Limberis 1994: 58–9. 5 Pseudo-Symeon Magister in Theophanes Continuatus 1838: 674–5; Skylitzes 2010: 38, 212; Komnene, 2009: 194; Baynes 1955: 240–7; Janin 1969: 161–70; Limberis 1994: 58. 6 Skylitzes 2010: 363; Komnene 2009: 357, 522; Belting 1994: 511–12; Majeska 1984: 334–5. 7 Pseudo-Kodinos 2013: 175; Striker and Kuban 1997: 11. 8 Attaleiates 2012: 279; Psellos 1966: 36–7, 69–70; Wolff 1948: 326. 9 Mango 1986: 40; Munitiz, Chrysostomides, Harvalia-Crook and Dendrinos 1997: 38–9, 148–9; Sullivan, Talbot and McGrath 2014: 163–5; Anonymous 1995: 127; Thomas and Hero 2000: ii. 756; Anthony of Novgorod 1889: 99; Limberis 1994: 57–8; Mathews: 1998: 65–7; Janin 1969: 199–207. 10 Choniates 1984: 90, 209–10; Leo the Deacon 2005: 200–1; Skylitzes 2010: 294; Pentcheva 2002: 24, 35, 37; Wolff 1948: 319–28. 11 Herodotus 1920–5: ii. 344–5; Tacitus 1931–7: ii. 406–9; Strabo 1917–32: iii. 280–5; Polybius 1922–7: ii. 392–3; Berger 2013: 13. 12 Cassius Dio 1914–27: ix. 185–7, 193–5; Malalas 1986: 155; Magie 1930–2: ii. 5. 13 Malalas 1986: 173; Whitby and Whitby 1989: 16; Berger 2013: 31–3; Van Millingen 1899: 21–2; Mango 1986: 251; Janin 1964: 263–5; Bassett 2004: 22–3. 14 Ammianus Marcellinus 1935–9: iii. 502–3. 15 Pharr 1952: 429; Philippides and Hanak 2011: 303–4; Van Millingen 1899: 44–5. 16 Whitby and Whitby 1989: 76, 79–80 and note 262; Malalas 1986: 199; Marcellinus Comes 1995: 19. 17 Van Millingen 1899: 47; Philippides and Hanak 2011: 301–2. 18 Van Millingen 1899: 51–8; Tsangadas 1980: 7–21; Janin 1964: 265–83; Philippides and Hanak 2011: 306–10.

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19 Whitby and Whitby 1989: 72; Tsangadas 1980: 33–59; Janin 1964: 287–300. 20 Leo the Deacon 2005: 129–30; Choniates 1984: 117; Geoffrey of Villehardouin 2008: 42; Robert of Clari: 1996: 69; Van Millingen 1899: 229. The chain is first mentioned as being used in Byzantine times in 626: Theophanes Confessor 1997: 545; Pryor 2007: 369–84. 21 Berger 2013: 99; Al-Marwazi 1950: 463; Bono, Crow and Bayliss 2001: 1325–33; Mango 1995: 10–13; Teall 1959: 102–4. 22 Procopius of Caesarea 1940: 90–3; Whitby and Whitby 1989: 85, 127; Mango 1995: 16–17; Freely and Çakmak, 2004: 55, 146–50. 23 Theophanes Confessor 1997: 522; Nikephoros 1990: 103. 24 Van Millingen 1899: 85–6; Tsangadas 1980: 19; Philippides and Hanak: 2011: 310–12. 25 Whitby and Whitby 1989: 180–1; Berger 2013: 177. 26 Bertrandon de la Brocquière 1988: 97; Choniates 1984: 211, 298; Van Millingen 1899: 122–4; Janin 1964: 283; Philippides and Hanak 2011: 344–8. 27 Whitby and Whitby 1989: 173, 177–81; Theophanes Confessor 1997: 447; Nikephoros 1990: 59–61; Tsangadas 1980: 80–106; Howard-Johnston 1995: 131–42. 28 Olster 1995: 23–4; Theophanes Confessor 1997: 493–4; Nikephoros 1990: 85–7; Leo VI 2010: 505; Komnene 2009: 323; Leo the Deacon 2005: 188, 198; Partington 1960: 10–21, 28–32; Haldon and Byrne 1977: 92; Tsangadas 1980: 107–33. 29 Theophanes Confessor 1997: 534, 545–50; Nikephoros 1990: 117, 123–5; Brooks 1899: 23, 28; Tsangadas 1980: 134–52. 30 Theophanes Confessor 1997: 686. 31 Liudprand of Cremona 2007: 179–81; Cross and Sherbowitz-Wetzor 1953: 72. 32 Psellos 1966: 212–13, 216–17; Attaleiates 2012: 36–49. 33 Psellos 1966: 297–8; Attaleiates 2012: 100–7; Skylitzes, 2010: 463–5. 34 Harun Ibn-Yahya 1932: 156. 35 Komnene 2009: 71–2; Vasiliev 1937: 39–70; Blöndal 1978: 103–21. 36 Sturluson 1961: 160–72. 37 Komnene 2009: 71–3. 38 Skylitzes 2010: 248, 262; Psellos 1966: 303; Komnene 2009: 74, 91. 39 Liudprand 2007: 180; Choniates 1984: 192. 40 Theophanes Confessor 1997: 534; Genesios 1998: 69; Choniates 1984: 36, 176, 222; Kinnamos 1976: 205–6; Van Millingen 1899: 101; Constantine VII Porphyrogenitos 1967: 69. 41 Van Millingen 1899: 100. 42 Constantine VII Porphyrogenitos 1967: 69; Shepard 2003: 115. 43 Constantine VII Porphyrogenitos 1990: 114–15.

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Chapter 4 1 Eusebius of Caesarea 1976: 85, 87, 120; Alexander 1962: 348–54; Nicol 1988: 52–5. 2 Eustathios of Thessalonica 2013: 17, 19; George Tornikes in Kazhdan and Epstein 1985: 250; Kinnamos 1976: 166. 3 Clavijo 1928: 64; Mathews 1998: 35–9; Mango 1986: 225–8; Cormack 1985: 163–5. 4 Procopius of Caesarea 1940: 82–7. 5 Mango 1986: 199; Choniates 1984: 243; Komnene 2009: 81; Leo the Deacon 2005: 137; William of Tyre 1943: ii. 379; Janin 1964: 120–1; Van Millingen 1899: 269–87. 6 Liudprand of Cremona 2007: 48, 125; Komnene 2009: 167, 188; Choniates 1984: 96; Janin 1964: 121–2. 7 Liudprand of Cremona 2007: 199; Theophanes Confessor 1997: 339, 554, 565, 612, 621; Constantine VII Porphyrogenitos 2012: i. 20, 62, 146, ii. 741–2; Janin 1964: 117–18. 8 For some attempts to reconstruct the layout of the Great Palace, see Mango 1959: 12–13; Janin 1964: 121–2; Magdalino 1978: 101–14; Magdalino 1996: 42–5; Bardill 1999: 217–30; Kostenec 2004: 4–36; Featherstone 2006: 47–60; Kostenec 2007: 56–93. 9 Choniates 1984: 117; Kinnamos 1976: 131–2; Benjamin of Tudela 1907: 13; Pseudo-Kodinos 2013: 367–78; Janin 1964: 123–8. 10 Procopius 1940: 86–7; Mango 1986: 197–8; Benjamin of Tudela 1907: 13; Runciman 1975: 277–83; Magdalino and Nelson 1982: 123–83. 11 Berger 2013: 147; Paton 1916–18: i. 45–7; Robert of Clari 1936: 105; Kinnamos 1976: 69; Featherstone 2005: 845–52. 12 Robert of Clari 1936: 103; Jenkins and Mango 1956: 134–9; Kalavrezou 1997: 55–7; Janin 1969: 232–6. On the beacons, see Constantine VII Porphyrogenitos 1990: 132–5. 13 Robert of Clari 1936: 103; Anthony of Novgorod 1889: 97. 14 Anonymous 1996: 133–5; Theophanes Confessor 1997: 41–2, 468. 15 Constantine VII Porphyrogenitos in Guscin 2009: 45–61; Munitiz, Chrysostomides, Harvalia-Crook and Dendrinos 1997: 32–7; Evagrius Scholasticus 2000: 225–8; Anonymous 1995: 120; Robert of Clari 1936: 104; Choniates 1984: 191. 16 Leo the Deacon 2005: 121, 207–8; Anthony of Novgorod 1889: 97–8; Robert of Clari 1936: 102–5; Anonymous 1995: 120–1; Kinnamos 1976: 69; William of Tyre 1943: ii. 381; Ciggaar 1996: 47–9; Durand 2001: 35; Belting 1994: 526–7; Kalavrezou 1997: 67–70. 17 Constantine VII Porphyrogenitos 2012: i. 3–4, ii. 566–70; Liudprand of Cremona 2007: 197–8; Kinnamos 1976: 69; Papamastorakis 2003: 197–8; Janin 1964: 117–19.

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18 Constantine VII Porphyrogenitos 2012: i. 33–4. 19 Harun Ibn-Yahya 1932: 158; El Cheikh 2004: 155–7; Liudprand of Cremona 2007: 244. 20 Genesios 1998: 22–3; Leo the Deacon 2005: 137–41, 216–17. 21 Skylitzes 2010: 416; Theophanes Confessor 1997: 648–9; Attaleiates 2012: 323–5; Psellos 1966: 365–6; Constantine VII Porphyrogenitos 2012: ii. 814; Komnene 2009: 257–9; Choniates 1984: 301–2; Herrin, 2000: 56–68. 22 Gunther of Pairis 1997: 90. 23 Rousseau 1993: 9. 24 William of Jumièges 1992–5: ii. 106–7. 25 Choniates 1984: 249–50, 296. 26 Choniates 1984: 138, 148, 291; Robert of Clari 1936: 56; Eustathios of Thessalonica 1988: 32–3, 38–9, 40–1. 27 Choniates 1984: 150–2, 155–60, 187–95; Robert of Clari 1936: 50–6. 28 Choniates 1984: 232, 236, 246; Robert of Clari 1936: 56–7. 29 Choniates 1984: 247, 307; Alberic of Trois Fontaines 1874: 870; Gunther of Pairis 1997: 82. 30 Choniates 1984: 247–8, 250–1. 31 Eusebius of Caesarea 1999: 160; Choniates 1984: 252. 32 Mango 1986: 195; Harun Ibn-Yahya 1932: 156–7; Genesios 1998: 111; Brett, Macaulay and Stevenson 1947: 64–97; Kostenec 2007: 88–91; Littlewood 1997: 13–38. 33 Odo of Deuil 1948: 64–5; Sullivan, Talbot and McGrath 2014: 81; Albert of Aachen 2013: ii. 61. 34 Runciman 1980: 223–4; Janin 1964: 143–5, 152–3. 35 Liudprand of Cremona 2007: 260–1; Odo of Deuil 1948: 49; Kinnamos 1976: 63, 69, 200; Choniates 1984: 8; Genesios 1998: 111. 36 Psellos 1966: 321. 37 Choniates 1984: 280–1; Pseudo-Kodinos 2013: 373–4; Genesios 1998: 90–1; Psellos 1966: 57. 38 Choniates 1984: 117. 39 Choniates 1984: 32, 59, 177. 40 Constantine VII Porphyrogenitos 1990: 102–9. 41 Choniates 1984: 242, 294. 42 Constantine VII Porphyrogenitos 1967: 49; Barker 1957: 55; Komnene 2009: 262; George Tornikes in Kazhdan and Epstein 1985: 250. 43 Odo of Deuil 1948: 54–7; Leo the Deacon 2005: 50, 190; Attaleiates 2012: 387–405; Choniates 1984: 323; Angold 1984: 254–66. 44 Komnene 2009: 421. 45 Eustathios of Thessalonica 1988: 54–5. 46 Psellos 2006: 69; Psellos 1966: 178–9, 334; Choniates 1984: xi–xii. 47 Ptochoprodromos in Mango 1980: 82–3.

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48 Leo the Deacon 2005: 144–5. 49 Masudi 1989: 345; Psellos 1966: 75; Tougher 2008: 54–60. 50 Leo the Deacon 2005: 143; Skylitzes 2010: 298–318; Psellos 1966: 28; Tougher 2008: 138. 51 Psellos 1966: 336; Choniates 1984: 277–8. 52 Psellos 1966: 262. 53 Procopius 1935: 178–9; Theophanes Confessor 1997: 651–5. 54 Komnene 2009: 91–4, 96; Zonaras 1841–97: iii. 764; Freely and Çakmak 2004: 204–7. 55 Choniates 1984: 250–1; Brand 1968: 142; Polemis 1968: 131. 56 Choniates 1984: 252, 285. 57 Choniates 1984: 265–9; Brand 1968: 144–6.

Chapter 5 1 William of Tyre 1943: ii. 382; Gerald of Wales 1873: 282; Charanis 1971: 64. 2 Cross and Sherbowitz-Wetzor: 1953: 111; Mathews 1998: 111–35; Cormack 1985: 151–8. 3 Eusebius of Caesarea 1857: 1545–9. 4 Theophanes Confessor 1997: 559, 598, 605, 611–12; Stephen the Deacon 1997: 169–71, 221–2, 264–5, 269–72; Munitiz et al. 1997: 166–8; Cormack 2000: 88–95. 5 John of Damascus 1898: 3–13, 17–22. 6 Skylitzes 2010: 63; Theophanes Continuatus 2011: 266–7. 7 Berger 2013: 143–5; Munitiz, Chrysostomides, Harvalia-Crook and Dendrinos 1997: 32–5, 38–9. 8 Morris 1995: 16–18; Wilson 1996: 66; Janin 1969: 430–44. 9 Cited in Van Millingen 1912: 43; Clavijo 1928: 68–9. 10 Thomas and Hero 2000: i. 97–119; Morris 1995: 16–18; Wilson 1996: 66. 11 These are discussed in more detail in chapter 7. 12 Leo the Deacon 2005: 137; Psellos 1966: 116–17; Christopher of Mytilene 1983: 93; Skylitzes 2010: 268, 390n. 13 Skylitzes 2010: 180; Stethatos 2013: 231–3, 239, 253. 14 Stethatos 2013: 13, 17, 65–7, 311, 313. 15 Harrison 1989: 36–40; Janin 1969: 405–6. 16 Theophanes Continuatus 2011: 259–61, 273–83; Harun Ibn-Yahya 1932: 156; Magdalino 1987: 51–64; Janin 1969: 361–4. 17 Leo the Deacon 2005: 175; Striker 1981: 6–10; Morris 1995: 18–19; Janin 1969: 351–4. 18 Skylitzes 2010: 353n.

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19 Psellos 1966: 71–2; Skylitzes 2010: 362–3, 370; Clavijo 1928: 64–5; Dark and Özgümüş 2013: 34–6; Mango 1992: 473–93; Janin 1969: 218–22. 20 Robert of Clari 1936: 112–13; Choniates 1984: 125; Kinnamos 1976: 207–8; Anthony of Novgorod 1889: 105–6; Ousterhout 2001: 133–50; Janin 1969: 515–23; Cormack 1985: 200–11. 21 Berger 2013: 279; Choniates 1984: 243. 22 Christopher of Mytilene 1983: 97. 23 Constantine Manasses in Mango 1980: 74; Skylitzes 2010: 398; Psellos 1966: 162–4; Attaleiates 2012: 29–31; Ševčenko 1979–80: 717. 24 Attaleiates 2012: 29–31; Skylitzes 2010: 398; Psellos 1966: 164–5, 181; Cormack 1985: 184–9; Cormack 2000: 127–9. 25 Psellos 1966: 181. 26 Psellos 1966: 182–6; Skylitzes 2010: 408–9. 27 Psellos 1966: 250–2; Attaleiates 2012: 85–7; Skylitzes 2010: 444. 28 Clavijo 1928: 77; Anthony of Novgorod 1889: 100; Majeska 1984: 366–71; Janin 1969: 70–6. 29 Psellos 1966: 222; Skylitzes 2010: 445; Miller 1997: 116, 149. 30 Theophanes Continuatus 1838: 370; Skylitzes 2010: 179, 234; Choniates 1984: 283–4; Angold 1995: 129–30, 461. 31 Attaleiates 2012: 125, 493; Zonaras 1841–97: iii. 673–4; Komnene 2009: 79; Polemis 1968: 44. 32 Liudprand of Cremona 2007: 187; Theophanes Continuatus 1838: 433–5. 33 Choniates 1984: 268–9; Psellos 1966: 254–8, 267; Komnene 2009: 71; Jordan and Morris 2012: 253–5. 34 Thomas and Hero 2000: ii. 670; Janin 1969: 188–91. 35 Tornikes 1970: 312; Choniates 1984: 8–9; Zonaras 1841–97: iii. 761–4. 36 Prodromos in Dalby 2003: 97. 37 Psellos 1966: 106; Komnene 2009: 26; Thomas and Hero 2000: i. 251. 38 Choniates 1984: 222, 305; Psellos 1966: 270. 39 Kazhdan 1984: 151. 40 Stethatos 2013: 295–9. 41 Leo the Deacon 2005: 150. 42 Doran 1992: 81–2. 43 Rydén 1981: 106–13. 44 Dawes and Baynes 1977: 21–2, 34–5, 37–8. 45 Leo the Deacon 2005: 218; Morris 1995: 60–1. 46 Costa-Louillet 1954: 179–214; Rydén 1974: 198–9; Dols 1984: 136–7, 145–7. 47 Gregory the Cellarer 2000: 346–7; Psellos 1966: 106–7; Dagron 2002: ii. 458. 48 Choniates 1984: 210; Andrew Salos 1974: 199–261. 49 Christopher of Mytilene 1983: 152–6; Gregory the Cellarer 2000: 327–8; Karpozelos 1984: 23; Magdalino 1981: 54–5. 50 Eustathios of Thessalonica in Magdalino 1981: 60; Robert of Clari 1936: 110.

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51 Dawes and Baynes 1977: 50–1; Psellos 1966: 301. 52 Kekaumenos in Rydén 1981: 111–12; Morris 1995: 61–3.

Chapter 6 1 Robert of Clari 1936: 101, 110; Fulcher of Chartres 1969: 79; Benjamin of Tudela 1907: 13; El Cheikh 2004: 205. 2 Liudprand of Cremona 2007: 272. 3 Theophanes 1997: 534, 585–6; Nikephoros 1990: 117; Allen 1979: 18–19. 4 Theophanes 1997: 593, 608; Dagron 2002: 394–5; Jacoby 1961: 109; Magdalino 1996: 61–7. 5 Theophanes Confessor 1997: 608; Skylitzes 2010: 346; Choniates 1984: 182; Odo of Deuil 1948: 65; Al-Marwazi 1950: 463; Bono, Crow and Bayliss 2001: 1325–33; Mango 1995: 10–13; Teall 1959: 102–4. 6 Eustathios of Thessalonica 2013: 1–10; Kinnamos 1976: 205–6. 7 Teall 1959: 117–32; Magdalino 1995: 36; Laiou 2002: ii. 741; Hamdani 1974: 175. 8 Book of the Eparch in Freshfield 1938: 41–2; Dagron 2002: 453–6. 9 Skylitzes 2010: 377–8. 10 Attaleiates 2012: 367–73, 453, 495; Magdalino 1995: 39–42; Dagron 2002: 453. 11 Odo of Deuil 1948: 65; Anthony of Novgorod 1889: 101; Koder 1995: 49–56. 12 Tacitus 1931–7: iii. 407; Moryson 1907–8: ii. 97; Theophanes 1997: 546; Gunther of Pairis 1997: 84; Book of the Eparch in Freshfield 1938: 40–1; Dalby 2003: 65–6; Dagron 2002: 447, 457–9; Maniatis 2000: 13–42. 13 Book of the Eparch in Freshfield 1938: 39–40, 46–7; Niketas David 2013: 93; Dalby 2003: 63–6; Dagron 2002: 456–7. 14 Jacoby 2010: 128–31; Dalby 2003: 72–4. 15 Jacoby 2010: 134–7; Kocabaş 2014: 31, 35. 16 Smith 2015: 18–19. 17 Choniates 1984: 33–4; Hendy 1970: 29–31, 43–5, 506–8, 513–17; Morrisson 2002: iii. 932–3; Kazhdan and Constable 1982: 43–4; Dagron 2002: 459. 18 Gunther of Pairis 1997: 84; Hendy 1985: 237–42; Harvey 1989: 91–6, 103–5. 19 Psellos 1966: 45; Tyerman 1988: 75–8. 20 Liudprand of Cremona 2007: 200–2. 21 Book of the Eparch in Freshfield 1938: 14; Robert of Clari 1936: 110; Odo of Deuil 1948: 67; Dagron 2002: 432–5; Morrisson 2002: 952–3. 22 Choniates 1984: 32, 287–8. 23 Book of the Eparch in Freshfield 1938: 21–7, 29–35; Smith 2015: 29; Lopez 1945: 6–7; Harris 1995: 391–2; Maniatis 1999: 263–332; Dagron 2002: 438–44, 461; Mathews 1998: 79–86; Frazer 1973: 147–62. 24 Alexiou 1986: 7–8.

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25 Leo VI 1944: 272–5; Constantine VII Porphyrogenitos 1967: 66–9; Book of the Eparch in Freshfield 1938: 17, 23; Lopez 1945: 1–3, 14. 26 Liudprand 2007: 272. 27 Ralph de Diceto 1876: i. 428; Grabar 1956: 7–26. 28 Goitein 1967–93: i. 44, iv. 168; Jacoby 2000: 33–5, 42–5; Laiou 2002: 750. 29 Choniates 1984: 242; Genesios 1998: 69; Theophanes Continuatus 1838: 8–9; Skylitzes 2010: 53–4. 30 Goitein 1967–93: i. 45–6. 31 Choniates 1984: 291; Komnene 2009: 262; Psellos 1966: 169; Kazhdan and Constable 1982: 42–3; Van Doorninck 2002: 137–48; Dennis 2001: 81–8. 32 Gerald of Wales 1873: 282; Benjamin of Tudela 1907: 12. 33 Al-Marwazi 1950: 462–3; Masudi 1989: 320–4; Goitein 1967–93: i. 42–59, 211; Van Doorninck 2002: 140–1; Jacoby 2000: 32. 34 Brand 1968: 204. 35 Book of the Eparch in Freshfield 1938: 28; Constantine VII Porphyrogenitos 1967: 56–63; Ibn Fadlan 2012: 112, 155, 159; Shepard 1995: 244–5; Starr 1939: 111–12. 36 Book of the Eparch in Freshfield 1938: 30; Mundell Mango 2000: 198–205. 37 Ibn Fadlan 2012: 160–1; El Cheikh 2004: 60; Goitein 1967–93: i. 103, 417. 38 Stethatos 2013: 381–3; Liudprand 2007: 272; Shepard 1995: 250–3; Lopez 1945: 37; Laiou 2002: 740; Martin 1988: 204. 39 Eadmer 1874: 245–6; Battiscombe 1956: 9–13, 505–25; Mathews 1998: 81; Lopez 1945: 12–13. 40 Ibn Fadlan 2012: 112; Benjamin of Tudela 1907: 13; Antoniadis-Bibicou 1963: 97–155. 41 Book of the Eparch in Freshfield 1938: 19–20; Al-Marwazi 1950: 461–3. 42 Cross and Sherbowitz-Wetzor 1953: 65–8, 71–7; Leo the Deacon 2005: 198–9; Anthony of Novgorod 1889: 105; Lopez 1945: 34–5. 43 Balard 1976: 87–9; Jacoby 2013: 319–20; Otten-Froux 1987: 155; Caffaro 2013: 75, 195–6; Jacoby 1994: 357–61. 44 Liudprand 2007: 272; Eustathios of Thessalonica 1988: 35; Martin 2004: 212; Jacoby 2000: 47–9, 55–8. 45 Constantine VII Porphyrogenitos 1967: 121; Mathews 1998: 148–51. 46 Pozza and Ravegnani 1993: 21–5; Martin 2004: 204–6; Jacoby 2010: 128, 130. 47 Pozza and Ravegnani 1993: 35–45; Komnene 2009: 111–12, 162–3; Jacoby 1994: 350–1; Jacoby 2001a: 153–70; Madden 2003: 8–9; Robbert 1995: 47, 49. 48 Choniates 1984: 323; Harvey 1989: 214–24; Martin 2004: 211–12; Jacoby 1994: 365. 49 Jacoby 2000: 50–5, 68, 72; Hendy 1985: 590–602; Hendy 1970: 40–1; Laiou 2002: 751–2; Kazhdan and Epstein 1985: 176–7. 50 Skylitzes 2010: 170–3.

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51 Constantine VII Porphyrogenitos 1967: 57–63; Theophanes Continuatus 1838: 342–3. 52 Skylitzes 2010: 221; Sullivan, Talbot and McGrath 2014: 320–1; Cross and Sherbowitz-Wetzor 1953: 65–8, 71–7. 53 Skylitzes 2010: 404; Psellos 1966: 199–203; Cross and Sherbowitz-Wetzor 1953: 138–9; Attaleiates, 2012: 33–5. 54 Kinnamos 1976: 209–10. 55 Pozza and Ravegnani 1993: 51–65; Caroldo 2008–12: 129–30, 132–3; Fulcher of Chartres 1969: 276; Kinnamos 1976: 210. 56 Choniates 1984: 295. 57 Caffaro 2013: 95–6, 140, 204–7; Kinnamos 1976: 211. 58 Kinnamos 1976: 211–14; Caroldo 2008–12: i. 143–7; Choniates 1984: 97–8; Brand 1968: 67; Martin 2004: 212–13; Madden 2003: 52–6. 59 William of Tyre 1943: ii. 464–7; Eustathios of Thessalonica 1988: 33–5; Choniates 1984: 140–1; Brand 1968: 41–3. 60 Pozza and Ravegnani 1993: 84–99; Brand 1968: 195–213. 61 Pozza and Ravegnani 1993: 119–37; Brand 1968: 200–6, 213–21; Madden 2003: 113–16. 62 Choniates 1984: 244, 262–3, 290, 295; Jacoby 1994: 354, 363–4; Lopez 1945: 32; Brand 1968: 138–9.

Chapter 7 1 Odo of Deuil 1948: 65. 2 Liudprand of Cremona 2007: 238–9; Magdalino 2002: 533–5; Kazhdan and Constable 1982: 50; Thomas and Hero 2000: i. 336. 3 Book of the Eparch in Freshfield 1938: 32–5, 48–50; Choniates 1984: 68. 4 Choniates 1984: 193; Psellos 1966: 102–3. 5 Christopher of Mytilene 1983: 74–5; Talbot 1984: 267–9. 6 Kyriakis 1974: 296. 7 Odo of Deuil 1948: 65; Choniates 1984: 288. 8 Leo VI 1944: 372–5. 9 Agathias of Myrina: 1975: 141–3. 10 Leo the Deacon 2005: 112. 11 Magdalino 1998: 227–30. 12 Eustathios of Thessalonica 2013: 1–10; Kinnamos 1976: 205–6; Leo the Deacon 2005: 217–18; Attaleiates 2013: 161–2; Choniates 1984: 67; Kinnamos 1976: 157. 13 Berger 2013: 11, 31; Choniates 1984: 84–5; Mesarites 1957: 864–5. 14 Liudprand of Cremona 2007: 245, 251, 258; Dalby 2003: 66–9; Dalby 2011: 348–9.

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15 Psellos 1966: 94; Book of the Eparch in Freshfield 1938: 43–4; Choniates 1984: 215–16, 305; Liudprand of Cremona 2007: 239; Karpozelos 1984: 26; Dagron 2002: 459–60; Dalby 2011: 173. 16 Maniatis 2001: 339–51; Vryonis 1963: 296–9. 17 Komnene 2009: 452–4; Miller 2003: 51–62. 18 Komnene 2009: 453; Theophanes Continuatus 1838: 449, 458–9; Magdalino 1996: 31–6. 19 Choniates 1984: 244; Attaleiates 2012: 87; Jordan and Morris 2012: 205–6; Miller 1997: 81–4, 113–17. 20 Thomas and Hero 2000: ii. 757, 760; Miller 1997: 12–29. 21 Talbot 1984: 275–8. 22 Thomas and Hero 2000: ii. 766–7; Talbot 1984: 278. 23 Berger 2013: 181. 24 Theophanes Continuatus 2011: 34–5. 25 Komnene 2009: 454; Miller 2003: 209–46; Browning 1978: 46–9. 26 Constantine VII Porphyrogenitos 2012: i. 63, 115–17, 341–8, ii. 541–4; Liudprand of Cremona 2007: 257. 27 Paton 1916–18: v. 331; Psellos 2006: 182–6; Justinian 1932: xvii. 103; Laiou 1986: 112–13, 121–2; Puchner 2002: 317; Angold 1995: 466–7; Kazhdan and Constable 1982: 67–8. 28 Cameron 1973: 252–8; Mango 1981: 346–7. 29 Mercati 1897: 141; Choniates 1984: 160; Constantine VII Porphyrogenitos 2012: i. 307, 309–11, 317, 320, 328–30, 339; Al-Marwazi 1950: 461–2; Benjamin of Tudela 1907: 12–13; Harun Ibn-Yahya 1932: 155; Paton 1916–18: v. 149–55, 361–73, 385–9; Stephen the Deacon 1997: 166. 30 Justinian 1932: xvii. 55; Sullivan, Talbot and McGrath 2014: 349–51; Gregory the Cellarer 2000: 331–2; Choniates 1984: 160; Kazhdan and Constable 1982: 66–7. 31 Eusebius of Caesarea 1976: 87. 32 Theophanes Confessor 1997: 542; Skylitzes 2010: 368. 33 Psellos 1966: 75–6. 34 Pharr 1952: 405; Wilson 1996: 2. 35 Stethatos 2013: 5; Psellos 2006: 60–2; Komnene 2009: 147; Choniates 1984: xi–xii. 36 Psellos 1966: 263–4. 37 Choniates 1984: 116, 193; Komnene 2009: 59, 422; Dalby 2003: 98. 38 Komnene 2009: 358–9; Morgan 1954: 292–7; Alexiou 1982–3: 29–45. 39 Choniates 1984: 132; Vryonis 1963: 291–2. 40 Leo the Deacon 2005: 113–15; Choniates 1984: 252, 285. 41 Procopius of Caesarea 1914–28: i. 218–21; Choniates 1984: 288–9. 42 Psellos 1966: 102–3. 43 Attaleiates 2012: 19–21; Skylitzes 2010: 392–3; Psellos 1966: 131–2.

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44 Skylitzes 2010: 393. 45 Psellos 1966: 138–9, 145–6. 46 Skylitzes 2010: 394–6; Sturluson 1961: 171. 47 Liudprand of Cremona 2007: 185. 48 Attaleiates 2012: 101–9; Skylitzes 2010: 463–4; Psellos 1966: 297–8, 300–1; Choniates 1984: 192–3. 49 Leo VI 2010: 3. Cf. Eusebius of Caesarea 1976: 87; Eusebius of Caesarea 1999: 153–4; Leo VI 1944: 274–5; Barker 1957: 55–7, 84–5; Alexander 1962: 348–54; Nicol 1988: 52–3. 50 Choniates 1984: 183. 51 Constantine VII Porphyrogenitos 2012: i. 3–4; Liudprand of Cremona 2007: 184; Skylitzes 2010: 57. 52 Constantine VII Porphyrogenitos 2012: i. 90, 127, ii. 828; Attaleiates 2012: 31; Book of the Eparch in Freshfield 1938: 5; Attaleiates 2012: 129–31; Choniates 1984: 244, 265; Psellos 1966: 170, 338; Komnene 2009: 87–8; Vryonis 1963: 309–13. 53 Harun Ibn-Yahya 1932: 156–7; Mango 1986: 195; Leo the Deacon 2005: 144; Constantine VII Porphyrogenitos 2012: i. 345. 54 Leo the Deacon 2005: 112; Psellos 1966: 57; Attaleiates 2012: 87–9; Timotheus of Gaza 1949: 31; Demangel and Mamboury 1939: 21, 31. 55 Genesios 1998: 112; Theophanes Continuatus 2011: 305; Choniates 1984: 244. 56 Theophanes Confessor 1997: 361; Komnene 2009: 452–4; Miller 2003: 51–62. 57 Procopius of Caesarea 1940: 36–7; Berger 2013: 173–4; Psellos 1966: 107; Talbot 1984: 278. 58 Constantine VII Porphyrogenitos 2012: i. 177.

Chapter 8 1 Thomas and Hero 2000: i. 77; Trypanis 1951: 46. 2 Psellos 2006: 58. 3 Justinian 1932: xvii. 55; Attaleiates 2012: 161; Dalby 2011: 173. 4 Scheltema, Holwerda and van der Wal 1955–88: i. 49; Leo VI 1944: 86–90. 5 Tornikes 1970: 244–5, 262–3; Komnene 2009: 3; Laiou 1981: 253–7. 6 Justinian 1932: 59; Talbot 1996: 265–7. 7 Symeon the Logothete 2006: 216. 8 Skylitzes 2010: 393. 9 Freshfield 1926: 74; Skylitzes 2010: 82–3; Genesios 1998: 71. 10 Freshfield 1926: 73; Laiou 1981: 237–8. 11 Berger 2013: 153; Genesios 1998: 69; Theophanes Continuatus 1838: 8–9; Skylitzes 2010: 53–4; Choniates 1984: 33–4; Ibn Battuta 1958–2000: ii. 508; Laiou 1981: 245–6; Laiou 2001: 261–73.

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12 Christopher of Mytilene 1983: 85–7; Laiou 1986: 116–20. 13 Thomas and Hero 2000: ii. 757; Miller 1997: 15, 214. 14 Odo of Deuil 1948: 65; Psellos 1966: 108; Choniates 1984: 177. 15 Life of St Theodosia of Constantinople in Talbot 1998: 1–7. 16 Leo the Deacon 2005: 113–15; Choniates 1984: 192; Psellos 1966: 138–9. 17 Theognostos 2013: 195. 18 Sullivan, Talbot and McGrath 2014: 523–5. 19 Pharr 1952: 231–2; Justinian 1932: xvii. 160–1. 20 Malalas 1986: 253; Theophanes Confessor 1997: 269–70; Procopius of Caesarea 1935: 141. 21 Tafur 1926: 142; Miller 2003: 240; Smythe 1999: 146–7. 22 Psellos 1966: 28; Herrin 2000: 56–68. 23 Moschos 1992: 11, 105, 111; Dols 1984: 144–5. 24 Komnene 2009: 452–4; Leo the Deacon 2005: 149; Thomas and Hero 2000: ii. 767–8; Magdalino 1996: 31–2. 25 Leo the Deacon 2005: 149; Rydén 1974: 198–9; Dols 1984: 136–7, 141–2, 145–7. 26 Pharr 1952: 440. 27 Stethatos 2013: 185–7, 217; Angold 1995: 73–5. 28 Komnene 2009: 455–63; Choniates 1984: 85; Komnene 2009: 455–63. 29 Komnene 2009: 462–3. 30 Robert of Clari 1936: 79–80; Harun Ibn-Yahya 1932: 156. 31 Anthony of Novgorod 1889: 107; Michael the Syrian 1899–1910: iii. 185. 32 Sturluson 1961: 170; Ciggaar 1995: 119; Jacoby 2013: 327; Vasiliev 1937: 60–2; Arkel-de Leeuwvan Weenen and Ciggaar 1979: 428, 430; Blöndal 1978: 185–8. 33 Duba and Schabel 2015: 39, 400–7; Jacoby 2001a: 158; Brand 1968: 206. 34 Humbert of Silva Candida 1865: 1004. 35 Constantine VII Porphyrogenitos 1967: 93; Choniates 1984: 303; Hamdani 1974: 173; Harris 2012a: 105, 110. 36 Benjamin of Tudela 1907: 14; Villehardouin 2008: 42; Choniates 1984: 163; Sharf 1971: 117; Jacoby 1995: 225. 37 Pharr 1952: 470; Starr 1939: 97–8; Benjamin of Tudela 1907: 14; Berger 2013: 157. 38 Theophanes Confessor 1997: 554; Theophanes Continuatus 2011: 309–11; Starr 1939: 127–8; Sharf 1971: 61–4, 83–4, 90, 94–5, 98–9; Jacoby 1995: 223. 39 Benjamin of Tudela 1907: 14. 40 Pharr 1952: 469–70; Starr 1939: 144. 41 Sharf 1971: 109, 111–12; Starr 1939: 190, 236; Goitein 1967–93: i. 58; Bowman 1985: 134, 283. 42 Benjamin of Tudela 1907: 14; Holo 2009: 167–8; Jacoby 1995: 227–8.

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43 Holo 2009: 69, 215–16; Jacoby 2000: 48. 44 Pozza and Ravegnani 1993: 23; Goitein 1973: 42–5; Goitein 1967–93: v. 36; Holo 2009: 103, 157–60. 45 John Tzetzes in Kazhdan and Epstein 1985: 259–60. 46 Choniates 1984: 288, 302–3. 47 Eustathios of Thessalonica 1988: 33; Trypanis 1951: 43. 48 Leo the Deacon 2005: 113; Skylitzes 2010: 264. 49 Psellos 1966: 102–3; Theophanes Continuatus 2013: 11–13; Stethatos 2013: 5; Skylitzes 2010: 54; Charanis 1963: 23–6. 50 Munitiz, Chrysostomides, Harvalia-Crook and Dendrinos 1997: 46; Sullivan, Talbot and McGrath 2014: 421–3; Majeska 1984: 164, 282–3. 51 Benjamin of Tudela 1907: 14; Attaleiates 2012: 459. 52 Malalas 1986: 228; Theophanes Confessor 1997: 240. 53 Skylitzes 2010: 372; Stethatos 2013: 115–23; Humbert of Silva Candida 1865: 1001. 54 Hill 1962: 2–3; Komnene 2009: 275, 277; Albert of Aachen 2013: i. 28. 55 Villehardouin 2008: 43. 56 Komnene 2009: 285–8; Hill 1962: 6–7; Albert of Aachen 2013: i. 50, 79–81. 57 Komnene 2009: 279, 285; Kinnamos 1976: 64–5. 58 Albert of Aachen 2013: ii. 60–1. 59 Choniates 1984: 222. 60 Odo of Deuil 1948: 55–7; Angold 1995: 513. 61 Pozza and Ravegnani 1993: 132–4; Brand 1968: 202–3. 62 Kinnamos 1976: 210; Choniates 1984: 97; Eustathios of Thessalonica 1988: 34–5. 63 Caffaro 2013: 95–6; Kinnamos 1976: 211–14; Caroldo 2008–12: i. 143–7; Choniates 1984: 97–8. 64 William of Tyre 1943: ii. 464–7; Eustathios of Thessalonica 1988: 33–5; Choniates 1984: 140–1; Gunther of Pairis 1997: 84. 65 Brand 1968: 208–11. 66 Choniates 1984: 215–16.

Chapter 9 1 Zonaras 1841–97: iii. 14–15; Glykys 1836: 463; Vasiliev 1942–3: 489–90. 2 Freely and Çakmak 2004: 235–44; Striker and Kuban 1997: 8. 3 Choniates 1984: 291–2. 4 Choniates 1984: 314; Akropolites 2007: 114; Brand 1968: 120. 5 Choniates 1984: 280–2; Akropolites 2007: 118. 6 Choniates 1984: 289–90, 294; Brand 1968: 122–4.

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7 Choniates 1984: 131–2, 140. 8 Choniates 1984: 294. 9 Choniates 1984: 294–5; Villehardouin 2008: 49–50; Brand 1968: 275–6. 10 Villehardouin 2008: 38–9; Robert of Clari 1936: 67–8. 11 Villehardouin 2008: 42; Robert of Clari 1936: 69–70; Choniates 1984: 297. 12 Villehardouin 2008: 45; Choniates 1984: 298; Robert of Clari 1936: 70–1. 13 Choniates 1984: 299, 301–4, 333–4. 14 Choniates 1984: 302; Villehardouin 2008: 51. 15 Choniates 1984: 302, 305–6; Villehardouin 2008: 52, 55; Jenkins 1947: 31–3. 16 Gunther of Pairis 1997: 90; Devastatio Constantinopolitana in Andrea 2000: 219; Villehardouin 2008: 58–60; Robert of Clari 1936: 84–6, 94. 17 Choniates 1984: 307. 18 Choniates 1984: 307–9; Villehardouin 2008: 59. 19 Robert of Clari 1936: 88–91; Choniates 1984: 312; Villehardouin 2008: 61; Wolff 1948: 319–28. 20 Villehardouin 2008: 63–5; Robert of Clari 1936: 70–1, 95–100. 21 Choniates 1984: 313–14; Villehardouin 2008: 66; Gunther of Pairis 1997: 107–8. 22 Robert of Clari 1936: 101; Villehardouin 2008: 66–7; Nicholas Mesarites in Brand 1968: 269; Choniates 1984: 324. 23 Choniates 1984: 322; Villehardouin 2008: 67–8; Robert of Clari 1936: 100–1; Ferrard 1971: 104. 24 Choniates 1984: 315, 357; Clavijo 1928: 65; Gunther of Pairis 1997: 109; Stilbes 1963: 83. 25 Perry 2015: 96–7; Gunther of Pairis 1997: 109–12, 125–7. 26 Choniates 1984: 298; Villehardouin 2008: 47; Madden 1991–2: 73–4. 27 Choniates 1984: 303; Villehardouin 2008: 54–5; Madden 1991–2: 74–84. 28 Choniates 1984: 313. 29 Magdalino 1998: 227–30. 30 Komnene 2009: 73–4, 131; Choniates 1984: 263, 302. 31 Andrea 2000: 140–4; Villehardouin 2008: 62–3, 69–70; Robert of Clari 1936: 91–2, 116–18; Choniates 1984: 329. 32 Choniates 1984: 353. 33 Akropolites 2007: 145, 157–8, 184–5. 34 Jacoby 2005: 197–8; Robbert 1995: 44, 56. 35 Sanudo Torsello 1953: 150–1. 36 Alberic of Trois Fontaines 1874: 886; Anonymous of Soissons in Andrea 2000: 235–6; Perry 2015: 80–4. 37 Henry of Valenciennes 1948: 106–7; Wolff 1954: 52–3. 38 Choniates 1984: 357–62. 39 Sanudo Torsello 1953: 150–1; Wolff 1954: 278.

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40 Freeman 2004: 89–97; Tafur 1926: 143; Harrison 1989: 94, 103, 132. 41 Wolff 1948: 326; Mathews 1998: 68–9, 130; Gallo 1967: 9–13, 133–55 and plates 28, 32, 35, 37 and 39; Perry 2015: 99–102, 158–68. 42 Ralph Coggeshall 1875: 202–3. 43 Constable 1966: 1035–42; Perry 2015: 34. 44 Robert of Clari 1936: 5; Tougher 2008: 80, 114; Lafontaine-Dosogne 1987: 13–47; Perry 2015: 38–9; Guscin 2009: 187–91. 45 Robert of Clari 1936: 126; Wolff 1948: 320–1; Majeska 1984: 364. 46 Tafur 1926: 143; Majeska 1984: 274–5; Madden 1992: 120–2. 47 Andrea 2000: 142, 144; Robbert 1995: 46–8. 48 Jacoby 2001b: 198. 49 Robbert 1995: 52–4; Jacoby 2005: 208; Jacoby 2001b: 184–5. 50 Goitein 1967–93: ii. 462; Jacoby 1995: 228. 51 Akropolites 2007: 153–5, 189. 52 Arkel-de Leeuwvan Weenen and Ciggaar 1979: 440; Robbert 1995: 46. 53 Choniates 1984: 336; Duba and Schabel 2015: 39–40, 300–4. 54 Striker and Kuban 1997: 16–17; Jordan and Morris 2012: 14; Talbot 1993: 246. 55 Duba and Schabel 2015: 278, 358–9. 56 Talbot 1993: 247; Striker and Kuban 1997: 128–42. 57 Stilbes 1963: 83; Talbot 1993: 247. 58 Pachymeres 1984–2000: i. 175; Talbot 1993: 248; Robbert 1995: 53. 59 Pachymeres 1984–2000: i. 218–19; Majeska 1984: 142, 242–3; Talbot 1993: 250. 60 Polo 2008: 17 61 Choniates 1984: 322.

Chapter 10 1 Choniates 1984: 323–4. 2 Choniates 1984: 333–4; Akropolites 2007: 114–15; Gunther of Pairis 1997: 114–16; Villehardouin 2008: 72–3, 83. 3 Akropolites 2007: 123–4, 129; Choniates 1984: 286–7, 339; Villehardouin 2008: 83, 358. 4 Akropolites 2007: 118–19. 5 Akropolites 2007: 194–5. 6 Akropolites 2007: 375–6. 7 Akropolites 2007: 379–81; Pachymeres 1984–2000: i. 194–206. 8 Akropolites 2007: 383–7; Pachymeres 1984–2000: i. 216–18. 9 Pachymeres 1984–2000: i. 254–8, 266–70, ii. 332–55.

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10 Pachymeres 1984–2000: iv. 676–7; Macrides 1980: 22–4. 11 Pachymeres 1984–2000: i. 250–1; Talbot 1993: 249. 12 Talbot 1993: 253. 13 Pachymeres 1984–2000: i. 218, ii. 649–52; Talbot 1993: 250–1. 14 Mathews 1998: 159. 15 Pachymeres 1984–2000: iii. 258–61; Striker and Kuban 1997: 17, 143–9; Mango 1992: 477–8, 491; Talbot 1993: 253–5. 16 Thomas and Hero 2000: iii. 1237–53; Pseudo-Kodinos 2013: 195; Janin 1969: 92–4; Talbot 1993: 254. 17 Pachymeres 1984–2000: iii. 118–20; Majeska 1984: 39, 267–8. 18 Berger 2013: 161; Gregoras 1829–55: i. 273, 275, 277; Talbot 2001: 330. 19 Hendy 1985: 161–4, 172, 513–36. 20 Gregoras 1829–55: i. 273–5. 21 Thomas and Hero 2000: iii. 1254–94; Majeska 1984: 309–12; Pachymeres 1984–2000: iv. 412; Talbot 2001: 336–7-8; Miller 1997: 200–4; Freely and Çakmak 2004: 175–8. 22 Talbot 2001: 234–5. 23 Thomas and Hero 2000: v. 1378. 24 Belting, Mango and Mouriki 1978: 11–22; Mathews 1998: 153. 25 Mango 1986: 246–7; Ševčenko 1975: 31. 26 Featherstone 2011: 216, 223, 225–6; Ševčenko 1975: 90–1. 27 Featherstone 2011: 223; Ousterhout 2002: 35–69. 28 Ousterhout 2002: 70–80. 29 Bowman 1985: 233; Ibn Battuta 1958–2000: ii. 504, 506, 511. 30 Ibn Battuta 1958–2000: ii. 509; Buondelmonti 1897: 242; Majeska 1984: 96, 160; Gregoras 1829–55: iii. 255–7; Mango 1986: 249; Tafur 1926: 139. 31 Clavijo 1928: 71–6; Majeska 1984: 200, 224–6. 32 Ibn Battuta 1958–2000: ii. 511. 33 Clavijo 1928: 64–5, 79–80; Majeska 1984: 276–7. 34 Majeska 1984: 42; Bertrandon de la Brocquière 1988: 102–3; Clavijo 1928: 83; Tafur 1926: 142. 35 Bertrandon de la Brocquière 1988: 103; Buondelmonti 1897: 244; Majeska 1984: 42, 299–301. 36 Majeska 1984: 272; Buondelmonti 1897: 244. 37 Bertrandon de la Brocquière 1988: 101; Tafur 1926: 140–1; Majeska 1984: 237–40; Barbaro 1969: 61; Schiltberger 1879: 79–80. 38 Bertrandon de la Brocquière 1988: 101, 105–6; Clavijo 1928: 69–71; Tafur 1926: 143; Buondelmonti 1897: 243–4; Schiltberger 1879: 79; Manuel Chrysoloras in Mango 1986: 250; Majeska 1984: 184, 274–5. 39 Schiltberger 1879: 79. 40 Majeska 1984: 34, 130, 216–17, 222.

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41 Majeska 1984: 30; Mandeville 1983: 48. 42 Perry 2015: 174; Majeska 1984: 38–42, 44, 334–6. 43 Majeska 1984: 100, 140, 144, 146, 164, 282–3. 44 Majeska 1984: 36, 364–5; Clavijo 1928: 84–5; Tafur 1926: 141–2. 45 Majeska 1984: 28. 46 Muntaner 2006: 66. 47 Tafur 1926: 141; Ibn Battuta 1958–2000: ii. 508; Clavijo 1928: 88–9; Laiou 1980–1: 182–3. 48 Choniates 1984: 303; Goitein 1967–93: ii. 462; Jacoby 1995: 228; Jacoby 2001b: 198. 49 Talbot 1993: 252–3; Bowman 1985: 233; Ibn Battuta 1958–2000: ii. 513. 50 Bowman 1985: 54–5, 233, 243, 278; Majeska 1984: 268–9; Ibn Battuta 1958–2000: ii. 505–6; Jacoby 1995: 228–30. 51 Majeska 1984: 285–6. 52 Akropolites 2007: 131–2, 148; Pachymeres 1984–2000: i. 78. 53 Muntaner 2006: 44; Pseudo-Kodinos 2013: 155. 54 Akropolites 2007: 376. 55 Pachymeres 1984–2000: i. 218–20, 224–6; Pseudo-Kodinos 2014: 183, 185. 56 Pachymeres 1984–2000: i. 218–20; Pseudo-Kodinos 2014: 153; Makuscev 1874: i. 156–8. 57 Miklosich and Müller 1860–90: iii. 98–100. 58 Pozza and Ravegnani 1996: 56–65; Pachymeres 1984–2000: i. 218–20; Majeska 1984: 150, 335–6. 59 Pachymeres 1984–2000: ii. 542. 60 Kaeppeli 1953: 179; Bertrandon de la Brocquière 1988: 94–5; Buondelmonti 1897: 245. 61 Muntaner 2006: 44–5; Pachymeres 1984–2000: iv. 336–8. 62 Pachymeres 1984–2000: iii. 262–6, 268. 63 Pachymeres, 1984–2000: i. 226; Clavijo 1928: 91–3; Tafur 1926: 149. 64 Clavijo 1928: 90; Bertrandon de la Brocquière 1988: 88–9; Tafur 1926: 115; Mitchell, Bodnar and Foss 2015: 35. 65 Gregoras 1829–55: i. 208–9, iii. 841–2. 66 Bowman 1985: 244–7. 67 Lopez and Raymond 1955: 313. 68 Pachymeres 1984–2000: ii. 534–40.

Chapter 11 1 Ševčenko 1975: 30, 36, 89. 2 Muntaner 2006: 46, 49.

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3 Gregoras 1829–55: ii. 788; Hendy 1985: 230; Gallo 1967: 31–2. 4 Gregoras 1829–55: ii. 694–5; 797–8. 5 Gregoras 1829–55: iii. 255–7; Mango 1986: 249; Pseudo-Kodinos 2013: 14. 6 Barker 1957: 194; Schiltberger 1879: 84. 7 Doukas 1975: 83, 85–6; Bernicolas-Hatzopoulos 1983: 41, 50. 8 Chrysoloras 1961: 352–3. 9 Doukas 1975: 226. Cf. Berger 2013: 145. 10 Kananos 1838: 460–2, 472–8. 11 Tafur 1926: 146; Doukas 1975: 83; Kritovoulos 1954: 27; Clavijo 1928: 88; Buondelmonti 1897: 244–5; Bernicolas-Hatzopoulos 1983: 42–6, 49–50. 12 Bertrandon de la Brocquière 1988: 103–4; Sphrantzes 1980: 46–7; Tafur 1926: 142. 13 Majeska 1984: 32–4; Clavijo 1928: 76; Mandeville 1983: 46; Tafur 1926: 139, 140–1, 145; Schiltberger 1879: 80. 14 Majeska 1984: 166–95. 15 Mitchell, Bodnar and Foss 2015: 31–5, 265–71; Procopius 1940: 395–8. 16 Miller 1997: 204–6; Harris 1996: 209; Harris 1995: 391–2. 17 Clavijo 1928: 64–8, 77; Van Millingen 1899: 108, 192–3; Laiou 1980–1: 201–5; Harris 2012b: 123–8. 18 Kritovoulos 1954: 14–15, Doukas 1975: 201–2. 19 Barbaro 1969: 9–10; Doukas 1975: 196–7, 199–201; Kritovoulos 1954: 18–21. 20 Sphrantzes 1980: 69; Barbaro 1969: 15, 22–4, 27; Doukas 1975: 212–13; Philippides and Hanak 2011: 625–31. 21 Sphrantzes 1980: 69; Barbaro 1969: 27, 30–1; Kritovoulos 1954: 41–2. 22 Barbaro 1969: 37–8; Kritovoulos 1954: 55–7; Doukas 1975: 214–15. 23 Barbaro 1969: 30, 35; Doukas 1975: 200, 215–17, 221; Kritovoulos 1954: 45–9. 24 Doukas 1975: 215; Kritovoulos 1954: 58–9. 25 Kritovoulos 1954: 59; Barbaro 1969: 49, 56; Vasiliev 1942–3: 497–8. 26 Doukas 1975: 222–4; Kritovoulos 1954: 72–4. 27 Philippides and Hanak 2011: 231–88. 28 Doukas 1975: 224–5, 240; Barbaro 1969: 66–7; Kritovoulos 1954: 72–4, 76. 29 Kritovoulos 1954: 82. 30 Kritovoulos 1954: 77; Doukas 1975: 231; Babinger 1978: 469. 31 Kritovoulos 1954: 93, 104–5; Doukas 1975: 243; Madden 1992: 123–4. 32 Kritovoulos 1954: 140, 207–8; Dark and Özgümüş 2013: 85–6; Inalcık 2012: 9–10, 633–4. 33 Doukas 1975: 244; Striker and Kuban 1997: 17–19; Van Millingen 1912: 214; Inalcık 1998a: 252–3; Inalcık 2012: 9, 319, 483. 34 Doukas 1975: 244; Inalcık 2012: 490–1; Van Millingen 1912: 91; Babinger 1978: 112–13, 411; Freely and Çakmak 2004: 297; Babinger 1978: 112–13; Inalcık 1998a: 251–2.

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35 Babinger 1978: 246–51. 36 Doukas 1975: 231, 240–1; Inalcık 2012: 2–3; Inalcık 1998b: 276–7; Dursteler 2006: 22–3, 142. 37 Kritovoulos 1954: 93, 148; Inalcık 2012: 581–7, 597–8; Bowman 1985: 189–90; Evliya Çelebi 2010: 18–19. 38 Kritovoulos 1954: 14, 94–5; Babinger 1978: 377–8, 497–8. 39 Philippides 1990: 57; Inalcık 2012: 489–90, 498–9; Mango 1992: 476–7. 40 Cantemir 1734: 105; Van Millingen 1912: 276–7; Gilles 1988: 218; Babinger 1978: 215. 41 Inalcık 1998b: 276–7; Dursteler 2006: 181. 42 Khoja Sa’d-Ud-Din 1879: 33. 43 Von Harff 1946: 243. 44 Necipoğlu 2005: 83. 45 Babinger 1978: 379, 411, 469. 46 Gilles 1988: 205; Van Millingen 1912: 49, 148, 233, 304; Striker 1981: 10; Belting, Mango and Mouriki 1978: 35–8; Inalcık 2012: 499–500. 47 Von Harff 1946: 240–1, 244; Dursteler 2006: 245. 48 Von Harff 1946: 243. 49 Moryson 1907–8: ii. 94; Sandys 1621: 31; Nicolay 1576: 104; Grelot 1683: 125–6; Wortley Montagu 1965–7: i. 398–9; Gerlach 1674: 217. 50 Gilles 1988: 96–8, 150; Freshfield 1922: 90. 51 Van Millingen 1899: 270–3. 52 Busbecq 1977: 45; Gilles 1988: 83; Wortley Montagu 1965–7: i. 400. 53 Evliya Çelebi 2010: 16–17. 54 Necipoğlu 2005: 321. 55 Van Millingen 1899: 21–2; Mango 1992: 474. 56 Gilles 1988: 69–70, 156, 158, 187. 57 Gilles 1988: 192–3; Moryson 1907–8: 96. 58 Gilles 1988: 196–9; Majeska 1984: 272; Freshfield 1922: 90; Necipoğlu 2005: 274–5. 59 Gilles 1988: 97–8, 172–3, 192–3, 222. 60 Gilles 1988: 111–12. 61 Nicolay 1576: 94–105; Gerlach 1674: 358; Freshfield 1922: 87–104. 62 Sandys 1621: 30–6.

Chapter 12 1 Demangel and Mamboury 1939: 1–25; Mathews 1976: 200–1. 2 Clavijo 1928: 89; Schiltberger 1879: 79; Ibn Battuta 1958–2000: 508; Georgacas 1947: 366–7.

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3 Whittemore 1942: 7; Nelson 2004: 155–86. 4 Ousterhout 2002: 15–16; Belting, Mango and Mouriki 1978: v–vi; Freely and Çakmak 2004: 264–77. 5 Kostenec 2007: 80–1. 6 Casson 1928: v; Kostenec 2007: 46–9; Kostenec 2007: 59–63. 7 Brett, Macaulay and Stevenson 1947: 64–97; Whitby 2000: 45–56; Kostenec 2007: 88–91; Bardill 1999: 217–30. 8 Girgin 2008: 267–73. 9 Robert 1969: 52, 56. 10 Psellos 1966: 72; Dark and Özgümüş 2013: 34–5, 75–7. 11 Pulak, Ingram and Jones 2014: 8–25; Kocabaş 2014: 26–39. 12 This part of the group (the second boy and the geese) can be seen in Figure 9 (p. 70) above. 13 Freely and Çakmak 2004: 49–54. 14 Choniates 1984: 301. 15 Choniates 1984: 243; Freely and Çakmak 2004: 63, 73–4, 253–5; Van Millingen 1899: 131–53. 16 This mosaic can be seen in Figure 15 (p. 174) above. 17 Dark and Özgümüş 2013: 90. 18 Harrison 1989: 43–6. 19 Freely and Çakmak 2004: 47–8. 20 Freely and Çakmak 2004: 211–20. 21 Whitby and Whitby 1989: 65. 22 Montagu 1965–7: i. 400. 23 Freely and Çakmak 2004: 151–2; Kostenec 2007: 59–67, 77–9. 24 Freely and Çakmak 2004: 129–36. 25 Belting, Mango and Mouriki 1978: 48–54; Freely and Çakmak 2004: 264–9. 26 Striker 1981: 5, 30–1; Freely and Çakmak 2004: 178–86. 27 Freely and Çakmak 2004: 208. 28 Choniates 1984: 312–13; Freely and Çakmak 2004: 204–7. 29 Freely and Çakmak 2004: 136–44, 256–8. 30 Wilson 1893: 52–3; Freely and Çakmak 2004: 65–72. 31 Mathews 1976: 319; Freely and Çakmak 2004: 62–3. 32 Freely and Çakmak 2004: 59–60, 146–51. 33 Freely and Çakmak 2004: 164–7. 34 Düll, Luttrell and Keen 1991: 174–90. 35 Necipoğlu 2005: 220–1; Dark and Özgümüş 2013: 37–8. 36 Van Millingen 1899: 273–4; Kostenec 2007: 60. 37 Constantine VII Porphyrogenitos 2012: ii. 813; Mango 1969: 307–9. 38 Dark and Özgümüş 2013: 9, 35–6.

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39 Gilles 1988: xlv. 40 Demus 1960: 45–6, 90–7; Mathews 1998: 148–50. 41 Zorzi 1990: 48–59, 64–6. 42 Gallo 1967: plate 48. 43 Freeman 2004: 132–40. 44 Harrison 1989: 94, 103, 132; Demus 1960: 125–37; Perry 2015: 162. 45 Berger 2013: 83–5; Coryate 2013: 39–41; Mathews 1998: 23; Bassett 2004: 242; Striker 1981: 14, 29. 46 Mathews 1998: 68; Wolff 1948: 326; Gallo 1967: 133–55. 47 Pierce and Tyler 1941: 3–9. A similar roundel in the collection of Dumbarton Oaks in Washington DC is thought to depict John II Komnenos: Mathews 1998: 38–9.

Further Reading

This book has focused purely on the city of Constantinople, but readers may wish to place the themes covered here in the wider context of the Byzantine and Ottoman empires as a whole. General surveys of political history 306–1453: W. Treadgold, A History of the Byzantine State and Society, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1997, and the same author’s less detailed A Concise History of Byzantium, Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave, 2001; T. E. Gregory, A History of Byzantium, 2nd edn, Oxford and Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010; D. Stathakopoulos, A Short History of the Byzantine Empire, London: I. B. Tauris, 2014; P. Sarris, Byzantium: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2015 and J. Harris, The Lost World of Byzantium, New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 2015. P. Frankopan, Silk Roads: A New History of the World, London and New York: Bloomsbury, 2015 puts Byzantium into a global context. Thematic introductions to the Byzantine world: A. M. Cameron, The Byzantines, Oxford and Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2006 and her Byzantine Matters, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014; J. Harris (ed.), Palgrave Advances: Byzantine History, Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave, 2005; Cyril Mango (ed.), The Oxford History of Byzantium, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2002; J. Herrin, Byzantium: The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire, London: Penguin, 2007 and J. Shepard (ed.), The Cambridge History of the Byzantine Empire c.500-1492, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. On Constantine and Justinian: Timothy D. Barnes, Constantine, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2014; Paul Stephenson, Constantine: Unconquered Emperor, Christian Victor, London: Overlook Press, 2010; John Moorhead, Justinian, Harlow: Longman 1994; J. A. S. Evans, The Age of Justinian. The Circumstances of Imperial Power, London and New York: Routledge, 1996 and Michael Maas (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Justinian, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. On the crisis of the empire in the seventh century: W. E. Kaegi, Heraclius: Emperor of Byzantium, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003; J. F. Haldon, Byzantium in the Seventh Century: The Transformation of a Culture, 2nd edn, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997; H. Kennedy, The Great Arab Conquests: How the Spread of Islam Changed the World we Live in, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2008.

Further Reading

257

On the period of iconoclasm: L. Brubaker and J. F. Haldon, Byzantium in the Iconoclast Era (c.680-850): A History, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011; Warren Treadgold, The Byzantine Revival, 780-842, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1988 and L. Brubaker, Inventing Byzantine Iconoclasm, London: Bristol Classical Press, 2012. On women in Byzantine political life: B. Hill, Imperial Women in Byzantium, Harlow: Longman, 1999 and J. Herrin, Women in Purple: Rulers of Medieval Byzantium, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2001. On Byzantium around the year 1200: Michael Angold, The Byzantine Empire, 1025-1204: A Political History, 2nd edn, Harlow: Longman, 1997 and J. Harris, Byzantium and the Crusades, 2nd edn, London and New York: Bloomsbury, 2014. On the Byzantine Church and monasticism: J. Hussey, The Orthodox Church in the Byzantine Empire, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1986 and P. Hatlie, The Monks and Monasteries of Constantinople, ca. 350-850, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. On the economy: G. W. Day, Genoa’s Response to Byzantium, 1155–1204, Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1988 and D. M. Nicol, Byzantium and Venice: A Study in Diplomatic and Cultural Relations, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988. On society: John Haldon (ed.), A Social History of Byzantium, Oxford and Maldon, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009. On the Fourth Crusade and the Latin Empire: Michael Angold, The Fourth Crusade: Event and Context, Harlow: Pearson, 2003; J. Phillips, The Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople, London: Jonathan Cape, 2004; R. L. Wolff, ‘The Latin Empire of Constantinople, 1204–61’, in K. M. Setton (ed.), A History of the Crusades, 6 vols, ii. 187–233, Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1969–89. On the reigns of Michael VIII and Andronicus II: D. M. Nicol, The Last Centuries of Byzantium, 1261-1453, 2nd edn, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993; D. J. Geanakoplos, Emperor Michael Palaeologus and the West, 1258–1282: A Study in Byzantine-Latin Relations, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1959; A. E. Laiou, Constantinople and the Latins: The Foreign Policy of Andronicus II, 1282–1328, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1972. On the later years, 1350–1453, and the fall of Constantinople: J. Harris, The End of Byzantium, New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 2010; S. Runciman, The Fall of Constantinople, 1453,

258

Further Reading

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965 and R. Crowley, Constantinople: The Last Great Siege, 1453, London: Faber and Faber, 2005. Ottoman Constantinople: S. Runciman, The Great Church in Captivity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968; P. Mansel, Constantinople: City of the World’s Desire, 1453-1924, London: John Murray, 1995 and J. Freely, Istanbul: the Imperial City, London: Penguin, 1998. Modern Istanbul: O. Pamuk, Istanbul: Memories of a Modern City, trans. M. Freely, London: Faber and Faber, 2005; J. Freely, Blue Guide: Istanbul, 6th edn, London and Budapest: Somerset Books, 2011 and H. Sumner-Boyd and J. Freely, Strolling through Istanbul: The Classic Guide to the City, London: Tauris Parke, 2012.

Web links Aya Sofya Museum (Hagia Sophia): http://ayasofyamuzesi.gov.tr/en and http:// www.360tr.com/34_istanbul/ayasofya/english/. Byzantine Studies Association of North America: www.bsana.net. Byzantine Studies on the Internet (primary sources in translation and other resources): http://legacy.fordham.edu/halsall/byzantium/. Byzantium 1200 (reconstructions of the monuments of Constantinople as they would have been in 1200): http://www.byzantium1200.com. Fethiye Museum (Pammakaristos monastery): http://ayasofyamuzesi.gov.tr/en/ fethiye-museum-pammakaristos. The Freshfield Album – Sixteenth-century views of Ottoman Constantinople, possibly by Stephan Gerlach: https://trinitycollegelibrarycambridge.wordpress. com/2015/12/11/views-of-constantinople-the-freshfield-album-online/. Justinian’s Novels (laws issued 527–65): http://www.uwyo.edu/lawlib/blumejustinian/ajc-edition-1/novels/index.html. Kariye Museum (Chora monastery): http://www.choramuseum.com/. Mapping the Jewish communities of the Byzantine Empire: http://www.mjcb.eu/. Medievalists.net (academic articles about Byzantine history): www.medievalists. net/2010/12/04/byzantine-history/. Museum of Great Palace Mosaics: http://ayasofyamuzesi.gov.tr/en/museum-greatpalace-mosaics. Prosopography of the Byzantine World (lists all individuals mentioned in Byzantine literary sources in the period 1025–1200): www.pbw.kcl.ac.uk/. Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies UK: http://www.byzantium.ac.uk/ home.html. World Monuments Fund – Monastery of the Pantokrator (Zeyrek Camii): https:// www.wmf.org/project/church-monastery-christ-pantokrator-zeyrek-camii. The Yeni Kapi Excavations (Istanbul Archaeological Museum): http://www. istanbularkeoloji.gov.tr/web/32-238-1-1/muze_-_en/museum/announcements/ yenikapi_excavations. Yerebatan Sarayı (Basilika cistern): http://yerebatan.com/homepage.

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Index

Abaka, Mongol ilkhan of Persia (1265–82) 173 Abgar, king of Edessa  18, 62–3 Abraham ibn Ezra, poet and philosopher 140 Actium, Battle of (31 bce) 14 Adelphopoiia 135 administrators  72–4, 120, 122 Adrianople  186, 190; battle of (378) 43; battle of (1205) 159–60 Africans in Constantinople  52, 137 Agnes of France, Byzantine empress 143 Akathistos hymn  40 Akropolites, George, historian  173 Alexander the Great, king of Macedon (336–323 bce) 10 Alexandria  6, 29, 39, 102 Alexios I Komnenos, Byzantine emperor (1081–1118)  1, 5, 61, 66, 72, 90, 98, 123, 129, 137; relations with the First Crusade 144–5; seizure of power (1081) 53–4, 74–5, 158; treaty with Venice (1082) 105–6 Alexios II Komnenos, Byzantine emperor (1180–3)  66–7, 109, 146 Alexios III Angelos, Byzantine emperor (1195–1203)  71, 75–6, 90, 100, 102, 128, 149–51, 158; commercial policy 110–12, 146; and Fourth Crusade 152–4; later adventures 167–8; possible portrait 220–2; renovates Kyriotissa 149, 214; rise to power 66–9 Alexios IV Angelos, Byzantine emperor (1203–4)  151–2, 154–6, 158

Alexios V Mourtzouphlos, Byzantine emperor (1204)  68, 151, 220; capture and execution 167–8; leads opposition to Fourth Crusade 156–7, 214; liaison with Eudokia, daughter of Alexios III 150, 154 Alfred Aethling, English prince  66 Al-Marwazi, Persian physician  121 Amalfi, Amalfitans  17, 103–5, 140, 155 Amastrianon forum  97 Anaplous  92; church of the Archangel Michael 190 Anastasius, eparch  124–5 Anastasius I, Byzantine emperor (491–518) 143 Ancona, Anconitans  152, 180 Andrew Salos, holy fool  93 Andronicus I Komnenos, Byzantine emperor (1183–5)  54, 66–8, 72, 109, 126, 127, 134, 146–7, 187, 212 Andronicus II Palaiologos, Byzantine emperor (1282–1328)  165, 172–4, 178–82, 185, 214 Andronicus III Palaiologos, Byzantine emperor (1328–41)  165, 185–6 Anemodoulion, weather vane  12, 93, 161, 176, 211 Angelina, Euphrosyne, mother of Isaac II and Alexios III  66–7 Angelos, Andronicus, father of Isaac II and Alexios III  66–8 Angelos, Theodore, brother of Isaac II and Alexios III  67 Anicia Juliana, Byzantine noblewoman 84 Ankara  204; Battle of (1402) 188

278

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Anna, daughter of Alexios III  150–1, 168 Anna of Savoy, Byzantine empress 186–7 Antes, legendary founder of Byzantion 26 Anthemius, regent  43 Anthemius of Tralles, architect  33, 114 Antioch  6, 28, 29, 39 Aphrodite  62; statue 12, 14 Apollo  14, 22, 26, 27, 42; statue 11 Arabs  39; merchants 103–4, 138, 142, 178–9; sieges of Constantinople (674 and 717–18) 48–50 Arcadius, Byzantine emperor (395– 408)  29; column 8, 15, 176, 189, 199, 200–1, 210 aristocracy 72 Armenia, Armenians  142; in Constantinople 17, 138, 196 Arsenios, patriarch of Constantinople (1255–60, 1261–7)  170 Aspar cistern  46 Atatürk, Kemal (1881–1938), Turkish president 203–4 Athena statue  12, 31, 155 Augousteion  12–13, 15, 33, 36, 59, 103, 189, 193, 211–12; processions across 63–5, 117, 127, 176 Augustus, Roman emperor (31 bce–14 ce)  14, 57 Aulikalamos, Theodore, Byzantine envoy 111 Axouchos, John Komnenos, usurper 151 Baghdad  2, 103 Baibars, sultan of Egypt (1260–77)  178–9 Baldwin I, Latin emperor of Constantinople (1204–5)  159–60, 165, 167–8 Baldwin II, Latin emperor of Constantinople (1228–61)  160–1, 165, 169–70, 177 banking  99, 132

Barbo, Marco, Venetian baillie in Constantinople 181 Bari 103–4 Basil I, Byzantine emperor (867– 86)  61, 70, 84, 117, 120, 128, 139, 142 Basil II, Byzantine emperor (976– 1025)  40, 65, 99, 107 Basileuousa, see Queen of Cities Basilika cistern (Yerebatan Sarayı)  46, 200, 215 Basiliscus, usurper  94 baths  107, 115–16, 132 Bayezid I, Ottoman sultan (1389–1402)   188–9, 191 Bayezid II, Ottoman sultan (1481–1513)  197 Baxter, James Houston (1894–1973), archaeologist 204–5 Belisarius, Byzantine general  36 Bellerophon statue  10 Bertha of Sulzbach, Byzantine empress 143 Blachernae  5, 44, 153, 173–4, 208; bulge in the Land Walls 47, 191, 193; church of the Mother of God 6, 18, 38, 40, 62, 79, 135, 164, 171, 175, 189, 210, 215; ruins 198–200, 205 Blachernitissa icon  40 Black Sea  42, 44; trade 111, 160, 163, 178, 183 blinding 65–6 Blue and Green factions  35–6, 118–19, 127–8 Boccanegra, Ranieri, Genoese merchant 182 Bogomilism 137 Bohemond of Taranto, crusade leader  16, 144 Boniface, marquis of Montferrat  157 Bosporus  41–2, 44 Boukoleon  60, 68, 197, 205, 212; harbour 84, 102, 125, 216 Brazen Gate  12, 19, 36, 38, 60–1, 63, 85, 125, 127, 205; church of Christ the Saviour 12–13, 84; icon of Christ 79, 134

Index

Bulgaria, Bulgars  3, 40, 110, 149; attack on Constantinople 50; trade with 103, 107 Byzantine Institute of America  204 Byzantion  23, 25–6, 41–4 Byzantium, Byzantine Empire  1; in 1200 57–8, 149–50; in 1261 172; crisis in seventh and eighth centuries 48; decline 185–6 Byzas, legendary founder of Byzantion 25–6 Calydonian boar statue  14–15, 75, 161 cannon  189, 192, 197 Cassius Dio, historian  43–4 Catalonia, Catalans  178–81, 183 Chalcedon (Kadiköy)  42, 48, 102, 153, Fourth Ecumenical Council (451)  137–8, 143 Chalkoprateia, church of the Virgin  40, 139, 158, 160, 177, 215 Charisios, see Gate of Adrianople Charlemagne, Frankish emperor (768–814) 103 Choniates, Michael, archbishop of Athens 122 Choniates, Niketas, historian  66, 69, 71, 73, 75, 100, 102, 122, 123, 128, 157, 161, 167, 208, 210 Chora, church and monastery of the Holy Saviour (Kariye mosque/ museum)  5, 78, 80–1, 173–4, 185, 192–3; becomes a mosque 197; museum 204, 209 Christopher of Mytilene, poet  114 Chrysopolis (Üskadar)  70 Chrysotriklinos 61 Clanvowe, John, English knight  216 Clavijo, Ruy Gonzalez de, Spanish envoy 88 coinage  59, 98–100, 110, 178 Constantine V, Byzantine emperor (741–75) 79–80 Constantine VI, Byzantine emperor (780–97) 65 Constantine VII, Byzantine emperor (945–59)  126, 129; column 13, 201, 212

279

Constantine VIII, Byzantine emperor (1025–8)  84, 124, 128 Constantine IX Monomachos, Byzantine emperor (1042–55)  51–2, 66, 93–4, 126, 128, 144, 204; builds St George in Mangana 84–8 Constantine X Doukas, Byzantine emperor (1059–67)  128 Constantine XI Palaiologos, Byzantine emperor (1449–53)  191, 193 Constantine, eparch  45 Constantine the Great, Roman emperor (306–37)  19–22, 25–7, 54–5, 98, 192; column (Çemberlitaş) 11–12, 15, 19, 211; forum 10–12, 23, 24, 31, 72, 124–5, 158, 188; foundation of Constantinople 22–4, 27–8, 41, 149; ideal ruler 57, 101, 170; statues 12, 19, 59, 171, 176; tomb 7–8, 19, 110 Constantine the Nobilissimos  124–6 Constantinian wall  23, 43, 96; Gate of the Forerunner 43, 198 Constantinople, foundation (324–30)  22–4, 27–8; appearance in 1200 3–16, 113–16, 149; capture and sack (1204) 157–9; civil wars 52–4; decay 189–90; defences 43–7; ecclesiastical art 77–8; ecumenical councils (381, 553; and 680) 6, 29; fall (1453) 190–4; feasts and holidays 117–19; geographical advantages 41–2; ‘God-guarded city’ 39–41; growth 28–33; under Latin rule (1204–61) 159–66; manufacturing industry 100, 113–14; under Ottoman rule 194–203; patriarch 6, 89; politics 57–9, 65–9; population 2, 29, 96, 123–9, 176, 178; recovered and renovated 169–78; renamed Istanbul (1926) 204; sieges 48–51, 188; trade 101–12, 179–80; visitors 1–3, 17–18; wealth 2, 16, 95, 178 Constantinus, charioteer  13 Constantius II, Byzantine emperor (337–61)  30, 37

280

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Constantius Chlorus, Roman emperor (293–306)  20–1, 27 Crispus, son of Constantine  27–8 Crown of Thorns  6, 18, 63, 161, 176–7 Crusades, First  144–5; Second 145; Third 91, 145; Fourth, 152–7 Cyriac of Ancona, Italian humanist 189 Cyzicus 48 Dalassena, Anna, mother of Alexios I  74–5, 132, 214 Dandolo, Enrico, doge of Venice (1192–1205)  110–11, 152, 164 Daniel, prophet  16 Daniel the Stylite, hermit  92–4 Darius, king of Persia (522–486 bce)  28 Dekanneakoubita 60 Diocletian, Roman emperor (284–305) 27 Diogenes, Nikephoros, Byzantine rebel 66 Diplokionion  68, 151–2, 191 Dominicans  181; monastery in Galata (Arap mosque) 182, 197, 216 Dositheos, patriarch of Constantinople (1191–2)  91, 145 Doukas, John, uncle of Michael VII 90 Droungarios Gate  115 Dyrrachion  106; Battle of (1081) 105 earthquakes  36, 45, 54, 115, 132, 186, 208, 210 education  117, 120, 122 Egypt  48; food imported from 95–6; trade with 101–6, 140 Egyptian obelisk  13, 30–1, 176, 200–1, 212 England, English  2; in Constantinople 17, 138, 216; mercenaries 52, 55 eparch  45, 105 Estambol, name for Constantinople 195 Ethelred Unraed, king of England (978–1016) 66

Eudokia, daughter of Alexios III  150–1, 154, 157, 167–8 Eulogia, sister of Michael VIII  169 eunuchs  73–4, 120, 132, 136 Euphrosyne, Byzantine empress  69, 75–6, 86, 90, 123, 132, 150, 154, 157, 168 Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea  57, 69, 79, 120 Eustratios, archbishop of Nicaea  137 Eutychus and Nikon statue  14 Evergetes monastery  80, 90, 116, 158, 164 Fausta, Roman empress  27–8 fires  115, 128, 158 fish, fishermen  50, 91, 97, 99, 115 food supply  49, 95–8, 115 Forty Martyrs church  16, 104, 116, 127, 164, 215 four horses statue  14, 31, 161, 219–20 France, French  2; in Constantinople 17, 203; mercenaries 52, 138 Franciscans  164; monastery in Galata 182, 196, 197 Frederick I Barbarossa, German emperor (1152–90)  91, 145 Galata (Pera)  46, 153, 188–91, 200, 215–16; Jewish community 139–40, 142–3; Genoese in 179–83, 186; tower 216 Garnier, bishop of Troyes  162 Gate of Adrianople (Charisios, Edirne Kapısı)  5, 16, 44, 46–7, 53, 193, 208–9 Gate of Rhegion  44 Gate of St Romanos  44, 47, 193, 208 Genghis Khan, emperor of the Mongols (1206–27)  160 Genoa, Genoese  7, 103, 178, 193; quarter in Constantinople 105, 108–10, 146–7, 163; in Galata (Pera) 179–83, 186, 190–1, 195–6 Gerlach, Stephen (1546–1612), German traveller  200 German mercenaries  52–3, 138

Index

Gilles, Pierre (1490–1555), French traveller  199–200, 213, 215, 218 Giustiniani, Giovanni, Genoese mercenary  191, 193 Glabas, Michael, Byzantine general  173, 213 Glover, Sir Thomas, English ambassador 200 Godfrey of Bouillon, duke of Lower Lotharingia 144 Golden Gate (Yediküle)  5, 9, 30–1, 44, 170, 194, 208 Golden Horn  7, 210; chain 46, 153, 216; commercial quarter 103–6, 179–80; Fourth Crusade fleet in 153–6; natural harbour 41–2 Goths  35, 39, 43 Gradenigo, Marco, Venetian podestà  165, 169 Great Palace  12–13, 24, 74–5, 99, 127, 170–1, 180; ceremonial in 127–8; decay and abandonment 176, 194–5, 198, 216; description 59–63, 69–71; under Latin rule 157, 161, 164; remains 204–7, 212, 222; wall around 123 Greek fire  49–51, 54, 107, 109, 183 Greek language  122 Gregoras, Nikephoros, historian  174 Gregory of Nazianzus, patriarch of Constantinople (379–81)  18 guilds  116, 118, 127–8 Gülhane park  203, 222 Gunther, bishop of Bamberg  101 Hagia Sophia (Ayasofya)  3, 15, 18, 97, 115, 170, 186, 216; becomes a mosque (1453) 194–5, 200, 202; becomes a museum (1934) 204, 212–13; ceremonial 63–4, 127–8, 176; first buildings 23, 30; Justinian’s rebuilding 33–7, 84; under Latin rule 159, 162–3; looted (1204) 157; mosaics 19–20, 79, 86, 171, 174, 197; political demonstrations 100, 126, 151, 155–6; renovated 172, 187, 189

281

Hakim, Fatimid caliph (996–1021) 140 Hamza, Turkish admiral  195 Harold Sigurtharson (Hardrada), king of Norway (1046–66)  53, 126 Harun-Ibn-Yahya, Arab traveller  64 Hebdomon (Bakirköy)  48, 218; church of St John the Baptist 31; church of St John the Theologian 164 Heinrich von Ülmen, German crusader 162 Helena, mother of Constantine  20, 24, 74; discovery of the True Cross 62; statue 12, 19; tomb 19 Helen of Troy statue  14 Henry VI, German emperor (1190– 7)  110, 158 Henry of Flanders, Latin emperor of Constantinople (1206–16)  156, 159, 161, 163, 220 Heraclius, Byzantine emperor (610– 41)  48, 62, 176, 217 Hera statue  12, 31, 161 Hercules  198; statue by Lysippus 13–14, 31, 75, 161 heretics  136–7, 143 Hermes statue  10 hermits 92–4 Heröon, see Holy Apostles Hippodrome (At Meydanı)  13–15, 24, 26, 30–1, 43, 132, 176; chariot races and events 71, 118–21, 128; disturbances 35, 68, 115, 143, 151; remains 200–1, 204–5, 212 Hodegetria icon  16, 41, 80, 162, 170, 177–8, 192–3 Hodegoi monastery  16, 41, 80, 164 Holy Apostles  7–8, 18, 23, 30, 105, 163–4, 171, 176–7, 219; decay and disappearance 189, 195, 199, 210, 215; Heröon and imperial tombs 7, 19, 24, 84, 110, 157, 158, 216–17; rebuilt by Justinian and Theodora 37–8 holy fools  92–3, 136 holy lance  18, 63 Holy Saviour in Chora, see Chora Holy Well  15, 33, 63, 174 homosexuals 134–5

282

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Honorius, western Roman emperor (395–423) 29 Horologion 12 Hosios Loukas monastery, Greece 218 Hospitallers (Knights of St John)  146 hospitals  82, 88, 116, 146–7, 189 hostels  82, 195 Hugh of St Pol, French crusader  164 hyperpyron 98 Ibn Battuta, Arab traveller  174–5 iconoclasm  79–80, 134 insanity 135–6 Irene, Byzantine empress (797–802)  65, 74 Irene, Byzantine empress, wife of Alexios I  90 Irene, daughter of Alexios III  150 Irene, daughter of Isaac II  152 Isaac I Komnenos, Byzantine emperor (1057–9)  52, 54, 70, 89, 94, 126 Isaac II Angelos, Byzantine emperor (1185–95, 1203–4)  71–2, 84, 91, 93, 128, 145; deposition (1195) 68–9, 208; path to power 66–8; plots to return 151–2; relations with Venetians and Genoese 109, 111, 147; second reign (1203–4) 154–6 Isaiah, bishop of Rhodes  135 Isidore of Miletus, architect  33 Isidore the younger, architect  36–7 Islambol, name for Constantinople 195 Issus, Battle of (194)  42 Istanbul, Constantinople renamed (1926)  204; Byzantine remains in 204–18 Jerusalem  3, 6, 16, 29, 39 Jesus Christ, relics  6–8, 15, 176–7 Jews, Jewish  102–3, 174, 177; community 17, 139–43, 163, 178–9, 182, 193, 195–6 John I Chrysostom, patriarch of Constantinople (398–404)  18, 119

John I Tzimiskes, Byzantine emperor (969–76)  65, 84, 136 John II Komnenos, Byzantine emperor (1118–43)  61, 84, 90, 108, 142 John III Vatatzes, Byzantine emperor (1221–54) 168–9 John IV Laskaris, Byzantine emperor (1258–61)  169–70, 172–3, 179 John V Palaiologos, Byzantine emperor (1341–91) 186–7 John VI Kantakouzenos, Byzantine emperor (1347–54)  186–7 John X Kamateros, patriarch of Constantinople (1199–1206)  89, 163 John of Damascus, theologian  79 John of Poutze, tax collector  100 John the Orphanotrophos  74, 120, 124, 142 Joshua statue  10 Julian, Roman emperor (361–3)  28, 30, 37 Justin I, Byzantine emperor (518–27) 34 Justin II, Byzantine emperor (565–78) 129 Justinian I, Byzantine emperor (527–65)  48; building work in Constantinople 33–8, 46, 84, 129, 210, 213, 215; column and statue 12, 19, 38, 59, 172, 176, 189, 194, 197, 199, 211; portraits 13, 19–20, 61; tomb 8, 157 Justinian II, Byzantine emperor (685–95, 705–11)  47, 65 Kaikosru I, Seljuk Turkish sultan (1192–7, 1204–11)  168 Kaleb Korsinos, rabbi  140 Kalojan, tsar of Bulgaria (1197–1207)  149, 159 Kalomodios, money changer  100 Kamateros, Basil  75 Kantakouzenos, Andronicus, son of John VI  186 Kasia, hymn writer  132 Kastellion tower  46, 153

Index

Kathisma  13, 30, 35, 118–20, 125, 127 Kentenarian tower  46 Keramion 63 Khoja Sa’d-Ud-Din, historian  196 Kilij Arslan II, Seljuk Turkish sultan (1156–92) 16 Kinnamos, eparch  182 Kommerkion  103, 105–6, 108, 140, 146, 160, 179, 182 Komnene, Anna, historian  72, 75, 90–1, 116, 122, 132, 136 Komnenos, Alexios, protosebastos  66 Kosmidion monastery (St Cosmas and St Damian)  80, 82, 144, 215 Kosovo, Battle of (1389)  187 Krum, khan of the Bulgars (c.803–14) 50 Kyriotissa convent (Kalenderhane mosque)  8, 149, 164, 171, 195, 214, 216; icon 40, 177 Lagos, John, prison governor  124 Land Walls  5, 169, 188, 190, 208; in civil wars 52–3; construction 43–7, 173; First Crusade 144–5; Fourth Crusade 153, 156; Ottoman siege (1453) 190–4; in sieges 49–51 Lazaros, stylite  93 Lekapenos, Basil, administrator  74, 162 Lekapenos, Constantine, Byzantine prince 89 Lekapenos, Stephen, Byzantine prince 89 Leo I, Byzantine emperor (457–74) 38 Leo III, Byzantine emperor (717–41)  79, 120, 139 Leo IV, Byzantine emperor (775–80) 74 Leo V, Byzantine emperor (813–20)  65, 142 Leo VI, Byzantine emperor (886–912)  89, 126 leprosy 135–6 Lips monastery (Fenari Isa mosque)  82, 173, 214

283

literacy  117, 122 Louis IX, king of France (1228–70) 177 Luke the Stylite, hermit  93 Lykos, river  46–7, 95 Lyon, Council of (1274)  172 Lysippus of Sicyon, sculptor  13, 31 Macarius, archbishop of Jerusalem 62 Magi 18 Magnavra 63 Mamboury, Ernest (1878–1953), archaeologist 204 Mandeville, Sir John, English traveller 176–7 Mandylion of Edessa  62–3, 80, 162 Manuel I Komnenos, Byzantine emperor (1143–80)  61, 66, 70–1, 73, 84, 109, 137, 139, 146, 159 Manuel II Palaiologos, Byzantine emperor (1391–1425)  188 Maphorion (Virgin’s robe)  6, 38, 40, 47, 62, 160–1, 177, 208 Marcian, Byzantine emperor (450–7), column (Kız Taşı)  8, 210 Margaret of Hungary, Byzantine empress 143 Maria, daughter of Michael VIII  173 Maria of Antioch, Byzantine empress  66, 143 markets  97–8, 103, 114, 133, 144, 178 Maslama, Arab general  49 Maurice, Byzantine emperor (582–602) 48 Maxentius, Roman emperor (306–12)  21–2, 27 Megara  26, 42 Mehmed II, Ottoman sultan (1451–81)  190–7, 210, 216 Mese (Fevzi Paşa Caddesi)  5, 7–9, 12, 68, 72, 99, 158, 170, 208–10 Mesopotamites, Constantine, Byzantine official  75–6, 102 Mesoteichion  47, 48, 51, 191–2, 208 Metochites, Theodore, Byzantine chief minister  173–5, 185, 209

284

index

Michael I Angelos, despot of Epiros (1204–15) 168 Michael II, Byzantine emperor (820–9) 65 Michael III, Byzantine emperor (842–67) 133 Michael IV, Byzantine emperor (1034– 41)  82, 85, 93, 120, 124, 129, 133, 142 Michael V, Byzantine emperor (1041– 2)  85, 124–6, 134, 142, 214 Michael VI, Byzantine emperor (1056–7)  52, 126 Michael VII Doukas, Byzantine emperor (1071–8)  65, 89–90 Michael VIII Palaiologos, Byzantine emperor (1259–82)  166, 179, 182–3, 185; recovery of Constantinople (1261) 169–70; restoration of Constantinople 170–2 Miklagarth, name for Constantinople 1 Milion arch  12, 19, 38, 59, 119, 212 Milvian Bridge, Battle of (312)  22, 27 monks, monasteries  80–3; providers of social services 82, 116–17, 129; refuge for deposed emperors 65, 89–91 mosques  138–9, 178–9, 195; of the Conqueror (Fatih) 195–6, 199, 210, 214; Davitpaşa 216; Kilise 214; Mitaton 139, 142, 158; Rüstem pasha 198; Süleymaniye 198, 216; Sultan Ahmed (Blue Mosque) 198, 204, 212 Mosynopolis 167–8 Mount Athos  92 Mount St Auxentios  92 Mourtzouphlos, see Alexios V Mouzalon, Stephen, Byzantine official 181 Murad I, Ottoman sultan (1362– 89) 187 Murad II, Ottoman sultan (1421– 51)  190, 191 Myrelaion monastery (Bodrum mosque)  84, 116, 196–7, 213–14, 218, 220

Nea Ekklesia  84, 215 Nematarea convent  76, 90 Neville, William, English knight  216 Nicaea (Iznik)  67, First Ecumenical Council (325) 137; Seventh Ecumenical Council (787) 79, 137; capital of Byzantine empire in exile 168–9 Nicholas I Mystikos, patriarch of Constantinople (901–7, 911–25) 89 Nicolay, Nicolas de (1517–83), French traveller 200 Nika riot (532)  35–6, 123, 212 Nikephoritzes, Byzantine minister  97 Nikephoros II Phokas, Byzantine emperor (963–9)  54, 65, 82, 134; builds Great Palace wall 123, 212 Nikephoros III Botaneiates, Byzantine emperor (1078–81)  53, 89–90 Nikomedeia (Izmit)  24, 28, 218 Nikopeia icon  40, 156, 161, 220 Nivelon, bishop of Soissons  159–61, 177 Noah, relics  15, 23, 202 Nomisma  59, 98 Normans  75, 104, 105–6, 138 Odryses, king of the Scythians  26 Oinaiotes, George, administrator  74 old people’s homes  82, 117 Oleg, prince of Kiev (879–912)  107 Orphanage  82, 116, 171; church of St Paul 129, 164, 198; school 135 Otto I, German emperor (936–973) 101 Ottoman Turks  186–8, 190–9 Palaiologos, Alexios, son-in-law of Alexios III  150–1 Palaiologos, George, relative of Alexios I 72 Palazzo Dandolo-Farsetti, Venice  219 Pammakaristos monastery (Fethiye mosque/museum)  173, 196; becomes a mosque 197; museum 204, 213

Index

Pantepoptes monastery (Eski Imaret mosque)  75, 195, 214 Pantokrator monastery (Zeyrek mosque)  8, 41, 84, 129, 157–8, 162, 170, 175–7, 195, 197, 210; hospital 116–17, 133, 136; iconographic convention 78, 174, 187, 213 Paphlagonians  142, 146 Paraspondylas, Leo, administrator 122 Paris statue  12 Pausanias, Spartan commander  26 Pechenegs  17, 138, 141 Pegasus statue  10 Pege Gate  44; church of the Virgin 5 Peloponnesian war  26 Peribleptos church and monastery  5, 59, 84, 89, 157, 171, 175, 190, 196, 198, 205, 210 Perinthos 43 Persia, Persians  14, 20, 26, 28, 35; siege of Constantinople (626) 48; trade with 103 Pescennius Niger, Roman imperial claimant 42 Peter of Courtenay, Latin emperor of Constantinople (1217)  159 Peter the Hermit, crusade leader  144 Phagouros, Christopher, monastic patron 82 Pharos chapel of the Holy Virgin  6, 24, 62–3, 118, 151, 160, 162, 176, 215 Phidaleia, wife of Byzas  26 Phidias, sculptor  12 Philadelphion (Tetrarchs)  10, 220–1 Philip, duke of Swabia  152 Philip, marquis of Namur  159 Philip of Courtenay, claimant to Latin Empire  160, 165 Philopation 70 Philoxenites, Constantine  154 Philoxenos cistern (possibly Binbirderek) 215 Phokas, Bardas, Byzantine rebel  65 Phrangopoulos, Constantine, pirate 111

285

Pisa, Pisans  7, 103, 108, 110, 145, 152, 178, 180; quarter in Constantinople 105, 138, 146–7, 153, 155, 163 plague  96, 186 Plataea, Battle of (479 bce) 14 Poimamenon, Battle of (1224)  168 Pole, Wellesley Tudor (1884–1968), spiritualist 204 political theory  57–9, 119–20, 126–7, 187 Polo, Marco, Venetian traveller  165 pope, papacy  6, 29, 138, 147 porphyra 60 Porphyrius, charioteer  216 Priapus statue  10 Prinkipo island (Büyükada)  124 Procopius of Caesarea, historian  199 prostitution 133–4 Prote island (Kinalı)  90 Prousa (Bursa)  67 Psellos, Michael, historian  73–4, 86, 90–1, 115, 122, 125–6, 128, 131, 134, 199 Queen of Cities (basileuousa), names for Constantinople  2, 112 Rasputin, Grigori Yefimovich (1869– 1917) 91 Ravenna  28–9, 39 Raymond of St Gilles, count of Toulouse 144 relics  6, 7, 15, 18, 62–3, 94; looted in 1204 and after 158, 160–2; new collection after 1261 176–7, 195 Rhaidestos (Tekirdağ) 106 Rhea temple  27 Richard the Lionheart, king of England (1189–1199) 149 righteous judges statue  162, 176 Robert Guiscard, duke of Apulia and Calabria (1059–85)  105 Robert of Clari, French knight  162 Robert of Courtenay, Latin emperor of Constantinople (1221–8)  159–60 Roger de Flor, Catalan mercenary  179, 181

286

index

Roman Empire  26; Byzantium a continuation of 1; decline 35, 39 Romanos I Lekapenos, Byzantine emperor (920–44)  74, 84, 89–90, 139, 213–14 Romanos III Argyros, Byzantine emperor (1028–34)  59, 85, 124, 157, 175 Romanos IV Diogenes, Byzantine emperor (1068–71)  65 Rome  6, 21–2, 31, 39; Constantinople as new 24, 28, 29 Romulus and Remus statue  14 Rosso di Finar, Genoese merchant 181 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1712–78), political philosopher  66 Rukn al-Din, Seljuk Turkish sultan (1197–1204)  16, 149 Rumeli Hisar  190 Russia, Russians  6; attacks on Constantinople 40, 50–1, 54; mercenaries 52; trade with 103–4, 107; visitors from 2, 78, 138, 174, 177, 179, 189 St Akyndynos, Venetian church  138 St Anastasia church  93, 136 St Andrew, founder of the Church of Constantinople  6, 29; relics 7, 18, 37–8 St Boris and St Gleb, Russian church 138 St Demetrius, monastery  171–3; relics 94 St George in Mangana monastery  16, 84, 87–8, 116–17, 128–9, 164, 176, 190, 195, 210; ruins of 198, 203, 222 St Irene church (Aya Irini)  38, 79, 195, 201, 214 St John in Petra monastery  196 St John the Baptist, relics  18, 63, 160–1, 177 St Luke  16, 41; church 117; relics 7, 18, 37–8 St Mamas, district  104, 107; monastery 5, 83

St Marina church  195 St Mark  29; Venetian church 138, 164 St Nicholas and St Augustine, English church 138 St Niketas the Goth  16 St Olaf, Scandinavian church  138 St Pantaleimon, Nerezi  218 St Paul  6, 29; relics 18, 63 St Peter  6, 29; Pisan church 138; relics 7 St Polyeuktos, church  84, 161, 210, 220; relics 177 St Romanos church  16 St Sampson Hospital  116, 129, 157, 164 St Sergius and St Bacchus church (Küçük Ayasofya mosque)  38, 213 St Theodosia, iconophile martyr  134; church (Gül mosque) 214 St Thorlac church  163 St Timothy, relics  7, 18, 37–8 Saladin, sultan of Egypt and Syria (1169–93)  67, 169 Sandys, George (1578–1644), English traveller  200–2, 208 Sanudo Torsello, Marino, Venetian historian 165 Scandinavia, Scandinavians, visitors from  1–3; mercenaries 52–3, 138 Sea Walls  5, 46, 171, 215; attacked by Fourth Crusade 153–4; in 1453 siege 191 Seleucus I, Hellenistic king (c.358–281 bce), statue  10 Seljuk Turks  16, 67, 149, 179; merchants 103, 111, 138, 142, 163 Senate 128 Senate House  12, 24, 36 Septimius Severus, Roman emperor (193–211)  26, 42–4 serpent column  14, 162, 176, 194, 198, 200–1, 211–12, 216 Severus, Roman caesar  27 Sgouros, Leo, Byzantine noble  168 Shahrvaraz, Persian general  48

Index

shipyards  100, 114, 124 Sigurd I Magnusson, king of Norway (1103–30)  1–3, 5, 16, 220 silk  100–1, 103, 105, 140, 178 Skleraina, Maria, imperial mistress  85–8, 93, 144 Skoutarion palace  70 Sophianai harbour  172 Sosthenion 118 Sparta  26, 106 Sphorakion 72 Stamford Bridge, Battle of (1066)  53 statues  3, 10–11, 13–15, 161, 198 Stephen of Novgorod, Russian priest 177–8 Stephen the First Crowned, ruler of Serbia (1196–1217)  150 Stethatos, Niketas, abbot of Stoudios  87, 143–4 Stoudios, church and monastery of St John (Imrahor mosque)  5, 80–1, 89, 125–6, 170, 179; becomes a mosque 197; ruins 214–15 Strategion forum  97, 107 Stryphnos, Michael, Byzantine admiral 75 stylites 92–4 Süleyman the Magnificent, Ottoman sultan (1520–66)  198 Sylvester I, pope (314–35)  22 Symeon, khan of the Bulgars (893– 927)  107, 111 Symeon Stylites, hermit  92–3 Symeon the New Theologian, monk  82–3, 91, 122, 137, 142, 143, 214 synod 137 taxation  98–100, 110, 160, 172 Tekfur Sarayı  61, 208 tetarteron, coin  98 Theodora, Byzantine empress, daughter of Constantine VIII  85, 91, 125–6 Theodora, Byzantine empress, wife of Justinian  34–6, 74; portraits 13, 18, 61; rebuilds the Holy Apostles 37–8

287

Theodora, Byzantine empress, wife of Michael VIII  172–4, 214 Theodora, Byzantine empress, wife of Theophilos  133, 142 Theodore I Angelos, despot of Epiros (1215–30) 159 Theodore I Laskaris, emperor of Nicaea (1208–21)  151, 168–9, 179 Theodore of Koloneia, hermit  92 Theodore the Stoudite, monastic reformer  81–3, 92, 131, 215 Theodosius I, Byzantine emperor (379–95)  29–31, 136, 212; arch 9, 210–11; column 10, 15, 167–8, 176, 189, 197, 210; forum (Tauros) 9–10, 30, 46, 97, 178, 195, 210–11; harbour 46, 49, 205–6; portrait 13, 120 Theodosius II, Byzantine emperor (408–50)  31, 43, 139 Theophanes of Mytilene statue  205 Theophano, Byzantine empress  65 Theophilos, Byzantine emperor (829–42)  102, 127, 215 Theophylact, patriarch of Constantinople (933–56)  89 Thessalonica  105, 107, 168, 187 Thomas Morosini, Latin patriarch of Constantinople (1204–11)  163 Timur, lord of Samarkand (1370– 1405) 188 Topkapı palace  195, 197, 201, 203, 214 Tornikios, Leo, Byzantine rebel  51–2, 66 trachy, coin  98–9 Triumphal Way  8, 72, 170 Troy, Trojans  12, 22 True Cross  18, 24, 62, 158, 161–2, 176 Turks, see Ottoman Turks; Seljuk Turks twelve baskets of leftovers  11, 18, 23 Tyche statue  12 Valens, Byzantine emperor (364–78), aqueduct  8, 40, 46–7, 210 Valentinian I, western Roman emperor (364–75) 37

288

index

Varangian guard  17, 52–3, 126, 143, 151, 154, 179 Vatatzes, Byzantine general  76 Vavassore, Giovanni Andrea, mapmaker 196 Venice, Venetians  7, 103, 140, 190; basilica of St Mark 105, 161, 219–20; in Constantinople after 1261, 179–83, 187–8, 191, 193, 196; in Fourth Crusade 152–7; in Latin Constantinople 159–65, 168; loot from Constantinople 158, 161, 219–21; quarter in Constantinople 105–6, 115, 138, 146; relations with the Byzantine emperor 108–10 Vettius Valens, astrologer  149 Virgin Full of Grace convent (Kecharitomene)  80, 90–1 Virgin Mary  132; icons 8, 16, 40–1; mosaics 59; protectoress of Constantinople 3, 39–41, 54, 170, 188, 192; relics 6 Virgin of the Mongols convent  173, 196, 214 Vladimir, prince of Kiev (1036–52)  107 Vlanga  179, 193

Walker Trust  205, 212 water supply  46–7, 49, 95–6, 115, 188 Wiegand, Theodor (1864–1936), archaeologist 204 William of Mandeville, earl of Essex 101 wine  91, 98, 115–16, 178, 185 women, attitudes to  131–2; political power 74–6, 132–3; occupations 118, 133–4 Yazid, Arab general  49 Yediküle, see Golden Gate Yeni Kapı excavations  205–6, 222 Yolanda, Latin regent in Constantinople 159 Zeus statue  10 Zeuxippus, legendary founder of Byzantion 26 Zoe, Byzantine empress  59, 85–8, 94, 124–6, 133–4, 204 Zosima, Russian deacon  189 Zosimus, historian  29–30 Zotikos, Byzantine philanthropist  129, 136