Chronicle of the Kings of England Book IV On Constantinople and its Emperors
by William of Malmesbury
Constantinople was first called Byzantium: which name is
still preserved by the imperial money called Bezants. St.
Aldhelm, in his book On Virginity,33 relates that it changed
its appellation by divine suggestion: his words are as follow.
As Constantine was sleeping in this city, he imagined that
there stood before him an old woman, whose forehead was
furrowed with age; but, that presently, clad in an imperial
robe, she became transformed into a beautiful girl, and so
fascinated his eyes, by the elegance of her youthful charms,
that he could not refrain from kissing her: that Helena, his
mother, being present, then said, "She shall be yours for
ever; nor shall she die, till the end of time." The solution
of this dream, when he awoke, the emperor extorted from
heaven, by fasting and almsgiving. And behold, within
eight days, being cast again into a deep sleep, he thought
he saw pope Silvester, who died some little time before,
regarding his convert34 with complacency, and saying, "You
have acted with your customary prudence, in waiting for a
solution, from God, of that enigma which was beyond the
comprehension of man. The old woman you saw, is this
city, worn down by age, whose time-struck walls, menacing
approaching ruin, require a restorer. But you, renewing
its walls, and its affluence, shall signalize it also with your
name; and here shall the imperial progeny reign for ever.
You shall not, however, lay the foundations at your own
pleasure; but mounting the horse on which, when in the
novitiate of your faith, you rode round the churches of the
apostles at Rome, you shall give him the rein, and liberty
to go whither he please: you shall have, too, in your hand,
your royal spear,35 whose point shall describe the circuit of
the wall on the ground. You will be regulated, therefore,
in what manner to dispose the foundations of the wall by
the track of the spear on the earth."
The emperor eagerly obeyed the vision, and built a city
equal to Rome; alleging that the emperor ought not to reign
in Rome, where the martyred apostles, from the time of
Christ, held dominion. He built in it two churches, one
of which was dedicated to peace; the other to the apostles;
bringing thither numerous bodies of saints, who might conciliate the assistance of God against the incursions of its
enemies. He placed in the circus, for the admiration and
ornament of the city, the statues of triumphal heroes,
brought from Rome, and the tripods from Delphi; and
the images of heathen deities to excite the contempt of
the beholders. They relate that it was highly gratifying
to the mind of the emperor, to receive a mandate from
heaven, to found a city in that place, where the fruitfulness of the soil, and the temperature of the atmosphere
conduced to the health of its inhabitants: for as he was
born in Britain,36 he could not endure the burning heat of
the sun. But Thracia is a province of Europe, as the poets
observe, extremely cool, "From Hebrus' ice, and the Bistonian north;" and near to Moesia, where, as Virgil remarks,
"With wonder Gargara the harvest sees."37 Constantinople,
then, washed by the sea, obtains the mingled temperature
both of Europe and of Asia; because, from a short distance,
the Asiatic east tempers the severity of the northern blast.
The city is surrounded by a vast extent of walls, yet the
influx of strangers is so great, as to make it crowded. In
consequence they form a mole in the sea, by throwing in
masses of rock, and loads of sand; and the space obtained
by this new device, straitens the ancient waters. The sea
wonders to see fields unknown before, amid its glassy waves;
and surrounds and supplies its city with all the conveniences
of the earth. The town is encompassed on every side, except the north, by the ocean, and is full of angles in the
circuit of its walls, where it corresponds with the windings
of the sea; which walls contain a space of twenty miles in
circumference. The Danube,38 which is likewise called the
Ister, flows in hidden channels under ground, into the city;
and on certain days being let out by the removal of a plug,
it carries off the filth of the streets into the sea. All vied
with the emperor in noble zeal to give splendour to this city,
each thinking he was bound to advance the work in hand:
one contributing holy relics, another riches, Constantine all
things.
After Constantine the Great, the following emperors reigned
here. Constantine his son; Julian the Apostate; Jovinian,
Valens, Theodosius the Great; Arcadius, Theodosius the
Younger; Marchianus, Leo the First; Zeno, Anastasius,
Justin the Great; Justinian, who, famed for his literature and
his wars, built a church in Constantinople to Divine Wisdom;
that is, to the Lord Jesus Christ, which he called Hagia
Sophia; a work, as they report, surpassing every other
edifice in the world, and where ocular inspection proves it
superior to its most pompous descriptions: Justin the
Younger; Tiberius, Mauricius, the first Greek; Focas,
Heraclius, Heracleonas, Constans, Constantine, the son of
Heraclius; who, coming to Rome, and purloining all the
remains of ancient decoration, stripped the churches even of
their brazen tiles, anxiously wishing for triumphal honours,
at Constantinople, even from such spoils as these; his
covetousness, however, turned out unfortunately for him, for
being shortly after killed at Syracuse, he left all these
honourable spoils to be conveyed to Alexandria by the Saracens; Constantine, Leo the Second; Justinian, again Justinian, Tiberius, Anastasius, Philippicus, Theodosius, Leo the
Third; all these reigned both at Constantinople and at
Rome: the following in Constantinople only; Constantine,
Leo, Constantine, Nicephorus, Stauratius, Michael, Theophilus, Michael, Basilius, Leo, Alexander, Constantine, two
Romanuses, Nicephorus, Focas, Johannes, Basilius, Romanus, Michael, Constantine, Theodora the empress, Michael,
Sachius, Constantine, Romanus, Diogenes, Nicephorus, Buthanus, Michael;39 who, driven from the empire by Alexius,
secretly fled to Guiscard in Apulia, and surrendering
to him his power, imagined he had done something prejudicial to Alexius: hence Guiscard's ambition conceived
greater designs; falsely persuading himself that he might
acquire by industry, what the other had lost by inactivity:
how far he succeeded, the preceding book hath explained.
In the same city is the cross of our Saviour, brought by
Helena from Jerusalem. There too rest the apostles, Andrew, James the brother of our Lord; Matthias: the prophets Elizeus, Daniel, Samuel, and many others: Luke the
Evangelist: martyrs innumerable: confessors, Johannes
Chrysostom, Basilius, Gregorious Nazianzen, Spiridion: virgins, Agatha, Lucia; and lastly all the saints whose bodies
the emperors were able to collect thither out of every
country.
NOTES:
33. Aldhelmi Opera, page 28.
34. The story of Silvester's having baptized Constantine is considered as
altogether unfounded. See Mosheim, vol. i.
35. This, in Aldhelm, is the Labarum, or imperial standard.
36. The place of his birth is contested.
37. Geor. i. 103.
38. "The Danube empties itself through six mouths into the Euxine. The
river Lycus, formed by the conflux of two little streams, pours into the
harbour of Constantinople a perpetual supply of fresh water, which serves
to cleanse the bottom, and to invite the periodical shoals of fish to seek
their retreat in the capacious port of Constantinople." -- Hardy.
39. After all the researches of the last fifty years, the "Decline and Fall
of the Roman Empire," by Gibbon, will be found to contain the best
history of these Byzantine emperors.
