Baptistery.—In our first chapter we have given reasons for supposing that the round building at the north-east formed part of the earlier church and became the baptistery of Justinian’s building. Buzantios considered that the former was the baptistery “perhaps also used as a sacristy.” A knowledge of an earlier baptistery would seem to be implied in the way the south-west building is spoken of by Porphyrogenitus and later writers as the “Great Baptistery by the Horologium.”
According to Codinus and the Anonymous the Great Baptistery was built before the church, and Salzenberg thought the style was earlier than that of the church. Is it possible that this was built as an independent church and only ultimately became the baptistery? It appears from the account of the Russian pilgrim Anthony that in the twelfth century its dome was painted with the baptism of Christ in Jordan, a scheme which agrees with the two baptisteries at Ravenna.
St. Peter’s Chapel, &c.—To the east there were some detached buildings, at least in later times. The Anonymous we have seen mentions a chapel of St. Peter as near the skeuophylakium. Anthony speaks of this chapel, in which St. Peter’s chains and the carpet of St. Nicholas were preserved, as behind the altar. The anonymous Russian says a chapel of St. Nicholas was behind the bema, and also speaks of a marble basin covered with a lead roof, “where they baptise the emperors” as being behind the altar, in a space set round with cypresses. Anna Comnena also mentions “the chapel of the Hierarch Nicholas” as part of the Great Church and a place of sanctuary.[305] The passage of St. Nicholas is also referred to. It is possible that this chapel was otherwise known as St. Peter’s, and either this or “the place where they baptise the emperors” may be the present round building—the ancient baptistery as we suppose. That St. Peter’s chapel was of some importance and detached seems clear from the Menologium. On January 16 was celebrated the adoration of St. Peter’s chains. It is explained that after Peter’s release, “the chains were found by some believers and guarded from generation to generation until they were brought to Constantinople by a pious emperor and placed in the church (ναὸς) of St. Peter which is near St. Sophia.” We have given a picture of the chains in [Figure 8]. A tradition of some of these buildings may be preserved in an Italian MS. of 1611 in the British Museum. “The ancient buildings round the church have been ruined by the Turks except a small part of the close (canonica), where they have made dwellings; there is also the sacristy and the place of the baptistery, which had originally three vaulted ceilings, one above another. It was of wonderful architecture and made with six angles. From the sacristy to the base of the dome is an arquebus shot; between it and the Seraglio lies a road.”
Boundaries.—Probably the fullest and clearest account of the approach to the church through the Augusteum is given by the Spanish ambassador Clavijo, who was at Constantinople in 1405, at a time when many of the buildings in the precincts had been destroyed. In a court in the front of the church, he saw “nine very large columns of white marble,” and he was told that before his time a palace had been here, where the patriarch met the canons in chapter. “And in the same place before the church stands a stone pillar of marvellous height, on the top of which is a horse of copper as large as four horses put together; on the horse was an armed knight with a great plume on his head like a peacock’s tail. The horse has chains of iron round its body secured to the column to prevent it from falling, or being moved by the wind. The horse is very well made, and one fore and one hind leg is raised, as if it were in the act of prancing. The knight, on its back, has his right arm raised, with the hand open, while the reins are held with the left hand. This marvellous horse is said to have been placed here by the Emperor Justinian, who erected the column. At the entrance to the church under an arch in front of a gate, is a place adorned with four columns, and below is a little chapel very rich and beautiful. And beyond this chapel is the gate to the church covered with bronze very great and high; beyond again is a little court surrounded by high galleries [horologium?]. Afterwards there was another gate of bronze [the south porch]. Beyond this gate there is a ‘nave’ vast and high, with a ceiling of wood [the exonarthex]. And on the left hand there is a cloister very large, and beautiful [the atrium], with many stones of jasper of infinite variety of colour. On the right hand under the said nave-covered as I have said—and after the second gate, you arrive at the body of the church, which has five doors, high and large, covered with bronze, of which that in the middle is the greatest.”[306]
The present south porch we should suppose is the pronaos mentioned by Nicetas as that where the Archangel Michael stood on guard. The exonarthex is now vaulted, but not covered with mosaic; it is bare and rough, and it seems possible that at one time there may have been a ceiling of wood.
Stephen of Novgorod (1350) says that the first gate of the church was by the column of Justinian; then there was a second, a third, fourth, fifth and sixth and by the seventh you entered the great church. This may be exaggeration, but Gyllius speaks of the south entrance formerly being by six valvae of brass, “now there are only three, ingeniously worked,” so that there would appear to have been at least one more double door in his time than the two now existing. If we consult the careful drawings made by Grelot, which take us half way back to the conquest, we shall see that the boundaries of the cypress garden on the south side agree entirely with the present walls. The first of the turbehs was built here about a hundred years after the conquest, and we may almost safely assume that it was backed against the outer wall, as at present. Now when we find Clavijo, some fifty years before the conquest, in approaching the church from this side, speak of an outer gateway and a court before the church was reached, we shall almost certainly be justified in placing this outer gate on the present boundary. The fountain in the south court we suppose occupies the site of an ancient fountain. A comparison of Grelot’s plan (1680) with Fossati’s (1850), will make clear the south boundaries of the church, as they existed at the time of the conquest. The octagonal building attached to the south side of the church shown in Fossati’s plan must be Turkish, probably the library of the sultan mentioned by Pococke.
The palace of the patriarch, with the library of the Thomaites, we would place on the ground between the south boundary and the church, the gardens which belonged to it occupying the ground of one of the courts. It had evidently been destroyed by the time of Clavijo’s visit, and for what is known as to the buildings we must refer to Paspates.
The courts to the north of the church were probably occupied by the cells of the clergy and the college called Didaskalion (see our page [49]); Bondelmontius speaks of “the way of a thousand columns in pairs” (the Mese) through which the emperor walked to S. Sophia “where the houses of the 800 clergy were round the church.”[307]
The Atrium.—The street lying at an angle to the west wall of the entrance courtyard, rising steeply towards the hippodrome, is probably ancient.
Some considerable remains of the atrium colonnade were in existence in the present century, but they were finally destroyed in 1873.[308] The present boundary of the western court appears to occupy the position of the exterior west wall of the atrium. Outside it there is a level roadway, beyond which the ground falls rapidly to the street. As the church stands across a hill the ground had to be made up to a level, and this, together with the position of the street, would account for the court not having been square as was usually the case. As excavations have shown that the pavement of the Hippodrome and the Augusteum were eight or ten feet below the present level,[309] steps would have been required to attain the level of the church at the west. The Ceremonies show that the royal processions entered and left the church on the south side through the Augusteum, which served as a great forecourt to the church on this side. Without doubt this was the principal entrance. Clavijo and other visitors all appear to have entered the church from the south. When Grelot’s western view was made (before 1680) no west doors to the atrium existed, but it was entered from the north and south only. In our plan we have therefore shown only one door in the west wall of the atrium, possibly there was none ([Fig. 3]).