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Manuel Komnenos and the Great Palace

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2016

Paul Magdalino
Paul Magdalino*
Affiliation:
University of St. Andrews
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Extract

That the emperor Manuel I Komnenos (1143–80) was responsible for some building activity in the Great Palace of Constantinople is a fact well attested by published sources and not entirely unknown to modern scholarship. However, the armchair archaeology of this work remains confused and obscure, and can benefit from a fresh review of the evidence.

Type
Research Article
Information
Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies , Volume 4: Essays Presented to Sir Steven Runciman , 1978 , pp. 101 - 114
Copyright
Copyright ©The Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies, University of Birmingham 1978

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References

1. Choniates, , Historia, ed. Dieten, J. L. Van (CFHB, XI/I [Berlin/New York] 1975), p. 206 (=CSHB, p. 269)Google Scholar; Mango, C., The Art of the Byzantine Empire, 312–1453. Sources and Documents (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1972), pp. 228–9.Google Scholar

2. Adler, M. N., The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela (London, 1907), p. 13.Google Scholar

3. Choniates, p. 14 (149).

4. Kinnamos, John (CSHB), pp. 171–2 Google Scholar; tr.Brand, C. M., Deeds of John and Manuel Comnenus (New York, 1976), pp. 131–2 Google Scholar. Brand believes that Kinnamos here and elsewhere is referring to the Blachernae, which leads him to mistranslate the passage and to make the incredible assertion (p. 24s, n. 61) mat ‘Kinnamos always regards the Blachernai Palace … as south of the city.’ The mosaics in the Chalke depicting Justinian’s Italian victories might, if still visible, have inspired Manuel’s artists: Procopius, , De. Aed., I, 10 Google Scholar; Mango, C., The Brazen House (Copenhagen 1959).Google Scholar

5. Pachymeres (CSHB), II, pp. 196–7.

6. Cange, Charles du Fresne Du, Historia Byzantina, II: Constantinopolis Christiana (Paris, 1690), p. 121.Google Scholar

7. Guilland, R., ‘La porte des Skyla’, EEBS, XXXIII (1964), 76ff Google Scholar. esp. 83–6 (=Etudes de topographie de Constantinople Byzantine [Berlin/Amsterdam, 1969], pp. 154ff., 158–60. On the Lausiakos, see also Ebersolt, J., Le Grand Palais de Constantinople et le Livre des Cérémonies (Paris, 1910), pp. 93–5.Google Scholar

8. Ed. Heisenberg, A., Mesarites, Nikolaos. Die Palastrevolution des Johannes Komnenos (Prog. des k. alt. Gymn. z. Würzburg für das Studienjahr 1906/7 [Würzburg, 1907], pp. 19–49 Google Scholar; tr.Gabler, F., Die Kreuzfahrer erobem Konstantinopel (Graz, 1958), pp. 267–316.Google Scholar

9. Footnote on opposite page.

10. Also a work of Justinian II: see Ebersolt, pp. 95–7;Guilland, op. cit., pp. 74–6 (153–4).

11. Heisenberg, , Palastrevolution, pp. 44–5 Google Scholar. The name is derived from Arabic mahruta (‘cone’). A translation of the description is given by Mango, Art of the Byzantine Empire, pp. 228–9.

12. Guilland, op. cit., pp. 160 (85–6) equates this with a spiral staircase mentioned in the Book of Ceremonies, but the reference could simply be to twisting alleys.

13. Ebersolt, p. 214, n. 1.

14. Constantine Porphyrogenitus, De Caerimoniis aulae Byzantinae (CSHB), I, II, p. 86; I, 12, p. 89; I, 14, p. 91; I, 21, p. 123; I, 64, pp. 286, 288.

15. Ibid., I, 14, p. 91; I, 32, pp. 174–551, 50, 52, pp. 260, 263:1, 66, p. 297; II, 1, p. 518.

16. Ibid., I, 70, p.340; II, 1, p.519; II, 18, p. 605; Theophanes Continuatus (CSHB), 105.

17. Skylitzes, p. 164 (ed. J. Thurn); p. 241 (CSHB), says that Basil I cleared a cistern, filled in by Heraclius, which lay ‘between the Triklinios of Justinian and the Lausiakos’. Since the two halls were contiguous, the cistern must have been either under the area where they adjoined, or in an angle between them. The cistern may be the one found near the Sphendone of the Hippodrome: Wiegand, E. Mamboury-Th., Die Kaiserpaläste von Konstantinopel zwischen Hippodrom und Marmara-Meer (Berlin/Leipzig, 1934), pp. 47–9 Google Scholar; Miranda, S., Les palais des empereurs byzantins (Mexico, 1964), p. 78.Google Scholar

18. Op. cit., p. 85 (160).

19. Heisenberg, , Palastrevolution, pp. 43–4 Google Scholar. On the Skyla, cf. Guilland, op. cit., pp. 70–4 (151–3); on the covered hippodrome, ‘L’ Hippodrome couvert’, 55, XIX (1958), 26–72 (Etudes de topographie, pp. 165–210).

20. Heisenberg, Palastrevolution, p. 44.

21. This seems to be confirmed by another passage (ibid., 47), where Mesarites mentions soldiers who came looking for John at the Church of the Pharos.

22. ‘La porte des Skyla’, 85 (159).

23. Cod. Vat. gr. 1176 (the original tomos) ed. A. Mai, Scriptorum Veterum Nova Collectio, IV (Rome, 1831), pp. 1ff.; text also incorporated in Choniates’ Panoplia Dogmatike: MPG, CXL, 201ff. Cf. Choniates, Historia, pp. 211–13 (276–8); Kinnamos, pp. 251ff.; C. Mango, ‘The Conciliar Edict of 1166’, DOP, XVII (1963), 320.

24. Mai, pp. 36–7; MPG, CXL, 236.

25. Mai, p. 37; MPG, loc. cit. See also L. Petit, ‘Documents inédits sur le concile de 1166 et ses derniers adversaires’, VV, XI (1904), 379.

26. Diaconus, Leo (CSHB), p. 64 Google Scholar; Guilland, R., ‘L’assassinat de Nicéphore II Phokas’, BS, XIII (1952), 108ff. (430ff.).Google Scholar

27. See additional note.

28. See above, n. 9.

29. This is the interpretation favoured by Mango (Art of the Byzantine Empire, p. 229, n. 235).

30. Choniates, p. 442 (580–1); Mango, op. cit., p. 236; Guilland, R., ‘La disparition des courses’, Mélanges O. et M. Merlier (Athens, 1955), 8 (Etudes de topographie, p. 547).Google Scholar

31. MPL, CCXVI, 354B.

32. Papadopoulos-Kerameus, A., , I (St. Petersburg, 1907), 245—6 Google Scholar; Nicol, D. M., The Despotate of Epiros (Oxford, 1957), p. 55 Google Scholar.

33. Cod. Marc, gr. 534, f. 112v.: Sp. Lampros, Neos Hellenomnemon, VIII (1911), 151.

34. Choniates, pp. 118ff., 213ff. (154ff., 278ff.); Kinnamos, pp. 204ff.

35. Regel, W., Fontes Rerum Byzantinarum, Fase. 3 (Petrograd, 1917), p. 320.Google Scholar

36. Apart from John and Alexios Axouch, there was a general called Prosouch: Choniates, pp. 52, 64 (71, 85); Kinnamos, pp. 33, 73. The Chouroup who commanded the fleet early in Manuel’s reign was probably of Turkish origin: Kinnamos, pp. 44, 98, 101. For other aspects of Byzantine-Seljuq contact in the twelfth century, see Cahen, C., ‘Une famille byzantine au service des Seljuqides d’Asie Mineure’, Polychronion. Festschrift F. Dölger zum 75. Geburtstag (Heidelberg, 1966), 145–9 Google Scholar; Vryonis, S., The Decline of Medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor (Los Angeles 1971), pp. 221ff.Google Scholar

37. Kinnamos, pp. 266–7; Mango, Art of the Byzantine Empire, pp. 224–5.

38. A notable exception is Runciman, S., ‘Blachernae Palace and its Decoration’, Studies in Memory of David Talbot Rice (Edinburgh, 1975), pp. 275–83.Google Scholar

39. See, e.g., n. 4 above, and Guilland, ‘La porte des Skyla’, 83 (158), where Manuel’s supposed neglect of the Great Palace is given as a reason why he could not have built an entirely new hall there.

40. See Janin, Constantinople byzantine, pp. 133–3, 143–5, 147–8; 150–3; cf. also Treu, M., Nicephori Chrysobergae ad Angelos orationes tres (Breslau, 1892), 1, 13 Google Scholar; Gautier, P., ‘Diatribes de Jean l’Oxite contre Alexis 1er Comnène’, REB, XXVIII (1970), 41 Google Scholar: .

41. On the Blachernae quarter, walls, churches, and palace, see Millingen, A. Van, Byzantine Constantinople. The Walls of the City, and Adjoining Historical Sites (London, 1899), pp. 109–77 Google Scholar; Papadopoulos, J. B., Les palais et les églises des Blachernes (Athens, 1928)Google Scholar; Schneider, A. M., ‘Die Blachernen’, Oriens, IV (1951), 82–120 Google Scholar; Janin, Constantinople byzantine, pp. 123ff.; idem. La géographie ecclésiastique de l’empire byzantin, I: Le siège de Constantinople et le Patriarcat Oecuménique, 3: Les églises et les monastères (Paris, 1969), pp. 161ff.

42. Alexios built a throne-room prior to 1092: Janin, Constantinople byzantine, p. 126. Manuel built the throne-room and apartments mentioned above (see notes 1, 2, 33) which were perhaps different from those named after his first wife; he also strengthened the fortifications of the palace; Choniates, pp. 384, 543, 544 (500, 719, 720); Van Millingen, op. cit., pp. 122ff.; Janin, Constantinople byzantine, pp. 126–8.

43. Psellos, Michael, Chronographia, ed. Renauld, E. (Paris, 1928), pp. 21, 23, 130 Google Scholar; Attaleiates (CSHB), p. 256; Janin, op. cit.

44. Skylitzes, ed. Thurn, p. 384 (497); Grumel, V., ‘Le “Miracle Habituel” de N.D. des Blachernes àConstantinople’, EO, XXX (1931), 129–46.Google Scholar

45. Choniates, p. 347 (453); Heisenberg, , Palastrevolution, pp. 25–6 Google Scholar. Mesarites mentions that the mint-workers were people from the neighbourhood of Constantinople pressed into service.

46. The Latin conquerors found large quantities of treasure at both the Blachernae and the ‘Boukoleon’ palaces in 1204: Villehardouin, , La Conquête de Constantinople, 249–50, ed. Farai, E. (Paris, 1939), II, pp. 50–3 Google Scholar; Robert of Clari, The Conquest of Constantinople, tr. E. H. Macneal (New York, 1936), pp. 102–5.

47. Zonaras, (CSHB), III, p. 763 Google Scholar; Heisenberg, , Palastrevolution, p. 24.Google Scholar

48. Kinnamos, p. 297; Tsolakis, E., , (Thessaloniki, 1959), pp. 6, 8 Google Scholar.

49. Choniates, p. 530 (702).

50. Ibid., pp. 6–7 (10–11), 48 (66), 346–7 (451–4), 455–6 (600–1);Zonaras, III, p. 763.

51. Cantacuzene, (CSHB), I, pp. 304–5 Google Scholar; II, p. 607; III, p. 290; Gregoras, I, pp. 420–2; II, pp. 774–84; III, pp. 242–3.

52. Choniates, p. 130 (169–70).

53. Odo of Deuil, MPL, CLXXXV, 1221–2; Kinnamos, pp. 82–3; Banduri, A., Imperium orientale (Paris, 1711), II, p. 916 Google Scholar; MPG, CXL, 177.

54. See notes 23–5.

55. Kinnamos, p. 207; Choniates, p. 120 (157–8).

56. William of Tyre, XX, 23: Recueil des historiens des croisades, Historiens occidentaux, I, part 2 (Paris, 1844), pp. 983–5.

57. Ibid., XXII, 4 (p. 1067). Cf. Ebersolt, Le Grand Palais, p. 74.

58. Choniates, ed. Van Dieten, p. 168 (219); Regel, Fontes, fasc. 2, p. 366. On the Porphyra, see Ebersolt, pp. 148–9.

59. Choniates, p. 99 (130–1).

60. Ibid., p. 222 (289–90).

61. Ibid., p. 129 (169); Kinnamos, p. 233.

62. Manuel’s sense of renovatio is admirably illustrated by the inscription of the edict which he published subsequent to the synod of 1166: see Mango, ‘Conciliar Edict’, 324, 330.

(a) Miranda, op. cit. (see n. 17); the 1968 plan is to be found at the back of Guilland’s Etudes de topographie.

(b) Choniates, 235 (306); Mesarites, ed. Heisenberg, Palastrevolution, p. 27. Cf. R. Guilland, ‘Les portes de l’Hippodrome’, JÖBG, IV (1955), 71–2 [Etudes de topographie, pp. 528-g); the audior’s statements about ‘Caspian Gates’ in the Great Palace need not be taken seriously.

(c) Combine Cer:, I, 21, p. 123: ; II, 2, 524: ; II, 15, p. 585: ; II, 145, . Cf. Ebersolt, p. 98.

(d) See n. 15; Guilland, ‘La porte des Skyla’, 77–82 (155–8).