CHAPTER XI
THE CHURCH OF THE MYRELAION, BODROUM JAMISSI
The identification of Bodroum Jamissi as the church attached to the monastery styled the Myrelaion rests upon the tradition current in the Greek community when Gyllius visited the city. According to that traveller, the church on the hill rising to the north of the eastern end of the gardens of Vlanga, the site of the ancient harbour of Theodosius, was known as the Myrelaion—'Supra locum hortorum Blanchae nuncupatorum, olim Portum Theodosianum continentium, extremam partem ad ortum solis pertinentem, clivus a Septentrione eminet, in quo est templum vulgo nominatum Myreleos.' [308] This agrees, so far, with the statement of the Anonymus [309] of the eleventh century, that the Myrelaion stood on the side of the city looking towards the Sea of Marmora. There is no record of the date when the monastery was founded. But the House must have been in existence before the eighth century, for Constantine Copronymus (740-775), the bitter iconoclast, displayed his contempt for monks and all their ways by scattering the fraternity, and changing the fragrant name of the establishment, Myrelaion, the place of myrrh-oil, into the offensive designation, Psarelaion, the place of fish-oil. [310] The monastery was restored by the Emperor Romanus I. Lecapenus (919-945), who devoted his residence in this district to that object. [311] Hence the monastery was sometimes described as 'in the palace of the Myrelaion,' [312] ἐν τοῖς παλατίοις τοῦ Μυρελαίου, and as 'the monastery of the Emperor Romanus,' [313] Μονὴ τοῦ βασιλέως Ῥωμανοῦ. It was strictly speaking a convent, and became noteworthy for the distinguished rank of some of its inmates, and as the mausoleum in which the founder and many members of his family were laid to rest. Here Romanus II. sent his sister Agatha to take the veil, when he was obliged to dismiss her from the court to soothe the jealousy of his beautiful but wicked consort Theophano. [314] Upon the abdication of Isaac Comnenus, his wife Aecatherina and her daughter Maria retired to the Myrelaion, and there learned that a crown may be a badge of slavery and the loss of it liberty. [315] Here were buried Theodora,[316] the wife of Romanus Lecapenus, in 923, and, eight years later, his beloved son Christopher, [317] for whom he mourned, says the historian of the event, with a sorrow 'greater than the grievous mourning of the Egyptians.' Here also Helena, the daughter of Romanus Lecapenus, and wife of Constantine VII. Porphyrogenitus, was laid to rest, in 981, after an imposing funeral, in which the body was carried to the grave on a bier of gold adorned with pearls and other precious stones. [318] To this monastery were transferred, from the monastery of S. Mamas, near the Gate of the Xylokerkou, the three sarcophagi, one of them a fine piece of work, containing the ashes of the Emperor Maurice and his children. And here also Romanus Lecapenus himself was interred in 948, his remains being brought from the island of Proté, where his unfilial sons, Stephen and Constantine, had obliged him to spend the last years of his life as a monk. [319]
Myrelaion.
The South Side.
Myrelaion.
The Narthex, looking north
To face page 196.
Architectural Features