Chapter 16

Triumph Re-imagined The Golden Gate and Popular Memory in Byzantine

and Ottoman Constantinople Thomas F Madden

As New Rome late ancient Constantinople was consciously modelled on the old Rome had beautifully decorated fora public baths covered streets and ri ch palaces So did Constanti nople Indeed Constantine I and his successors worked hard scouring the empire for venerable objects of art or del iberately modelling new public cons tructions on those in the western capital]

Among the many transplants from the Tiber to the Bosporus was also a well developed Roman tradition ofpublic triumphs which fonuerly could be celebrated only in Rome These elaborate civic ri tuaLs not only celebrated the deeds of the victor in aJmost a ll cases the emperor but provided a venue by which the citizens of the city could take part in a corporate activity that unified them into a common identity - as opposed to the public games which divided them along circus faction Hnes Triumphs in Constantinople were oot precisely like those in Rome yet as Michael McCormick has demonstrated they were triumphs nonetheless and they continued to be celebrated in one fonn or another well into the Middle Ages1 They could be grand processions akin to ancient Roman imperial triumphS or smaller affairs held in the Hippodrome or a forum - as was often tile case for generals4

Belisarius for example bad to walk from his house to the Hippodrome for his OWn tri umphs

By the fifth century the general practice for imperial victory processions in Constantinople was an entry into the city at the Golden Gate the southernmost of ten gates in the 65 km long land walls of Theodosius U Unlike the other gates the Golden Gate consisted of three separate open ings flanked by two square

Among the many examples one could cite the Serpent Column of Delphi relocated (0 Constantinoples Hippodrome (itself modelled on the Circus Maximus) or the columns of Theodosius and Arcadius modelled on the columns of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius in Rome See Madden 1992

Cameron 1976 McConnick 1986 Mango 2000 173- 5 ProcopiuslIislOY oflhe nal~ (Haury 1962-4 voU) 493

318 Shipping Trade und Cusade in the Medieval Mediterranean

towers The central portal was larger tban the other two and therefore was similar in design to victory arches such as those ofTrajan in Algeria and Constantine in Rome Unlike the rest o f tbe land fOlt ifications the gate and towers of the Golden Gate were faced with white marble as opposed to banks of alternating brick and limestone The entire gate complex was decorated with winged victories large reliefs of mythological scenes and a bronze statue group probably depicting Theodosius ) in a chariot drawn by four elephants Over the inside ma in pOltal was the inscription HAEC LOCA TI-IEVDOSNS DECORAT POST FATA TYRANNl (Theodosius decorates this place after the death of the tyrant) 6

For more than a century scholars bave disagreed about the precise date of the construction of the Golden Gate as well as its initial purpose The prevailing opinion has been that it was constructed as part of the Theodosian land walls wllich were completed by 4l3 atthe latest Ifso the gate wouJd have first been used by Theodosius IT probably after the defeat of a rival named John ilJ 42S Its identi 5cation as a gate in the walls seems to be supported by its (now lost) inscription on the westem outside portal AVREA SAECLA GERlT QVT PORTAM CONSTRVIT AVRO (He who builds a gate with gold rules a golden age)8 However the difference in construction techn iques as well as its position along the previously established victory route from the suburb of Hebdomon the location of the Kampos (Constantinoples equivalent of Romes Campus Martius) have led some scholars - most recently Jonathan Bardill - to see the gate as a free standing triumphal arch bui lt for TIleodosius I that was later incorporated into the land walls Based on archaeological and literary evidence Bardill makes a cOlJ vincing case that the arch was used for Theodosius triumph of 1 0 November 391 to celebrate his defeat ofMagnLlS Maximus in 388 He concludes Ulat there were already plans to build the new land walls along that line so the arch was made with that later purpose in mind - thus the inscription and the flanking towers9 lfBardiU is correct the Golden Gate must be seen as one of many Theodosian victory monuments in Constantinople slch as an equestrian statue in the Augusteion the monumental arch in the Forum ofTheodosius and the Egyptian obelisk in the Hippodrome 1o

This question of a few decades is not di rectly re levant to th is study What is clear however is that the Golden Gate was firmly understood from its foundation as a place reserved fo r imperial victory indeed the great doors were opened for that purpose alone From the Golden Gate the triumphal way followed the southern brancb of the Mese street moving along [0 the Fon rm ofArcadius and the

6 MUlIer-Wiener 977 297- 300

Matthews 1990 379-8 1 8 The inscription was confirmed from surviving letter mount ing holes by Stryzygoski

1893 Bardill 1999 67 1- 96

10 On the now lost equestrian statue part of which nay have been used in the famoUS C OIW11l1 of Justinian see Georgios Kodinos De (lI1tiqlliiatibllS Conlall lin(Jpolilal1i~ Bekker I R43) 187 Mango 1959 355

Triumph Re-imagined 3 19

Forum ofTheodos ius before turning toward the Forum of Constantine and finally ending at the Milion the mi lestone from wruch all distances were measured in the eastern Roman Empire Ceremonies were tben Ileld at the nearby Hippodrome and Hagia Sophia Most or the SS ki lometres of the triumphal rOllte were porticoed and emperors tended to place the best artwork or the most impressive monuments along it Justinian for example added a column and colossal bronze equestrian statue of himselfat its end in the forum known as the Augusteion As Cyril Mango has noted compared to the circuitous route of the Via Triumphalis in Rome Constantinoples must have had an undeniable grandeur II

It is di fficult to know how ofte n this triumphal way was used during the Middle Ages Texts preserved in the Book oj Ceremonies and the Book of Ceremonies itself describe only two sucb triumphs that ofTheoph ilos in 831 (or perhaps 837) and that of Basi l I in 878 12 However it was obviously used at other times What is certain is that by the eleventh century this particular route began to fail into disuse being supplanted by more modest tri umphs at the Hippodrome or Strategeion L1

Although AJex ios and Manuel Kornnenos ce lebrated victories and adorned their palace with images of them they did not it appears use the Golden Gate or the Mese triumphal way FurthenJJore as the original victories commemorated by the monuments along the way were forgotten the monuments themselves began to take on new meanings compatible with a city that had become unaccustomed to elaborate triumphs For example the sp iTalled reliefs adorning the co lumns of Theodosius and Arcadi us were no longer understood as depictions of past events but the prophecies of future ones 14 The Column of Marcian became a mystical discerner of virgi ni tyY The Column ofJustinian became a pa lladium protect ing the city from Musli m invasionlr Surprisingly though the Golden Gate did not lose its association with victory Yet as the Byzantim Empire shrank durlng the twelfth century imperiaJ tri lunphs - aside from the ritua ls that sometimes greeted a successful co lip - passed out of living memory The impressive Golden Gate with its great portals fimily closed was re-imagined by the inbabitants of Constantinople as a talisman ofvictory - not the product of triumph but a magica l means of producing it

The first mention of this evolving perception of tlle Golden Gate can be seen in Zonaras history of the world written in the twelfth century He tell s the story perhaps true that the future emperor Basil i poor and down on his luck first en tered Constantinople via the Golden Gate which had apparently been left open He was then taken in at a nearby monastery and eventually went on to become

I I Mango 2000 180

12 Constantine Porphyrogenitus Three Treatises (Haldan 1990) 140--48 IJ Mango 2000 174 177-8

14 Robert de Clar i Conquele (Lauer 1924) 89 Gunther of Pairis Hy~(oria COIISlallliFl()politollO (Orth 1994) 166 Dagron 1984 149

I ~ Ilas luck 1929 vol I 624-9

16 See egbull John Mandevi lle The Travels oSir John Mandeville (Pollard 1964) 8

318 Shipping Trade und Cusade in the Medieval Mediterranean

towers The central portal was larger tban the other two and therefore was similar in design to victory arches such as those ofTrajan in Algeria and Constantine in Rome Unlike the rest o f tbe land fOlt ifications the gate and towers of the Golden Gate were faced with white marble as opposed to banks of alternating brick and limestone The entire gate complex was decorated with winged victories large reliefs of mythological scenes and a bronze statue group probably depicting Theodosius ) in a chariot drawn by four elephants Over the inside ma in pOltal was the inscription HAEC LOCA TI-IEVDOSNS DECORAT POST FATA TYRANNl (Theodosius decorates this place after the death of the tyrant) 6

For more than a century scholars bave disagreed about the precise date of the construction of the Golden Gate as well as its initial purpose The prevailing opinion has been that it was constructed as part of the Theodosian land walls wllich were completed by 4l3 atthe latest Ifso the gate wouJd have first been used by Theodosius IT probably after the defeat of a rival named John ilJ 42S Its identi 5cation as a gate in the walls seems to be supported by its (now lost) inscription on the westem outside portal AVREA SAECLA GERlT QVT PORTAM CONSTRVIT AVRO (He who builds a gate with gold rules a golden age)8 However the difference in construction techn iques as well as its position along the previously established victory route from the suburb of Hebdomon the location of the Kampos (Constantinoples equivalent of Romes Campus Martius) have led some scholars - most recently Jonathan Bardill - to see the gate as a free standing triumphal arch bui lt for TIleodosius I that was later incorporated into the land walls Based on archaeological and literary evidence Bardill makes a cOlJ vincing case that the arch was used for Theodosius triumph of 1 0 November 391 to celebrate his defeat ofMagnLlS Maximus in 388 He concludes Ulat there were already plans to build the new land walls along that line so the arch was made with that later purpose in mind - thus the inscription and the flanking towers9 lfBardiU is correct the Golden Gate must be seen as one of many Theodosian victory monuments in Constantinople slch as an equestrian statue in the Augusteion the monumental arch in the Forum ofTheodosius and the Egyptian obelisk in the Hippodrome 1o

This question of a few decades is not di rectly re levant to th is study What is clear however is that the Golden Gate was firmly understood from its foundation as a place reserved fo r imperial victory indeed the great doors were opened for that purpose alone From the Golden Gate the triumphal way followed the southern brancb of the Mese street moving along [0 the Fon rm ofArcadius and the

6 MUlIer-Wiener 977 297- 300

Matthews 1990 379-8 1 8 The inscription was confirmed from surviving letter mount ing holes by Stryzygoski

1893 Bardill 1999 67 1- 96

10 On the now lost equestrian statue part of which nay have been used in the famoUS C OIW11l1 of Justinian see Georgios Kodinos De (lI1tiqlliiatibllS Conlall lin(Jpolilal1i~ Bekker I R43) 187 Mango 1959 355

Triumph Re-imagined 3 19

Forum ofTheodos ius before turning toward the Forum of Constantine and finally ending at the Milion the mi lestone from wruch all distances were measured in the eastern Roman Empire Ceremonies were tben Ileld at the nearby Hippodrome and Hagia Sophia Most or the SS ki lometres of the triumphal rOllte were porticoed and emperors tended to place the best artwork or the most impressive monuments along it Justinian for example added a column and colossal bronze equestrian statue of himselfat its end in the forum known as the Augusteion As Cyril Mango has noted compared to the circuitous route of the Via Triumphalis in Rome Constantinoples must have had an undeniable grandeur II

It is di fficult to know how ofte n this triumphal way was used during the Middle Ages Texts preserved in the Book oj Ceremonies and the Book of Ceremonies itself describe only two sucb triumphs that ofTheoph ilos in 831 (or perhaps 837) and that of Basi l I in 878 12 However it was obviously used at other times What is certain is that by the eleventh century this particular route began to fail into disuse being supplanted by more modest tri umphs at the Hippodrome or Strategeion L1

Although AJex ios and Manuel Kornnenos ce lebrated victories and adorned their palace with images of them they did not it appears use the Golden Gate or the Mese triumphal way FurthenJJore as the original victories commemorated by the monuments along the way were forgotten the monuments themselves began to take on new meanings compatible with a city that had become unaccustomed to elaborate triumphs For example the sp iTalled reliefs adorning the co lumns of Theodosius and Arcadi us were no longer understood as depictions of past events but the prophecies of future ones 14 The Column of Marcian became a mystical discerner of virgi ni tyY The Column ofJustinian became a pa lladium protect ing the city from Musli m invasionlr Surprisingly though the Golden Gate did not lose its association with victory Yet as the Byzantim Empire shrank durlng the twelfth century imperiaJ tri lunphs - aside from the ritua ls that sometimes greeted a successful co lip - passed out of living memory The impressive Golden Gate with its great portals fimily closed was re-imagined by the inbabitants of Constantinople as a talisman ofvictory - not the product of triumph but a magica l means of producing it

The first mention of this evolving perception of tlle Golden Gate can be seen in Zonaras history of the world written in the twelfth century He tell s the story perhaps true that the future emperor Basil i poor and down on his luck first en tered Constantinople via the Golden Gate which had apparently been left open He was then taken in at a nearby monastery and eventually went on to become

I I Mango 2000 180

12 Constantine Porphyrogenitus Three Treatises (Haldan 1990) 140--48 IJ Mango 2000 174 177-8

14 Robert de Clar i Conquele (Lauer 1924) 89 Gunther of Pairis Hy~(oria COIISlallliFl()politollO (Orth 1994) 166 Dagron 1984 149

I ~ Ilas luck 1929 vol I 624-9

16 See egbull John Mandevi lle The Travels oSir John Mandeville (Pollard 1964) 8

320 Shipping Trade and Crllsade in the Medieval Mediterranean

emperor 17 The implication ofthe story was that h is entry through a gate that was reserved to triumphant emperors destined bim [or the throne - and for his own

triumphs through the same gate during the 880s Roughly contemporary to Zonaras is a letter by a French envoy sent back to

Philip II Augustus in I l88 providing inforn)ation about Constantinople before the kiugs departure on the Th ird Crusade The envoy assured Philip that the c ity was weak and could easily be taken As proof he provided him with a description of the Golden Gate saying It is wri tten on the Golden Gate which has not been opened for the past two hundred years When comes a blonde king from the West J will open mysel f to him IH It seems unlikely that the story was simply fabricated Indeed the insertion of a blonde king seems to confirm that he personally v isited the structure Hasluck long ago suggested that the westerner mistook a lost inscription that included the name Flavius for tl avus19 Yet there is no reason to postulate a new inscription when the one that existed accounts sufficiently for the envoys statement The fi rst two words of the Golden Gate s outer western inscription Aurea saecla (golden age) could easily have been mistaken for Aurea saeta (golden hair) The inscription which was high above the main door was probably in poor repair in 11 88 Indeed today only the letter dowel holes for AVREA SAECLA GER survive This might have been true in

the twelfth century as well 20

Whether it empowered usurpers or opened to prophesied invaders the Golden Gate was not just a symbol of victory but a threat to the current emperor This was something not taken lightly by Isaac II Angelos (1 185- 95) who reigned in Constant inople while the French envoy was writing home Like many of his contemporaries Isaac believed strongly in propheciel and the talisman ic power o f antiquities N iketas Choniates tells us that he frequently sought to divine the length of his reign21 He also ordered the ancient bronze statue of the Caledonian Boar in the Hippodrome to be removed from its pedestal and relocated to the Great Palace believ ing that it would act as a talisman against an uprising by the swinjsh mobs12 It is not surprising then tbat be may also have turned his attention to the problem of the Golden Gate JIe apparently ordered the doors removed and the archways walled Up2J Thus it remained for I decade or more In 1204 a fter the Fourth Crusade entered the city the fleeing Byzantine army broke down the new walls of the Golden Gate so that they could exit the c ityH Nikctas

17 Zonaras Epitomae hisforiarum libr XIIl- VIll (Bilttncr-Wobst 1897) 409- 10

I~ Gesla Regis fretrici Secundi (Stubbs 1867) vol 2 52

19 Hasluck 1929 vol 2 471 ( 4

Stryzygowski 1893 fig 5 ~I Choniates liiSforia (van Dieten 1975) 4 19 432- 3

u Ibid 558 Z3 Talbot Rice 1965 32 2lt1 Choniates ffis(lria (van D ietcn 1975) 570

nillmph Re-imagined 32 1

Choniates himself as well as thousands of otber Byzantine refugees le n the city through thc Golden Gate which now stood open for all to pass through25

It is not clear whether the Golden Gate was again walled up during the period of Latin ru le a lthough it seems likely that it was The city deteriorated rapidly duri ng those years And yet the Golden Gates essential function was not forgotten On 15 August l26 1 Michael Palaiologos having just captured the city staged a dramatic and unusual triumph to celebrate the restoration of the Byzantine capital He was not yet emperor although that problem would be resolved at the end of the procession wben he was crowned in Hagia Soph ia Rather than accept the triumph himse lf though he gave it to the Virgin Mary the special protectress of Constantinople The icon of the Virgin Hodegetria held a loft by the c lergy made its triumphant entry through the Golden Gate and down the long Mese road Michael and his fam ily walked humbly behind26

This was Dot the only departure from the triumphs three to four centuries earlier By 1261 Constantinople was a city in an advanced state of decay Much of the city was m ined destroyed in the tbree fires of 1203 and 1204 27 Whole sections were abandoned or turned over to cultivation The tri umph of Michael vru must have picked its way across a landscape of ruin and desolation Even at its terminus in the city centTe the Hippodrome was damaged and shorn of most of its ornamentation while the Great Palace complex nearby was in ruins and largely abandoned

Michae l VIII probably walled up the gate again ifonly to secure it against the crusade rumbli ngs that continued to emanate from Europe Tbe present statc of the gate suggests that it has gone through numerous openings and closings based on subsequent uses We know that it was used by John V Palaiologos in the late fourteenth century as the basis of a fortifi ed li ttle town (as Doukas later called it) It was surrounded by wa lls and towers and apparently also provided with a port It was provoking enough though to cause the Ottoman sultan Beyezit to order him to demoli sh it John had no choice but to obey l8

Like the c ity behind it the Golden Gate underwent its own decay The fi gure of Theodosius fell in the earthquake of October 74029 It was apparently restored to its positi on since the Arab visitor Harfrn ibn-Yahya saw it in the late ninth or early tenth centurylO It must have faJlen again because by 1204 the crusader Robert of Clari saw only two elephants therell The large mythological reliefs however were still v isible Pierre Gilles saw 12 of tbem in 154432 M ango has recently demonstrated that these extraordinary reliefs - each approximately six feet tall shy

25 Ibid 589

26 achymcres Relatiolls his(orfqlleuroS (Fail ler 1984-2000) vol 1 2 16-19 27 Madden 199 1-2 72- 93

~8 Barker 1969 467shy middotmiddot8 546 29 heophanes Chft)Jographia (de Boor 1883) 412 30 lzeddin 194 1- 8 45

Robert de C lari OJflq lle le (Lauer 1924) 87

12 Gi lles 1561 2 15- 16

211

323 Shipping Trade and Cnlsade in the Medieval Mediterranean 322

were mounted some 30 to 40 feet off the ground They represented a hodge-podge of scenes - Endymion with Selene Hercules leading Cerberus Pegasus tended by nymphs dnmken Hercules and others - chosen for their beauty rather than any intrinsi c meaning They were probably taken originally from a public bui lding or villa of some importance3

Neither Byzantine nor western writers describe the Golden Gate during the Palaiologan centuries except in the most utili tarian way Based on subsequent events however it appears that its association with imperial victory was not lost As the empire contracted to become litt le more than the capital city tbe need for a tri umphal arch was obviously min imal Indeed like the Column of Justinian at the opposite end of the triumphal way these monuments became reminders of the extant of decline and decay that the Byzantine Empire continued to experience

The Turkish conquest of Constantinople in 1453 had a dramatic impact on the ways in which the Golden Gate was understood within its new cultural context in the popular imagination of both Greeks and Turks the gate continued in its role as a tal isman of future victory rather than a memento of Roman ones Extraordinarily the victories ill question were never associated with the Turkish rulers of Constantinople but with Byzantine or at least Christian conquerors In other words the gate itself became popularly associated with ancient imperial magic that possessed the potential to undo the Ottoman conquest thus restoring a Christian empire It was thereby transformed from a relic of victory in a landscape of decay into an instrument of the citys rebi rth

How quickly these new ideas were formulated is not clear Sultan MehOled II wal led the gate up and bui lt the Yedikule fo rtress around it This fortress of the Seven Towers not only served as a strategic stronghold but was also used to house particularly important prisoners of the sultan It is tempting to conclude that like Isaac II Mebmed feared tbe power of the Golden Gate and thereby went beyond walling it up by buildi ng an enti re fortification around it It is true that the sultan was consc ious of potentia lly dangerous tal ismans in lbe city Indeed he ordered the destruct ion of the Column of Justinian while a llowing countless other monuments and statues Lo survive precisely because it was believed to have anti-Turkish magic4 But sometimes a fortress is j ust a fortress And as John V had demonstrated building a fort ification that included the Golden Gate made good practical sense Pierre Gilles mentions no superstitions concerning the gate during his sixteenth-century visi t ThaL in itself however means little Elsewhere in his treatise Gi lles complains bitterly about the Greeks and Turks who were continually sbowering him with fantast ic stories about the anc ient bu ildings and

monuments o f the cityJ5 The English traveller Peter Mundy who was in Constantinople between 1608

and 1620 visited the Golden Gate It is not clear whether be had a Turkish or

3J Mango 2000 185--6 )4 Mango 1959 354 JS Gilles 1561 90

Iimiddotjumph Re-imagined

Greek guide yet his testimony makes clear that legends of the gate s power even though it was now part of the Seven Towers remained current He wrote

In the said wall ) saw an arche made or dambd upp They say on this occasion That it was the gate by which the Citty was entred and Won from the Christians and lhat there is a Prophecy among the turcks that it shall bee lost againe by the said gate36

Mundy or h is guides were incorrect T ile walls were breached further nortb near the Gate of AdriallOp le in 1453 However the danger that the gate was thought to pose to Turkish rul e of Constantinople is c lear In some ways it is remi uiscent of the Golden Gate of Jerusalem which was wal led up to keep the Mess iah from entering and taking control over the city

The next several centuries did little to suppress falltaslic beliefs about the Golden Gate of Constantinople Among the Greeks and Turks of the Ottoman city the legends grew in number and complexity A few appear in travellers accounts while others were collected orally by Henry Carnoy and Jean Nicolaides in the nineteenth centuryY

Some Greek residents believed that with in the fortress of the Seven Towers an old man with a long white beard slept on the roots or a fig tree Most clamled that he was St John the Evangelist but a few insisted that he was emperor John V Palaiologos who died in 139 1 Either way his name was John He held in his bands a large book wbich contained lists of the sins of the Christians and Turks As long as he slept the Golden Gate would never open for a conqueror Anyone who crept up to the snoozing old mall would hear him murmur The time bas not yet come The hour has not yet arrived The remiss ion ofSillS has nOl yet come to pass This quiet chant fi ts into a much Jarger Greek perspective Lbat held Turkish rule as equivalent to the Babylonian captivity As w ith the Jews God would one day relent from his punishment of the Greeks and restore to them their own Jerusalem - the new Jerusalem of Constantinople Accordi ng to th is particular legend when the sins were at last remi tted the old man s munnuring would stop John would Lhen awaken and no longer hold closed the Golden Gale Seven m Uons would come througb the ancien t gate and conquer Constantinople slaughtering the Turks in such num bers that the street) would run red with their blood Tn time John himselfwould leave the Golden Gate and walk to the centre of the city There he would cry out Stop Enough blood has been spiJJed At once_ the ki lling wo uld cease John would then rule for three days before disappearing leaving behind a reborn Christian Constantinople Since the Turks had good reason to make certai n lnat the old man - whoever he was - remained comfortably asleep guards in the

36 Mundy Travels (Temple 1(07) 32

J1 Carnoy and Nico laIdcs 18 4

325 Shipp ing Trade and Crusade in fhe Medie val Mediterranean 324

fortress of the Seven Towers lit a lamp for him every night and even provided covers that were replaced annuall y Or at least that is how the story wentJ8

The Golden Gate also fi gured prominently in another widely held belief in Ottoman Constantinople In thi s one Constantine XI Palaiologos the last Christian emperor of the city had been taken up by angels when the Turks breached the walJ s of Constantinople in 1453 The heavenly messengers turned the valiant man into stone - marble to be exact He was then placed into an underground chamber somewhere j ust outside the Golden Gate When the sins of the Christi ans were remitted the angels would awaken the emperor restore to him hi s sword and burst open the Golden Gate Single-handedly COllBtantine would cast the Turks out of his city and his lands restoring once more the Christian Byzantine Empire J9

This was not just some wives tale or the desperate dreanls o r a conquered people It was widely be lieved by Greeks and Turks alike And why not It seemed to be wet confirmed by the Oracles of Leo the Wise a collection of popular medieval drawings that purported to tell the future Oracle 13 depicted a sleeping man bound up in bandages from head to foot and atte nded to by angels40 After 1453 this image was al ways associated with Constantine in his cave 41 According to Greeks interviewed by Carnoy and Nicolaides the Turks had severa l times searched for the petrifi ed emperors subterranean chamber but had been unable to find him T here is good reason to believe that tbi s may have been the case - or at least that the danger was understood at all levels of Turkish society in Constantinople42

For example in 1626 Sir Thomas Roe who represented the English government in the Ottoman capi tal v isited the Golden Gate One of Roes duties was to acquire classical antiqui ties in the Ottoman Empire for wea lthy British collectors In most cases this was not terribly difficult But the Earl ofArundel and the Duke ofB uckingham had taken a fancy to the series oflarge st()ne reliefs still moun ted on the Golden Gate To his surprise Roe found it alm ost impossible to arrange their purchase - even for a very large SUIll of money It took more than a year for bim to place the necessary bribes Finally in May 1626 Sir Tbomas rode out to the Golden Gate with the Great Treasurer of the Ottoman Empire and the Surveyor o[ the City Walls It seemed he would at last obtain the troublesome carvings The Ottoman offic ials told Roe to wait for lhem at a nearby dock They would go to the Golden Gate have the rc liefs removed and then bring them back so that they could be loaded aboard a vessel bound for E ngland

But things did not go as planned When the Surveyor and Treasurer ordered the removal of the ancienl sculptures the Governor of the Seven Towers refused

38 Carnoy and NicolaIdes 1894 103 39 The Literature on the petrified emperor legend is vast See eg Has luck 1929 vol

I 354 Nicol 1992 101-2 Vryon is 197 1 438 Herzfeld 1982 40 Dr 107 col I 138 4 1 Mangu 196v bull 2 Carnoy and NicolaIdes 1894 47- 1

Trillmph Re-mlagined

to allow it Word quickly spread among the local populalion that an infidel from the West was tampering with the Golden Gale Hundreds perhaps thousands of people ran to the gate to put a stop to it From a distance Roe could see and hear an angry mob which seemed on the verge of killing the offic ials When the Treasurer fi na lly retLlrned to the dock he brought no ancient sculp tures but he was clearly upset He demanded to know ifRoe had an old booke of prophesy which told of ilie mystical power of the Golden Gate When the bewildered ambassador protested that he did not the Treasurer accused him of knowing that those statues were enchanted and that we knew when they should be taken downe some great alteration should befall trus ciny He spake of a vaul t under ground that r understand not wh ich filled them with superstition and suspitioll of me EventLlally Sir Thomas was able to convince the Treasurer that he had no idea what he was talking about which was quite true Nonetheless the Treasurer told Sir Thomas never agai n to speak or even to think about the Golden Gate lest it cost them both their lives When the ambassador returned borne that njght he wrote to the Earl and Duke say ing that the reliefs are like to stand till they til ll with lyme And it is true though [ could not get the stones yet I allmost raised an insurrection in that part of the citty 4J

Clearly by the seventeenth century and almost certainly long before commonly held beliefs about the triumphal archway had developed that wove together the rebirth of Byzantine Constantinople and the sleeping emperor legend ofthe Leoni ne oracles This dynamic can be seen again in 1717 It was in that year that an Egyptian mummy was being transported through Constantinople on its way to Europe The mummy had been purchased a few years earlier by Louis XIV of France who wanted to make a present of it to Charles xn ofSweden (Charles had a passion for archaeo logy which he had acquired whi le staying in Constantinople The ancient corpse travelled across the Near East and arrived at Constantinople where it would begin the last leg of its trip But it djd not make it that far At the Gate of Adrianople Turkish officials stopped the mummys transporters and ins isted on inspecting the crate in which it was packed After prying open the ornate coffin they discovered an ancient seemingly petrified man bound in bandages from head to foot The same suspicion that scunled Roes attempt to take the reliefs from the Golden Gate seems to have led the inspectors to suspect that before them they had the body of the last Christian emperor which the Christians were attempting to spirit out of Constantinople so that he could be revived The officials confiscated the mummy and sent him to the Seven Towers - back to the Golden Gate from whence he came When the mummy arrived the Turks appear to have treated him with the respect due to a conquered Christian leader First he was decapitated Then to make double certain that he would not restore his empire the mummy was also cut in two at the torso The three parts were carefully placed baek into the sarcophagus and locked up in one of the towers~

4J Richardson 1740 5 12 TIle reliefs are now lost ~_4 Pouquevi llc 1110 I I ii-- I _

325 Shipp ing Trade and Crusade in fhe Medie val Mediterranean 324

fortress of the Seven Towers lit a lamp for him every night and even provided covers that were replaced annuall y Or at least that is how the story wentJ8

The Golden Gate also fi gured prominently in another widely held belief in Ottoman Constantinople In thi s one Constantine XI Palaiologos the last Christian emperor of the city had been taken up by angels when the Turks breached the walJ s of Constantinople in 1453 The heavenly messengers turned the valiant man into stone - marble to be exact He was then placed into an underground chamber somewhere j ust outside the Golden Gate When the sins of the Christi ans were remitted the angels would awaken the emperor restore to him hi s sword and burst open the Golden Gate Single-handedly COllBtantine would cast the Turks out of his city and his lands restoring once more the Christian Byzantine Empire J9

This was not just some wives tale or the desperate dreanls o r a conquered people It was widely be lieved by Greeks and Turks alike And why not It seemed to be wet confirmed by the Oracles of Leo the Wise a collection of popular medieval drawings that purported to tell the future Oracle 13 depicted a sleeping man bound up in bandages from head to foot and atte nded to by angels40 After 1453 this image was al ways associated with Constantine in his cave 41 According to Greeks interviewed by Carnoy and Nicolaides the Turks had severa l times searched for the petrifi ed emperors subterranean chamber but had been unable to find him T here is good reason to believe that tbi s may have been the case - or at least that the danger was understood at all levels of Turkish society in Constantinople42

For example in 1626 Sir Thomas Roe who represented the English government in the Ottoman capi tal v isited the Golden Gate One of Roes duties was to acquire classical antiqui ties in the Ottoman Empire for wea lthy British collectors In most cases this was not terribly difficult But the Earl ofArundel and the Duke ofB uckingham had taken a fancy to the series oflarge st()ne reliefs still moun ted on the Golden Gate To his surprise Roe found it alm ost impossible to arrange their purchase - even for a very large SUIll of money It took more than a year for bim to place the necessary bribes Finally in May 1626 Sir Tbomas rode out to the Golden Gate with the Great Treasurer of the Ottoman Empire and the Surveyor o[ the City Walls It seemed he would at last obtain the troublesome carvings The Ottoman offic ials told Roe to wait for lhem at a nearby dock They would go to the Golden Gate have the rc liefs removed and then bring them back so that they could be loaded aboard a vessel bound for E ngland

But things did not go as planned When the Surveyor and Treasurer ordered the removal of the ancienl sculptures the Governor of the Seven Towers refused

38 Carnoy and NicolaIdes 1894 103 39 The Literature on the petrified emperor legend is vast See eg Has luck 1929 vol

I 354 Nicol 1992 101-2 Vryon is 197 1 438 Herzfeld 1982 40 Dr 107 col I 138 4 1 Mangu 196v bull 2 Carnoy and NicolaIdes 1894 47- 1

Trillmph Re-mlagined

to allow it Word quickly spread among the local populalion that an infidel from the West was tampering with the Golden Gale Hundreds perhaps thousands of people ran to the gate to put a stop to it From a distance Roe could see and hear an angry mob which seemed on the verge of killing the offic ials When the Treasurer fi na lly retLlrned to the dock he brought no ancient sculp tures but he was clearly upset He demanded to know ifRoe had an old booke of prophesy which told of ilie mystical power of the Golden Gate When the bewildered ambassador protested that he did not the Treasurer accused him of knowing that those statues were enchanted and that we knew when they should be taken downe some great alteration should befall trus ciny He spake of a vaul t under ground that r understand not wh ich filled them with superstition and suspitioll of me EventLlally Sir Thomas was able to convince the Treasurer that he had no idea what he was talking about which was quite true Nonetheless the Treasurer told Sir Thomas never agai n to speak or even to think about the Golden Gate lest it cost them both their lives When the ambassador returned borne that njght he wrote to the Earl and Duke say ing that the reliefs are like to stand till they til ll with lyme And it is true though [ could not get the stones yet I allmost raised an insurrection in that part of the citty 4J

Clearly by the seventeenth century and almost certainly long before commonly held beliefs about the triumphal archway had developed that wove together the rebirth of Byzantine Constantinople and the sleeping emperor legend ofthe Leoni ne oracles This dynamic can be seen again in 1717 It was in that year that an Egyptian mummy was being transported through Constantinople on its way to Europe The mummy had been purchased a few years earlier by Louis XIV of France who wanted to make a present of it to Charles xn ofSweden (Charles had a passion for archaeo logy which he had acquired whi le staying in Constantinople The ancient corpse travelled across the Near East and arrived at Constantinople where it would begin the last leg of its trip But it djd not make it that far At the Gate of Adrianople Turkish officials stopped the mummys transporters and ins isted on inspecting the crate in which it was packed After prying open the ornate coffin they discovered an ancient seemingly petrified man bound in bandages from head to foot The same suspicion that scunled Roes attempt to take the reliefs from the Golden Gate seems to have led the inspectors to suspect that before them they had the body of the last Christian emperor which the Christians were attempting to spirit out of Constantinople so that he could be revived The officials confiscated the mummy and sent him to the Seven Towers - back to the Golden Gate from whence he came When the mummy arrived the Turks appear to have treated him with the respect due to a conquered Christian leader First he was decapitated Then to make double certain that he would not restore his empire the mummy was also cut in two at the torso The three parts were carefully placed baek into the sarcophagus and locked up in one of the towers~

4J Richardson 1740 5 12 TIle reliefs are now lost ~_4 Pouquevi llc 1110 I I ii-- I _

326 327

Shipping Trade and Crusade if I lre Medieval Mediterranean

When word of the mummys arrest spread among European expatriates in Constantinople it elicited a chorus of chortles and shaking heads Lady Mary Wortley Montagu the wife of the English ambassador at Lhe time wrote

The Turks fancied it the body of God knows who and that the state of the

Empire mystically depended on the conservation of il Some old propbecies

were remembered on this occasion and the mummy was committed to the Seven

Towcrs45

Yet the mummys career was not yet over More than eight decades later at the beginni ng of the nineteenth century the mummy remained a prisoner of the sul tan Francois Pouquevillc a French diplomat ran into him while be was himself a prisoner at the Seven Towers Pouquevi lle managed to gain entry to the mummys tower and inside found the decorated sarcophagus When he opened the lid he discovered the would-be conqueror still resting there in three pieces Pouquev ille re lieved the mummy of his head squi lTeling it away under his cloak He knew Ihat the Turks considered the mummy to be a threat to the Ottoman Empire although he was not interested in the details For him it was noth ing more than a merry j oke As he sarcastically wrote in his memoirs by taking the mummys head I have broken the charm and accelerated the dow nfall of a great empire46

The Golden Gate in Constantinople provides a useful study of the means by which the inhab itants viewed both decay and rebirth in their city As the monument of imperial victory fe ll into disuse it became a measuring stick o f the decline of the city and the empire With its gates continually closed the Golden Gate even suggested a danger - that it could impart imperial victory on another even a pauper or a barbarian What is particularly interesting is that the Golden Gate was not successfully claimed or converted by the Ottomans as so much of the city was after 1453 Instead both Turks and Greeks continued to see in the gate an emblem of Byzanti ne triumph wh ich in their day meant the destruction of Turkish Constantinople and the rebirth of a Roman city lost many centuri es beforc

Rcfcrences

Bardil l J 1999 The Golden Gate in Constantinople a triumphal arch of Theodosius f American lournal ofArchaeology 103 67 1-96

Barker J W 1969 Manuel ll Paaeologus (1 391-1425) a sludv in Late Bvzunline statesmanshjp (New Brunswick NJ)

Bekker l J843 Codinus De anliqllitalibus Constantinopoitanis (Boon) Cameron A D E 1976 Circus Factions Billes and Greens al Rome and

Byzantium (Oxford)

~s HaJsband 1965-7 vo l I 365 ~6 Pouquevillc 1810 119

Triumph Re-lmagilled

Camoy H and NicolaIdes J 1894 Folklore de Constantinople (Paris) Dagron G 1984 Constantinople imaginaire etudes sur Ie reclIeil des Paflia

(Paris)

de Boor C 1883 Theophanis Chronographia vol J (Leipzig) Bfittner-Wobst T 1897 oannis Zonarae epitomae historiarum libri Xlll-XVIll

(Bonn)

van Dieten J 1975 Nicelae Chonintae Hisoria (Berlin) FailIer A 1984-99 Georges Pachymeres Relations hisloriques 5 voJs (Paris

1984- 2000)

Gi lles P 1561 De Topographia Constantinopoleos (Venice) Ha ldon J 1990 Constantine Porphyrogeni tus Three Treatises on Imperial

MilitOlY Expeditions (Vienna)

Halsband R 1965-7 Lady Mary Wortley Montagu Complete Lelfers (Oxford) Hasluck F W 1929 Christianiry and slam under the Sultans 2 vols (Oxford) Haury J 1962-4 Procopii Caesariensis opera omnia (rev G Wirth) 4 vols

(Lepizig)

Herzfel d M 1982 Ours Once More fo lklore ideology and the making ofModern Greece (Austin Texas)

Izeddin M 1941-8 Un prisonnier arabe aByzance au [Xe siecle 1-farfin- ibnshyYahya Revue des etudes islamiques 15 4 1-62

Lauer P 1924 Robert de C lari La Conquete de Constantinople (Paris) Madden T F 1992 The Serpent Column ofDelphi in Constantinople placement

purposes and mutilations Byzantine and Modem Greek Studies 16 111-45 Madden T F 199 1- 2 T he fires of the Fourth Crusade in Constantinople

1203- 1204 a damage assessment Byzantinische Zeitschrift 8485 7-93 McConnick M 1986 Eternal Viclmy Triumphal Rulership in Lale Antiquity

Byzantium and the Early Medieval West (Cambridge) Mango C 1959 Letter to the Editor The Art Bulletin 41 351-8 Mango C 1960 The Legend of Leo the Wise Zbornik radova Vizantoloskog

inSlilllta 6 59- 93

Mango C 2000 The Triumphal Way of Constantinople and the Golden Gate Dumbarton Oaks Papers 54 173-88

Matthews J 1990 Western Ariitocracies and Imperial COllrt AD 364-425 (Oxford)

MOller-Wiener W 1977 Bildlexicon zur Topographie ISlanbuls Byzantion _ Konstantinupolis - Istanbul bis zum Beginn des 17 Jahrhunderts (Tiibingen)

Nicol D M 1992 The Immortal Emperor the life and legend orConstanline Palaigos last emperor athe Romans (Cambridge)

Orth P 1994 Gunther of Pairis Hystoria Constantinopolitana (Hildesheim and urich)

POllard A W 1964 Joh n Mandeville The Travels ofSir Johll Mandeville (New York)

Pouqueville F C H L 1820 Travels i ll Greece and nirke) (London) Richardson S 1740 The Nego ~ions ojSir Thomas Roe (London)

328 Shipping Trade and Crusade in the Medieval Mediterranean

Stryzygoski 1 1893 Das Goldene Thor in Konstan1inopel Jahrbuch des Kaiserlich Deliischen Archiiologischen Insfituts 8 1-39

Stubbs W 1867 Gesta Regis Henriei SeclIndi 2 vols (London) Talbot Rjce D 1965 Constantinople From ByzaTtium fO Istanbul (New York) Temple R C 1907 The Travels aPeter Mlindy in Europe and ASia 1608-1667

(Cambridgo) Vryonis S 1971 The Decline ofMedieval Hellenism inAsia Minor andhe Process

0 Islamizationrom the Eleventh through the Fifteenth Century (Berkeley )

Chapter 17

The Cathars and the Albigensian Crusade Mark Gregory Pegg

The Cathars are the most famous heretics of the Middle Ages relentlessly celebrated in histories (silly and scholarly) novels (enjoyable nonsense) memoires (a year or two in Provincia) poems (al bad) wine (rough and ready - the list is endless The story of the Calbars traditionally opens in tbe eleventh centwy their presence faint and uncertain tben halfway througb the twelfth there they are loud and visible from the Meditenanean to the North Sea until at the threshold of the th irteenth a Cathar Church exists w ith systematic dual ist doctrines and an elaborate ep iscopate Sometime during this hundred or so years BogomiJ miss ionaries covertly travel from the Balkans and influence the dualist Uleology of the Catbars A cosm ic chasm splits the Cathar universe an active Devil manipulates the earth a pass ive God dwells in heaven Body and soul are irreconcilabl e Existence is an unreq uited yearning for an indifferent God and if such longing is to be endured equanimity in mi nd and manner is practised Thousands of Calhars live in spiritual and social tranq ui llity (tinged with holy melanchol ia) The region where the Cathars thrive are the lands of the counts of Toulouse between the Garonne and the Rhone Rjvers This grand narrative reaches its tragic crescendo in the bloody violence of the Albigensian Crusade from j 209 to 1229 and thereafter the unremi tting persecutions of inquisitors unti l the Cathars disappear [or all intents and purposes sometime ill the fourteenth century An epic tale ofspi ritua l freedom and religious into lerance a warn ing and a lesson from the past always worth tell ing - except of course that none of it is true l

Immediately though it m ust be stressed that the historiography ofCatharisrn in particular and medieval heresy in general rests upon generations of extraordinary learning in a way that has been and still is rarely equalled in the study of the

I first met John Pryor more than 20 years ago I was an undergraduate in Med ieval History I si tting way up the back of an old auditorium in the comer of the Main Quad of the University of Sydney Whatever he said in that first lecture - and I have no distinct memory now - I was inspired Lo become an historian (and a medievalist at that) Four years later 1 wrote all Honours T hes is under his ltlircction about the leprosy of the Lalin King of Jerusaltm Baldw in IV It was published soon afterwards (Pegg 1(90) There is no question that my ta lent (sLlch as it is) lt1$ an historian dtrives from my early years with John lie is a marvel()u5 ~cho l ar inspirational lWllCr and exc~pl iona l friend