Chapter VII: Later History and Legends

§ 1. HISTORY.

From the date of the completion of Justinian’s restored church it has had to withstand the frequent earthquake shocks which, as we have so recently seen, devastate the city from time to time. Von Hammer[201] calculates, from the accounts of the Byzantine historians, that from the beginning of the seventh to the middle of the fifteenth century there were twenty-three severe earthquakes, one of which, in 1033, lasted intermittently for 140 days. In the Turkish records, from 1511 to 1765, ten earthquakes are mentioned. It is remarkable that in this length of time the delicately poised construction of the church should only have required restorations which are relatively unimportant.

It is difficult to say how far the church suffered during the struggles about image worship, which raged for more than a century. The question will be considered more fully when we deal with the mosaics of the vaults. The restoration of images was finally accomplished in 842,[202] by Theodora and Michael.

A belfry was built in the centre of the west front about the year 865:[203] and the eastern walk of the atrium was probably transformed into an exonarthex at the same time. The first regular restoration was also undertaken in the second half of the ninth century, under Basil the Macedonian: “For the wide and lofty western arch of the great church called S. Sophia was showing rents and threatening to fall. With the help of the workmen he girded it round and rebuilt it, so that it was safe and strong. And on it he figured the Virgin with her Child on her arms, and Peter and Paul, the chief of the apostles, on either side.”[204]

The north and south porches and great lateral stairways, which injuriously altered the exterior, must also have been built by Michael or Basil, as we find them mentioned in the _Book of Ceremonies._

In October 975 an earthquake caused the “hemisphere with the western arch (_apsis_) to fall.”[205] They were restored again by the same emperor in six years: he spent, Scylitzes says, “on the machines for mounting for the workmen to stand on, and for raising the scaffolding, to build what was fallen; ten centenaria of gold.”[206] According to Glycas, Romanus Argyrus (1028) beautified the capitals; Scylitzes also says this emperor “made bright with silver and gold both the capitals of the great church and of our Lady of Blachernae.”[207]

The injuries wrought by the Crusaders to S. Sophia are referred to in Chapter V. Baldwin was crowned here in 1204, and for fifty-seven years Catholic priests read masses at its altar. On the recapture the Byzantine emperors made an effort to restore, but the church never recovered its former splendour. The patriarch Arsenius during the reign of Michael Palaeologus “restored the bema and ambo and solea at the king’s expense, besides enriching the church with vestments and sacred vessels.”[208] In the first half of the fourteenth century, Andronicus Palaeologus, the elder, strengthened the north and east sides. Nicephorus Gregoras says the emperor “heard from several experienced builders that in a short time the parts towards the north and east would give way, and fall unless strengthened. And he built pyramidal structures from the foundations and prevented the threatened destruction,” but bricks and mosaic continued to fall.[209] The pyramidal structures to the east must be the four great sloping buttresses which stand over the low attached buildings on that side; they are shown on Fossati’s plan. Gregoras also inveighs against the Empress Anna as having, in the reign of Cantacuzenus, robbed the church of furniture and ornaments, and says that tyranny and oppression were the chief causes of the destruction of the church. Cantacuzenus, in his own history,[210] speaks of the damage caused by an earthquake in 1346, when about a third of the roof fell, destroying “the great stoa by the side of the bema” (perhaps the iconostasis). This is also referred to by Gregoras, “the easternmost of the four arches which rival heaven fell, dragging with it the part of the house which rested on it. The hidden beauty of the bema was destroyed as well as its ornaments of sacred icons.”[211] The stoa and bema were restored by the Empress Anna, the wife of Andronicus Palaeologus, Phaceolatus being prefect of the works, but the upper parts with the roof had to wait until the accession of Cantacuzenus in 1347. He restored the decoration both in marble and mosaic, a work which John Palaeologus finished. Both emperors were helped “by one Astras, in many things a clever man, but especially in building, and by John, surnamed Peralta, one of the Latin subjects of the emperor.”[212]

The church was necessarily much neglected in the last days of the Empire. Clavijo, who gave a careful account of the church in 1403 (see