CHAPTER IX.

THE WALL OF THE EMPEROR MANUEL COMNENUS.

According to Nicetas Choniates,[466] a portion of the city fortifications was erected by the Emperor Manuel Comnenus.

[Illustration: Tower of the Wall of the Emperor Manuel Comnenus.]

The historian alludes to that work when describing the site upon which the Crusaders established their camp in 1203, and from his account of the matter there can be no doubt regarding the portion intended. The Latin camp, says Nicetas,[467] was pitched on the hill which faced the western front of the Palace of Blachernæ, and which was separated from the city walls by a strip of level ground, extending from the Golden Horn, on the north, to the wall built by the Emperor Manuel, on the south. This is an unmistakable description of the hill which stands to the west of the fortifications between the Golden Horn and Egri Kapou, and which is separated from those fortifications by a narrow plain, as by a trench or gorge. Consequently, the wall erected by the Emperor Manuel must be sought at the plain’s southern extremity; and there, precisely, commences a line of wall which displays, as far as the north-western corner of the court of the Palace of the Porphyrogenitus, a style of workmanship perfectly distinct from any found elsewhere in the bulwarks of the city.

The object of building this wall was to add to the security of the Palace of Blachernæ, which became the favourite residence of the Imperial Court in the reign of Alexius Comnenus,[468] and which Manuel himself enlarged and beautified.[469] The new wall was not only stronger than the earlier defences of the palace, but had also the advantage of removing the point of attack against this part of the city to a greater distance from the Imperial residence. At the same time, the older fortifications were allowed to remain as a second line of defence.

In construction the wall is a series of lofty arches closed on the outer face, and built of larger blocks of stone[470] than those generally employed in the Walls of Theodosius. On account of the steepness of the slope on which it, for the most part, stands, it was unprotected by a moat, but to compensate for this lack the wall was more massive, and flanked by stronger towers than other portions of the fortifications. At the summit the wall measured fifteen feet in thickness. Of its nine towers, the first six, commencing from the court of the Palace of the Porphyrogenitus, are alternately round and octagonal; the seventh and eighth are octagonal; the last is square.

The wall was provided with a public gate and, apparently, two posterns.

One postern, opening on the Theodosian parateicheion, was in the curtain[471] extending from the outer wall of the court of the Palace of the Porphyrogenitus to the first tower of Manuel’s Wall. The other postern stood between the second and third towers, and is remarkable for being the only entrance in the city walls furnished with a drip-stone. Dr. Paspates[472] identified it with the Paraportion of St. Kallinikus; but the postern of that name is mentioned in history before the erection of Manuel’s Wall.

Between the sixth and seventh towers was the Public Gate, now styled Egri Kapou. By some authorities, as already stated,[473] it has been identified with the Porta Charisiou, but it is, beyond question, the Porta Kaligaria, so conspicuous in the last siege of the city.[474] This is clear from the following circumstances: The Porta Kaligaria pierced the wall which protected the quarter known, owing to the manufacture of military shoes (caliga) there, as the Kaligaria (ἐν τοῖς Καλιγαρίοις). That wall stood near the palace of the emperor; it was a single line of fortifications, distinguished for its strength, but without a moat.[475] It occupied, moreover, such a position that from one of its towers the Emperor Constantine Dragoses and his friend the historian Phrantzes were able to reconnoitre, early in the morning of the fatal 29th of May, the operations of the Turkish army before the Theodosian Walls, and hear the ominous sounds of the preparations for the last assault.[476] All these particulars hold true only of the wall in which Egri Kapou is situated; and hence that gate must be the Porta Kaligaria.

The only inscription found on the Wall of Manuel consists of the two words, ΥΠΕΡ ΕΥΧΗΣ, on a stone built into the left side of the entrance which leads from within the city into the square tower above mentioned.

In the siege of 1453, this wall, on account of its proximity to the Palace of Blachernæ, was the object of special attack; but all the attempts of the Turkish gunners and miners failed to open a breach in it.[477] A battery of three cannon, one of them the huge piece cast by Orban, played against these bulwarks with such little effect that the Sultan ordered the guns to be transferred to the battery before the Gate of St. Romanus.[478] The skilled miners who were brought from the district around Novobrodo, in Servia, to undermine the wall succeeded in shaking down only part of an old tower, and all the mines they opened were countermined by John Grant, a German engineer in the service of the Greeks.[479]

The tower from which the emperor and Phrantzes reconnoitred the Turkish movements was, Dr. Paspates thinks, the noble tower which stands at the point where the wall bends to descend the slope towards the Golden Horn.[480]

The portion of the fortifications, some 453 feet in length, extending from the square tower in the wall just described to the fourth tower to the north (the tower bearing an inscription in honour of Isaac Angelus),[481] is considered by one authority to be also a part of the Wall of Manuel Comnenus.[482] If so, it must have undergone great alterations since that emperor’s time, for in its construction and general appearance it is very different from the Comnenian ramparts. It is built of smaller blocks of stone; its bricks are much slighter in make; its arches less filled with masonry; its four towers are all square, and glaringly inferior to the splendid towers in Manuel’s undoubted work; while, immediately to the south of the square tower above mentioned one can see, from within the city, a line of junction between the wall to the south and the wall to the north of that tower, indicating in the plainest possible manner the juxtaposition of two perfectly distinct structures. And in point of fact, three inscriptions recording repairs are found on the latter wall. One inscription, on the fourth tower, belongs to the reign of Isaac Angelus[483] and bears the date 1188. Another is seen among the Turkish repairs executed on the city side of the second tower of the wall, and records the date, “In the year 6824 (1317), November 4;” the year, as we have seen, in which Irene, the empress of Andronicus II., died, leaving large sums of money, which that emperor devoted, mainly, to the restoration of the bulwarks of the capital.[484] The third inscription stands on the curtain between the third and fourth towers of the wall, immediately below the parapet, and commemorates repairs executed in 1441 by John VII. Palæologus, who was concerned in the reconstruction of the Outer Theodosian Wall. It reads:

ΙΩΑΝΝΗΣ ΕΝ ΧΩ ΤΩ ΘΩ ΠΙΣΤΟΣ ΒΑΣΙΛΕΥΣ ΚΑΙ ΑΥΤΟΚΡΑΤΩΡ ΡΩΜΑΙΩΝ Ο ΠΑΛΑΙΟΛΟΓΟΣ ΚΑΤΑ ΜΗΝΑ ΑΥΓΟΥΣΤΟΥ ΤΗ Δ ΤΟΥ ϚϠΜΘ ΕΤΟΥΣ (6949).

“John Palæologus, faithful King and Emperor of the Romans, in Christ, God; on the second of the month of August of the year 1441.”

[Illustration: The Palæologian Wall, North of the Wall of the Emperor Manuel Comnenus.]

To the north of the second tower in the wall before us is a gateway which answers to the description of the Gate of Gyrolimnè (πύλη τῆς Γυρολίμνης); for the Gate of Gyrolimnè, like this entrance, stood in the immediate vicinity of the Palace of Blachernæ, and was so near the hill on which the Crusaders encamped in 1203 that the Greeks stationed at the gate and the enemy on the hill were almost within speaking distance.[485]

[Illustration: The Gate of Gyrolimnè.]

The gate derived its name from a sheet of water called the Silver Lake (Ἀργυρὰ Λίμνη), at the head of the Golden Horn, and beside which was an Imperial palace.[486] The gate was at the service of the Palace of Blachernæ, a fact which, doubtless, explains the decoration of the arch of the entrance with three Imperial busts.[487]

Several historical reminiscences are attached to the gate. Through it, probably, the leaders of the Fourth Crusade went to and fro in carrying on their negotiations with Isaac Angelus.[488] By it Andronicus the Younger went forth in hunter’s garb, with his dogs and falcons, as if to follow the chase, but in reality to join his adherents and raise the standard of revolt against his grandfather.[489] Hither that prince came thrice in the course of his rebellion, and held parley with the officials of the palace, as they stood upon the walls, regarding terms of peace;[490] and here the intelligence that he had entered the city was brought by the peasants who had seen him admitted early in the morning through the Gate of St. Romanus.[491]

To this gate Cantacuzene also came at the head of his troops in 1343, to sound the disposition of the capital during his contest with Apocaucus and the Empress Anna.[492]

The Palace of Blachernæ. Τὸ ἐν Βλαχέρναις Βασίλειον, Παλάτιον.

Until the site of the Palace of Blachernæ is excavated, little can be added to the information which Du Cange[493] and Paspates[494] have collected respecting that Imperial residence, from the statements made on the subject by writers during the Byzantine period. If the quarter of Egri Kapou, on the western spur of the Sixth Hill, was included in the Fourteenth Region of the city, the Palace of Blachernæ appears first as the palace which, according to the _Notitia_, adorned that Region.[495] In the reign of Anastasius I. the residence was enlarged by the addition of the Triclinus Anastasiacus (Τρίκλινος Ἀναστασιακὸς),[496] and in the tenth century[497] it boasted, moreover, of the Triclinus of the Holy Shrine (Τρίκλινος τῆς ἁγίας σοροῦ), named so in honour of the shrine in which the robe and mantle of the Theotokos were kept in the Church of Blachernæ; the Triclinus Danubius (Τρίκλινος Δανουβιὸς); and the Portico Josephiacus (τὸν Πόρτικα Ἰωσηφιακὸν). Under Alexius I. Comnenus it was frequently occupied by the Court, and there the emperor received the leaders of the First Crusade, Peter the Hermit, Godfrey of Bouillon, Bohemond, and others.[498] By Manuel Comnenus it was repaired and embellished[499] to an extent which obtained for it the name of the New Palace,[500] and it was one of the sights of the capital with which he entertained Amaury, King of Jerusalem.[501] The lofty building named after the Empress Irene,[502] and, probably, the Domus Polytimos,[503] were the work of Manuel Comnenus. He also increased, as we have seen, the security of the palace by the erection of new bulwarks; to which Isaac Angelus added a tower.[504] In 1203 the palace was the scene of the negotiations between the latter emperor and the envoys of Baldwin of Flanders and Henrico Dandolo, the leaders of the Fourth Crusade.[505] In 1204, upon the capture of the city by the Crusaders, it surrendered to Henry, the brother of Baldwin,[506] but the Latin emperors seem to have preferred the Palace of the Bucoleon for their residence.

[Illustration: General View of the Wall of the Emperor Manuel Comnenus.]

Baldwin II., however, resided in the Palace of Blachernæ, and left it in such a filthy condition that when taken possession of by the Greeks in 1261, Michael Palæologus could not occupy it until it had been thoroughly cleaned and renovated.[507] It was the usual residence of the Byzantine Court during the period of the Palæologi,[508] and from this palace the last emperor who sat upon the throne of Constantinople went forth to die “in the winding-sheet of his empire.”[509] All descriptions of the palace agree in representing it as of extraordinary splendour.[510] Foreign visitors could not find words in which to give an idea of its magnificence and wealth. According to them, its exterior appearance was incomparable in beauty, while within it was decorated with gold, and mosaics, and colours, and marbles, and columns, and jewels, at a cost hard to estimate, and with a skill that could be found nowhere else in the world.[511]

The hill on which the palace stood was partly artificial, to furnish a suitable platform or terrace for the group of buildings which composed the residence, and to afford wide views over the harbour, the city, and the country beyond the walls—“triplicem habitantibus jucunditatem offerens,” as Odo de Dogilo aptly remarks, “mare, campus, urbemque, alterius despicit.” The palace derived much of its importance from its proximity to the venerated shrine of the Theotokos of Blachernæ. And the ease with which the country could be reached from it, to enjoy the pleasures of the chase, must not be overlooked in explaining the favour with which the palace was regarded.[512] It should be added that the palace stood within the fortified enclosure[513] around the western spur of the Sixth Hill, the Castelion of Blachernæ (Τὸ ἐν Βλαχέρναις φρούριον, μέρος καὶ αὐτὸ τοῦ περὶ τὰ βασίλεια φρουρίου ὂν Καστέλιον προσαγορευόμενον).[514]

Footnote 467:

Page 719; cf. _Ibid._, p. 500; Cinnamus, p. 274.

Footnote 468:

_Ut supra_, Περὶ τὸ γεώλοφον ἄφ᾽ οὗπερ ὁρατὰ μὲν τὰ ἐν Βλαχέρναις ἀνάκτορα, ὁπόσα νένευκε πρὸς ἑσπέραν. Περὶ δὲ γε τὴν τούτου ὑπόβασιν ὑπτιάζει τις αὔλειος, πρὸς μεσημβρίαν μὲν ἐς τὸ τεῖχος λήγουσα ὅπερ ἔρυμα τῶν ἀρχείων ὁ βασιλεὺς ἀνήγειρε Μανουὴλ, κατὰ δὲ βορρᾶν ἄνεμον τῇ θαλάσσῃ ἐγγίζουσα.

Footnote 469:

Anna Comn., vi. p. 275, _et passim_.

Footnote 470:

Nicetas Chon., p. 269; Benjamin of Toledo, p. 12.

Footnote 471:

As a rule, two to four courses of stone, alternating with six to nine courses of brick.

Footnote 472:

This is a piece of Turkish repair, in which the lintel of a postern is found.

Footnote 473:

Page 62.

Footnote 474:

See above, p. 83.

Footnote 475:

Pusculus, iv. 177.

Footnote 476:

Nicolo Barbaro, p. 794, “Questa Calegaria si xe apresso del palazzo de, l’imperador;” p. 784, “Li no ve iera barbacani.” Leonard of Scio, “Ad partem illam murorum simplicium, qua nec fossatis, nec antemurali tutebatur, Calegariam dictam.” Again he says, “Murus ad Caligariam erat perlatus, fortisque.”

Footnote 477:

Phrantzes, p. 280.

Footnote 478:

Leonard of Scio, “Horribilem perinde bombardam (quamquam major alai quam vix bovum quinquagenta centum juga vehebant) ob partem illam ... lapide qui palmis meis undecim ex meis ambibat in gyro, ex ea murum conterebant.”

Footnote 479:

_Ibid._

Footnote 480:

_Ibid._; N. Barbaro, May 16, 21-25; Phrantzes, p. 244.

Footnote 481:

Paspates, p. 22; Phrantzes, p. 280.

Footnote 482:

See below, p. 132. The tower is marked L on Map facing p. 115.

Footnote 483:

Mordtmann, p. 35.

Footnote 484:

See below, p. 132.

Footnote 485:

See above, p. 103. The inscription is now reversed, and stands a little above the base of the tower.

Footnote 486:

Nicetas Chon., pp. 719, 720.

Footnote 487:

Anna Comnena, x. p. 48; Albert Aquensis, lib. ii. c. 10, speaks of certain gates, versus Sanctum Argenteum; while Tudebodus Imitatus et Continuatus (_Auteurs Occidentaux sur les Croisades_, vol. iii. p. 178) states that Bohemond, who, according to Anna Comnena (x. p. 61) and Ville-Hardouin (c. 33), lodged at the Monastery of SS. Cosmas and Damianus, in the Cosmidion (Eyoub), was assigned quarters—extra civitatem in Sancto Argenteo. The Sanctus Argenteus of these writers was doubtless the church dedicated to the saints above mentioned, who were styled the Anargyri (Without Money). The name of the bay and the epithet of the saints were probably connected.

Footnote 488:

See foot of List of Illustrations.

Footnote 489:

Ville-Hardouin, c. 39, 40, 46, 47.

Footnote 490:

Cantacuzene, i. pp. 89, 90.

Footnote 491:

_Ibid._, i. pp. 255, 289, 290.

Footnote 492:

Nicephorus Greg., ix. pp. 420, 421.

Footnote 493:

Cantacuzene, iii. p. 501.

Footnote 494:

_Constantinopolis Christiana_, ii. pp. 130-132.

Footnote 495:

Chap. iv.

Footnote 496:

_Notitia, ad Reg._ XIV.

Footnote 497:

Suidas, _Ad vocem_, _Anastasius_.

Footnote 498:

Constant. Porphyr., _De Cer._, pp. 542, 543.

Footnote 499:

Anna Comn., x. pp. 36, 54, 63.

Footnote 500:

Nicetas Chon., p. 269.

Footnote 501:

William of Tyre, xx. c. 24.

Footnote 502:

William of Tyre, _ut supra_.

Footnote 503:

Nicetas Chon., p. 720.

Footnote 504:

_Ibid._, p. 351.

Footnote 505:

See below, p. 143.

Footnote 506:

Ville-Hardouin, c. 39.

Footnote 507:

_Ibid._, c. 55.

Footnote 508:

Pachymeres, vol. i. pp. 144, 161.

Footnote 509:

Cantacuzene, i. p. 305; iv. pp. 290, 291; Nicephorus Greg., ix. p. 420, etc.

Footnote 510:

Phrantzes, p. 280.

Footnote 511:

Nicetas Chon., p. 269.

Footnote 512:

See Benjamin of Toledo, and Odo de Dogilo, iv. p. 37, both of whom visited the palace in the reign of Manuel Comnenus.

Footnote 513:

Cantacuzene, i. pp. 89, 90.

Footnote 514:

See Map facing p. 115.

Footnote 515:

Cantacuzene, iii. pp. 611, 612; Nicephorus Greg., xv. pp. 774-779.

[Illustration: Plan of the So-Called Prison of Anemas.]