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ConstantinopolitanaAuthor(s): F. W. HasluckReviewed work(s):Source: The Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. 43, Part 2 (1923), pp. 162-167

Published by: The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/625806 .

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CONSTANTINOPOLITANAI. THE TOMB OF CONSTANTINE PALAIOLOGOS AND THE GOLDENGATE

OF the many resting-places assigned, by patriotic fancy, we must regret-fully admit, rather than by well-authenticated traditions, to the last Greekemperor of Constantinople, none is more picturesque or more appropriatethan the Golden Gate, through which, when the years are fulfilled, the vic-torious army of the Greeks is to enter the city and take possession once moreof their ancient heritage. More than this, as Professor Polites has remarked,1relatively ancient traditions of the saviour-king, who is to rise from the sleepof death at this historical moment, speak of him as dwelling E' 7T- rp(rOT7 a cpaT79 BuvavTiSo,, which may well enough be interpreted of the Golden Gate,standing as it does at the south-west corner of the triangular city.Despite this appropriateness,we note in the traditions a certain discrepancyas to one essential point-the identity of the sleeper at the Golden Gate. Heis either the emperor Constantine Palaiologos, or his predecessor John Palaio-logos, or-S. John the Evangelist! 2 All these traditions are historicallyalmost equally incredible. But the intrusion of S. John, who, according tomediaeval traditions, sleeps without tasting of death in his tomb at Ephesus,is at least intelligible in this setting. The figure of John Palaiologos, on theother hand, seems to be no more than a bridge effecting the transition betweenthe deathless saint, John, and the deathless emperor, Palaiologos, of populartradition. This hypothetical development would be explicable if we couldfind such a combination as the existence at the Golden Gate of a body mar-vellously preserved, and therefore reputed that of a saint, which was ignorantlyidentified first for obvious reasons with S. John, and later swept into the longcycle of local legends concerning the sleeping saviour-king. It seems possiblethat some, though not all, of the missing links can be supplied.A curious story is related in 1717 by Lady Mary Montagu, wife of theBritish Ambassador at Constantinople, of an Egyptian mummy sent by wayof Constantinople as a present to Charles XII. of Sweden, then at Bender.3The Turks, she says, 'fancied it the body of God knows who; and that thestate of their empire mystically depended on the conservation of it. Someold prophecies were remembered upon this occasion, and the mummy wascommitted prisonerto the Seven Towers.'4

This might be regarded as the idle gossip of contemporaryConstantinople,were it not corroborated nearly a century later. The French Consul and1 Commentary on Iapa6sdels, No. 33,where the curious reader will find fullreferences for this whole legend-cycle.2 Carnoy et NicolaYdes, Folklore de Con-

stantinople, p. 103.3 Charles XII. took refuge in Turkeyafter the battle of Poltava (1709).4 Letters (12mo., London, 1805), ii. 198.

162


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CONSTANTINOPOLITANA 163traveller Pouqueville tells the story of the mummy from a Turkish history,of which part was translated for him by M. Ruffin: the mummy, which wassent 'ninety-four years before' as a present from the king of France to theking of Sweden, 'was about to be forwarded to its destination when it wasstopped by the Janissaries upon guard at the gate of Adrianople. Being sealedwith the signet of the kaimakam, it was supposed to be the relic of some saint,and was deposited at the Seven Towers.' 6The reason of Pouqueville's interest in the mummy and its story was thathe himself had happened to re-discover it during his captivity (1799-1801)in that fortress in a chamberof the northern owerof the GoldenGateitself.Pouqueville 'never heard it said, as Lady Mary Wortley Montaguaffirms,that the Turks attached to it the idea of a palladium on which hung the pre-servation of the empire,' which he regarded as 'one of the pleasing fictionsof her work.' But in the light of the prophecies which have circulated for solong among Greeks and Turks alike of the saviour-king who should arise fromthe dead to deliver the city from the Moslem yoke, it is probable that LadyMary Montagu's story is substantially correct, and that in the occurrencesshe relates is to be found one source of the modern tradition locating the tombof Constantine Palaiologos at the Golden Gate.

II. THE HARBOUR-CHAINAT THE MUSEUMAT S. IRENEA massive iron chain preserved at the church of S. Irene at Constantinople(now the Military Museum) has for some years been universally accepted asthe historic barrier of the Golden Horn during the siege of Constantinopleby the Turks. The identification has never been disputed, though there seemsno evidence beyond that of tradition to support it. As the museum of S. Irenehas only in the last few years been made accessible to the general public, itis hard to say exactly when the tradition regarding the chain began. It isnot mentioned by Thdophile Gautier (1853), who describes the contents ofthe museum in some detail,7 while Paspatis, whose knowledgeof Constantinoplewas unrivalled in his time, was evidently unaware of its existence in 1877.8The tradition concerningit is thus demonstrably of recent origin : it will appearfrom the sequel that there are considerable grounds for rejecting it.9The chain at S. Irene is shown in Fig. 1. It is composed of links measur-ing about 2 ft. 6 in. in extreme length, the thickness of the iron being that ofa man's wrist. The links are of two main types, a simple long oval and a' figure-of-eight'; an intermediate form, oval with compressed sides, approxi-mating to the 'figure-of-eight' shape, also occurs. The 'figure-of-eight'link is the most frequent and characteristic.10

5 Charg' d'Afaires at Constantinople,1805-6.6 Travels, London, 1813, p. 257.7 Constantinople, p. 288.8 Bvuarv'rwal MeFAraL, p. 179. Mme. deGasparin (c. 1860) was told it was the chainof the Dardanelles (2 Constantinople, p. 171).

9 Since writing this I find my opinionhas the independent support of Sir EdwinPears (see Schlumberger, Siege de Constanti-nople (1914), p. 332, n. 1).10 Details kindly communicated by Mr.W. S. George.


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164 F. W. HASLUCKA chain seems to have been used to close the mouth of the Golden Hornfrom the time of Leo the Isaurian onwards."1 The chain employed duringthe Latin siege of 1204 is describedby a contemporary authority as aussi grossecomeli bras d'un home.12 It seems to have been removed by the Crusaders.13Of the chain used in 1453 no precise account has come down to us. Two cen-turies later, Evliya tells us,14alleged fragments of it were shown at the arsenalof Constantinople: each link was as wide as a man's waist. So late as thesixties of the last century a single link of the chain was said to be preserved atTop-hane: it is described as more than a metre long, elliptical in shape, andas thick as a man's arm.15It will be noted that the characteristic 'figure-of-eight '-shaped link,which is to any ordinary observer the outstanding peculiarity of the chain

FIG. 1.-THE CHAIN AT S. IRENE.(From W. S. George, Church of S. Irene at Constantinople, Fig. 1.)at S. Irene, is mentioned in none of the foregoing descriptions. Evliya's com-parison of the links to a man's waist naturally suggests rather an ordinarycircular or oval shape. In default of more positive evidence we cannot regardthe pedigree of the S. Irene chain as established.On the other hand we have record of a harbour-chain elsewhere whichpossessed the peculiarity we have insisted on above. In 1843 Ludwig Rosswas shown in a magazine of the Hospital at Rhodes a chain seven hundred andfifty feet in length which was said to have closed the harbour in the time of

11 Du Cange, Const. Christiana, I. vi.12 Buchon, Recherches, I. i. 486.13 Du Cange, loc. cit.14 Travels, tr. von Hammer, I. i. 14.15 Glavany in 4PAoX. hhAAoTyoswvar. iv.

1867, p. 86 : AtaBfBatool ot I8 f, O"rLEsTKCpiICsav-rTs 6ar77pEl'raL i s 7b 7rvpooo\lot'r~cotov TroiTd0r-Xave, Kal eX(E 7raXos eplxioos, )ox FAaiAAeLrrdKO, Kcal yeOOs "b7rEp Orb -rpov.


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CONSTANTINOPOLITANA 165the Knights.'1 The links of this chain were a foot and a half long and ' shapedlike an oval pressed in on both sides ' (wie ein an beiden Seiten eingedriicktesOvalgebildet).17 Guerin, visiting Rhodes in 1854, asked to see this chain, butwas told that it had been removed to Constantinople.'8Now the dates of Ross's and Guerin's visits to Rhodes fell within the reignof the reforming Sultan Abdul Medjid (1839-61). It was under the auspices ofthe latter's Master of Artillery, Fethi Ahmed, about 1846, that the nucleusof the present Imperial Museum was formed; the collections were depositedin the church of S. Irene and its forecourt.19 A few years later there seemsto have been an attempt to modernise the armament of Turkish fortresses:certainly in the succeeding reign of Abdul Aziz (1861--76)old cannon, removedfrom Rhodes and the Dardanelles, found their way to the Museums of Artilleryat the Invalides and at Woolwich.20It seems, then, at least probable that the chain now shown at S. Irenenever defended Byzantine Constantinople,though it may have played an equallyhonourable part in the defence of Rhodes; that it was removed by the militaryauthorities from Rhodes to Constantinople between 1843 and 1854 and foundits way to S. Irene during the early years of the museum. Further search mayexplain the erroneoustradition which has arisen concerningit by the discovery,perhaps at S. Irene itself, of the authentic chain of the Golden Horn.

III. CHRONOLOGICALNOTES ON THE CAPTURE OF CONSTANTINOPLEA hitherto unpublished manuscript note on the capture of Constantinopleby the Turksoccurs in the British MuseumMS. 34060, 1 b,21and runsas follows :eit q "pva lovpw K" O/Lpa -a,37oapov"

Xaz +avorro dwovcvowTaLoPdroXtvKapa3ta 7pla Kpr77IcKa 700 'Yoitpov ToVaar'cE Kal TOV fxXOpd0TOV.:

16 The Knights are known to have closedtheir harbour with two chains. The first,placed in 1476, was stretched across themouth of the inner harbour, between thefort of S. John (on the windmill mole)and the 'Arab ' (de Naillac's) tower, adistance of about 720 feet. The second,made in 1522, barred the wider mouth(1800 feet) between the fort of S. Johnand that of S. Nicolas. Both are describedas thick and very substantial (Picenardi,Itine'raire, p. 24 f.). A third chain is saidto have protected the narrow mouth (540feet) of the north or galley harbour (' Man-draki') in Turkish times, and is mentionedby several authors so late as the secondhalf of the seventeenth century (Th6venot(1656), Voyages, i. 369, copied by Le Bruyn,Voyage, i. 547; Veryard, Choice Remarks(1701), p. 330).17 Reisen auf den griechischen Inseln, p.83.18 Rhodes, p. 127; cf. Biliotti, Rhodes,

p. 191.19 See Mendel's preface to the SculptureCatalogue of the Imperial Museum, i. pp.x-xi.20 Catalogue du Musee d'Artillerie (In-valides), v. 35; Woolwich Museum ofArtillery, Catalogue, pp. 29, 189; cf. Pre-face, xxxii. Many old guns of the Knights'time were seen by Newton in 1853 (Travelsand Discoveries, i. 162) ; in the following yearsome of these had been taken and meltedfor the mint (Gudrin, Rhodes, p. 117). Theplundering of Rhodes had begun alreadyby 1836 when the doors of the Hospitalcame to Versailles. The chain of Smyrnaport is reported to be in the Archivio ofS. Peter's (Hare, Walks in Rome, ii. 274).21 The volume is a mixed folio volumeof theological work, mostly collections ofcanons with historical pieces and a fewletters. It is mostly of the fifteenth cen-tury, but it also includes a portion of atwelfth-century MS.


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166 F. W. HASLUCKX7youre&?OTtel 7Tv7K07

-oLTaLov PI"o(r-7t aylas Oeo080oola(.~7llepaTPLr22Mpa yT i 7S7ilpavc Ecoel7crav ot[ ayapipon23theTf v K(CwvorTaTtvOVplrOXtveT

colleted24 by 7LmbroV. This as625 MpeEc/il: Kat ertrov OWttEEKTe pLarT 70P3a0-tX6a T'vKVp Kwvcrravrivov 'TOV epcyao-tv Kal 7raXaLoXoyov: Kat 6y7EVETOoiyv tkeYUTX7Xtfv aal rToXX4KXaVO1LtL t -'v Kp fi77V81al T oXXrl38ppv

by the three ships here mentioned is describedin Barbaro'saccount of the siege.On the 9th April, 1453,when the great chain was stretched acrossthe GoldenHorn to keep the Turkish fleet out of the harbour, nine ships were appointedto lie inside the chain to defend it against possible attack. Amongst thesewere three Cretan, whose patroni and tonnage are given as follows :27

Ser Zuan Venier da Candia de botte 800el Filamati de Candia de botte . . . 800el Guro de Candia de botte . . . . 700Of these, the third and second are quite evidently the KapdL3taT70 Zyotpovand T70oDXXo'd-ov of our note.At the taking of the city the Venetian captain of the galleys of Tana,Aluvixe Diedo, seeing that the city was lost, went to the podestaof Pera to askhow the Venetians stood with the Turks, and whether it was not best for their

ships to leave at once: the podesta replied that he would send a messengerto the Grand Turkto settle the question. This he failed to do but, to ingratiatehimself with the Turks, he shut the gates of Pera, thus retaining the Venetiancaptain a prisoner. Meanwhile the crews in the harbour prepared to set sailwithout their captain. The latter, at last persuadingthe podestdto let him go,went on board. The ships began to warp themselves out till they came to thechain, which was still in position. They were therefore forced to cut the chainwith axes. They sailed out and lay at Diplokionion (Beshiktash) in the hopeof rescuing some compatriots. As none were forthcoming, the fleet set sailat midday with a north wind of twelve miles an hour. They were thus able

22 [On this account the Greeks stillhold Tuesday a dies nefas : not havingaccess to our manuscript, they regard thewhole day superstitiously, avowing ignor-ance of the hour at which the Turks enteredConstantinople.-M. M. H.]23 I.e. Moslems; cf. Theod. Balsamon(middle twelfth century) quoted by W. W.Story, Roba di Roma, ii. 31.

24 The word seems derived from theItalian: foussata is the ordinary modernAlbanian word for army. It occurs in a

fifteenth century Greek MS. from MountAthos (P. Meyer, Haupturkunden, p. 171).25 I. e. Tchelebi.26 Nc'os 'EAA. 1910. vii. 160 f. (Nos. 126-131).27 Barbaro, Giornale dell' Assedio diCospoli, ed. Cornet, Vienna, 1856, p. 20.Three Cretan ships on the chain are men.tioned by Leonard of Chios and by Phrantzes(p. 238). The latter says two were fromKydonia and one from Candia.


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CONSTANTINOPOLITANA 167to escape Turkish pursuit.28 The three patroni of Candia are again enumeratedslightly differently as le tre nave de Candia, le qual son Ser Zuan Venier, serAntonio Filamati edgalina.29

It will be seen that in both enumerations three Cretanships are mentioned,together with four patroni, of whom three coincide with those of the chrono-logical note.From the cronaca of Zorzi Dolfin, written after 1478, we are enabled toglean something of the Cretan ships' further voyage. They arrived in fourdays at Negropont, where they met a Venetian squadron bound for the reliefof Constantinople. The news eventually reached Venice exactly a monthafter by way of Lepanto and Corfu.30 F. W. HASLUCK.

28 Barbaro, p. 57 ff. The escape isalso related by Zorzi Dolfin, Belagerung undEroberung von Constantinopel aus derChronik von Zorzi Dolfin, ed. G. M. Thomasin Sitzb. k.b.Ak. Wiss. 1868, ii. p. 40.

29 Barbaro, p. 59.30 Dolfin, loc. cit. For the date whenthe news was heard at Modon see Hans Rotin Beitr. zur Vaterl. Gesch. zu Basel, 1881,N.F. p. 407.

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