Fig. 75.
But while called thus to deplore the removal of many of its valued relics, the Pantokrator came during the Latin period into possession of a sacred object which compensated the house abundantly for all losses of that kind. The church became the shrine of the eikon of the Theotokos Hodegetria. No relic was held in higher estimation. It was considered to be the portrait of the mother of our Lord painted by S. Luke, and was brought from Jerusalem to Constantinople by the Empress Eudocia, wife of Theodosius II., as a present to her sister-in-law Pulcheria. It led the hosts of the Empire to victory, and shared the honours of their triumphal entry into the capital. When enemies besieged the city, the eikon was carried in procession through the streets and around the fortifications, or was placed near the post of danger. After the capture of the city by the Latins the picture was first taken to S. Sophia, then the cathedral of the Venetian patriarchs of Constantinople. But the Venetian clergy of the Pantokrator claimed the sacred picture as their own, in virtue of a promise made to them by the Emperor Henry; and when their claim was ignored, they persuaded the podesta of the Venetian community to break into S. Sophia and seize the eikon by force. In vain did the patriarch appear upon the scene with candle and bell to excommunicate the podesta, his council, and his agents for the sacrilegious act. The coveted prize was borne off in triumph to the Pantokrator. In vain did the Papal Legate in the city confirm the excommunication of the guilty parties, and lay their churches under interdict. In vain were those penalties confirmed by the Pope himself. [380] The eikon kept its place in the Pantokrator notwithstanding all anathemas until the fall of the Latin Empire, when it was removed from the church to lead the procession which came through the Golden Gate on the 15th August 1261, to celebrate the recovery of Constantinople by the Greeks. [381]
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S. Saviour
Pantokrator. Entrance From the Narthex To the South Church. |
S. Saviour
Pantokrator. The Interior, looking from the South Church through into the North Church. |
To face page 226.
Towards the close of the Latin occupation the monastery became the residence of the Latin emperor, probably because the condition of the public exchequer made it impossible to keep either the Great Palace or the palace of Blachernae in proper repair. Money was not plentiful in Constantinople when Baldwin II., the last Latin ruler of the city, was compelled to sell the lead on the roof of his palace for a paltry sum, and to use the beams of his outhouses for fuel, nor when he had to leave his son and heir in the hands of the Capelli at Venice as security for a loan. Still, the selection of the monastery for the emperor's abode, even under these trying circumstances, implies the importance and comparative splendour of the building. Here Baldwin was in residence when the forces of Michael Palaeologus, under the command of Alexius Strategopoulos, approached the city, and here he received the intelligence, early in the morning of the 25th of July 1261, that the Greeks had entered the city by the Gate of the Pegé [382] (Selivri Kapoussi), and set fire to the capital at four points. Baldwin's first impulse was to make a brave stand. But his fleet and the greater part of his army were absent from the city, engaged in the siege of Daphnusium on the coast of the Black Sea. Meantime the fires kindled by the Greeks were spreading and drawing nearer and nearer to the Pantokrator itself. So casting off sword and helmet and every other mark of his station, Baldwin took ship and led the flight of the Latin masters of Constantinople back to their homes in the West. [383]
The first incident in the history of the Pantokrator after the restoration of the Greek Empire was not fortunate. The monastery then became the object upon which the Genoese, who had favoured that event, and been rewarded with the grant of Galata as a trading post, saw fit to vent the grudge they bore against certain Venetians who, in the course of the feud between the two republics, as competitors for the commerce of the East, had injured a church and a tower belonging to the Genoese colony at Acre. To destroy some building in Constantinople associated with Venice was thought to be the best way to settle the outstanding account, and so a band of Genoese made for the Pantokrator, over which the banner of S. Mark had recently floated, and tore the monastery down to the ground, making it a greater ruin than the Venetians had made of the Genoese buildings in Syria. Then, not only to deprive the enemy of his property but to turn it also to one's own advantage, the scattered stones were collected and shipped to Genoa for the construction of the church of S. George in that city. [384]