I often wonder what daily life was like in Constantinople, the Queen of Cities. I think it was a city, like New York City, with many dimensions to it. So this article will dive into what certain aspects of Constantinople were like, from different angles.
THE URBAN INHERITANCE OF ANTIQUITY:
Constantinople is one of those rare places in Medieval European history, at times perhaps the only place, where one could find the kind of urban scale familiar in antiquity. This made life different in Constantinople than other former Roman cities. One could find things lost in the West, especially on this scale such as: a large functioning hippodrome, multiple Roman forums, a colonnaded Main Street (the Mese), large cisterns, a functioning aqueduct, triumphal arches and columns, multiple harbors, large public buildings, countless large churches and monasteries, a high quantity of ancient statues and sculptures, a vast Roman imperial palace complex, as well as wealth and population on a level lost in other cities since antiquity.
It is unknown if the forums, such as the Forum of Constantine, actually still had their columns in the medieval period. Ousterhout argues, in agreement with Cyril Mango, that “Basil I built a church there, dedicated to the Virgin, having observed that the workers lacked both a place of spiritual refuge and somewhere to go to get out of the rain. Cyril Mango views this statement as significant in that it suggests that the church had replaced all other centers of social gathering. At the same time, it implies that the arcades and porticoes, which were part and parcel of the Late Antique city, no longer existed.” So it is possible that although Constantinople certainly resembled a late antique city far more than western Medieval cities, that it had lost some of that late antique splendor as well. My guess is by the Komnenian era in some areas there were colonnaded streets – but not as much as the time of Justinian.
Living In Monumental Grandeur:
When we today think of the city, we mostly think of its monuments which captivate our imaginations and also leave traces in either material and/or literary form for us to analyze. But how much do New Yorkers today really think of the Statue of Liberty in their daily lives? For a resident of Constantinople, the Column of Constantine was probably something like that. The Hagia Sophia would of course be magical, but also taken for granted in the skyline by local residents.
For most of the Middle Ages the people in the other cities of Europe were not exposed to such grand structures in their cities at all, let alone on the scale of Constantinople. The skyline of Constantinople certainly would have been dominated by churches eveywhere. William of Tyre recorded the visit during the reign of Manuel Komnenos of the “King [of Jerusalem, Amalric, d. 1174] who was escorted throughout the whole city both within the walls and without. He visited the churches and monasteries of which there was an almost infinite number.”
Villehardouin, recording a history of the Fourth Crusade wrote about the skyline of Constantinople as they approached it by sea: “I can assure you those who had never seen Constantinople before gazed very intently upon the city, having never imagined there could be such a fine place in all the world. They noted the high walls and lofty towers encircling it, and its rich palaces and tall churches, of which there were so many no one would have believed it to be true if he had not seen it with his own eyes…”
This is telling of how just how unique Constantinople was as a city, the large metropolis was not a common feature in the medieval world. One would have to travel to the Islamic world to find the closest cities of the same calibre. Thus, life in the city was unique by the standards of the time.
HOW MILITARIZED WAS CONSTANTINOPLE FOR ITS CITIZENS?:
Constantinople was relatively speaking fairly demilitarized. The people of the city were not very well armed either. The maximum garrison in normal times for the city was around 4,000 men, but often less than that. The Palace guards were there, but they really guarded the Imperial palace which had its own walls and grounds. Of course if there was a threat to the city itself, the palace guards could be sent to the walls to help aid in the defense of the city. Or they could be used to eliminate any threats or uprisings as Belisarius did when he massacred tens of thousands of civilians in the Hippodrome during the Nika Riots. But that kind of massacre was not the norm in Byzantine politics, Justinian was unique to survive such turmoil through his calculated carnage.
Of course any city requires security, but Constantinople had different security needs and risks than the smaller towns which were in the rest of the Byzantine Empire and in western Europe. There was never a massive army garrisoned inside Constantinople unless the city faced an enemy army or rebellion which required defensive action. The central imperial army known as the Tagmata, was stationed in various different areas around northwest Anatolia and Thrace and only gathered together when needed for campaign. Keeping a large army in Constantinople would have made it very easy for the army to overthrow Emperors from inside, instead of having the Theodosian walls between them and the Emperor.
DIVERSITY IN CONSTANTINOPLE:
Constantinople as an international trade center, spiritual center, as well as the capital of a large Empire(for most of its existence at least) was very diverse. There were different ethnic groups and languages to be seen and heard around the city. You might see Western pilgrims coming to see a relic of a famous saint. Unusually for Christian Medieval Europe, there was even a mosque in Constantinople! There was a Jewish community as well. One could find Latin Knights looking to serve as mercenaries for the Emperor. Italian sailors may be seen waiting at the harbors looking for work in the navy or in trade. One might see an Arab trader renting a warehouse from a Roman selling goods to a Varangian trader, for example. But the city was multi-dimensional in other aspects as well.
There was also a lot of provincial immigration to Constantinople, the most common form of immigration to the city. Let’s say, for example, a Roman farm is sacked by the Arabs in Anatolia, their son was taken as a slave which means you do not have the labor needed to restart. They may feel forced to sell or abandon their farm and move to Constantinople to try their luck in the City. Sometimes the Emperors would forcibly relocate provincial citizens to keep the population up, such as Constantine V in the 8th century. Constantinople also had an intrinsic need for immigrants as well, as you will see below in the section on disease and death.
However, despite the many foreigners that may have visited Constantinople, it was less diverse in terms of residents than many people seem to think. Anthony Kaldellis believes this is a projection of the Ottoman era onto Byzantine history. All residents spoke Greek, and likely many of the traders who frequented the city. By 600AD, Latin was pretty much irrelevant and largely gone from the city. Outsiders were often seen unfavorably, even those from within the borders of the Empire. The Isaurians were not seen as Romans, the Egyptians were mentioned in the source with negative connotations.
AN EYE ON FOREIGNERS
The government paid attention to foreigners and what their objectives were. Anthony Kaldellis wrote that “Constantinople was not an open city that foreign groups could approach, enter, and live in at will. Approaches by sea, the most common, were monitored by the toll and customs stations in the Hellespont and Bosphorus, which made sure ‘no one was bringing weapons to the city or attempting to enter without proper documents.’” This shows that travel to Constantinople by foreigners required justification. There were trade treaties which gave certain peoples in Byzantine history, such as Italians or Rus, special privileges. But, Constantinople has a long history so at some times the diversity clearly went up. The 12th century saw a dramatic increase in the amount of resident Italians in Constantinople. They were mostly along the Golden Horn, and were primarily from Amalfi, Pisa, Venice, and Genoa.
There was some tension against foreigners in later Byzantine eras, particularly the Italians for their growing power and wealth in Byzantine society. People did not enjoy seeing them wield such influence, independence, and power inside Constantinople.
Disease and death:
Sadly, disease was a huge part of life throughout most of human existence. In fact, even today with modern medicine any of us can succumb to some kind of health issue. Though the Byzantines had advanced medicine by the standards of the time, life was short in this time. Anthony Kaldellis cites an estimate that “densely populated premodern cities are believed to have lost around 1 percent of their population annually to disease. Therefore in order to grow to grow from 25,000 to 500,000 people in 210 years from 330AD-540AD Constantinople would have had to compensate for that loss and score a net gain on top of that…In other terms, if the city’s population was 400,000 in the later 5th century, then it would have needed to import almost 10,000 new people every year to stay on track for it half-million apex in 541.”
The 1 percent figure is a regular year, during the periods of acute plague, the city could see dramatic scenes of mass death. During the Justinianic plague the city would have been full of dead bodies all over the place. John of Ephesus says that 16,000 people died PER DAY during the worst of the plague, with the death toll reaching 230,000. I do doubt that there could have been such an organized death counting process during such a time of societal chaos though. To be clear, many scholars do not think that many people died but no one truly knows. The Black Death also hit the city much later in its history.
BIG CITY DANGERS:
Life in Constantinople had a grand side, but also a darker, less beautiful dimension. For one, it was a metropolis, thus it had large amounts of poverty to go along with it’s extreme wealth. Odo of Deuil, despite his bias against the Byzantines, probably gave a fair description of the less glamorous side of society:
“The city itself is squalid and fetid and in many places harmed by permanent darkness, for the wealthy overshadow the streets with buildings and leave these dirty, dark places to the poor and to travelers; there murders and robberies and other crimes which love darkness are committed.”
This gives one a picture, like big cities today, where certain areas of the city are probably unsafe, poor, and relatively lawless in comparison to other parts. Ancient Rome had these issues as well. Odo of Deuil did also admit that Constantinople was a great city, and “if she did not have these vices, however, she would be preferable to all other places.”
HOW MANY PEOPLE LIVED IN THE CITY:
This estimation depends greatly on what time period you are focusing on the city, the population would rise and fall due to various factors. But life in the city would definitely be different based on its population at different times.
According to Anthony Kaldellis, the conventional estimation in the mid 6th century peak of the population was around 500,000 people, but estimates range from 400,000-750,000 people! Intriguingly, he offers some insight on how these estimates are crafted by scholars. Kaldellis wrote that “estimates are produced in three different ways: by guesswork; by correlating the size of the city with guesses about its population density, although it is not known how much of it was residential, and by calculating the number of people who could be fed by the shipments of Egyptian grain stipulated in Justinian’s Edict 13.8 of c.539. The last produces larger estimates, but assumes Justinian’s expectations were met and used only to feed Constantinople. Conventionally, half a million is understood as the high point in 541.” In short, he says these estimations are just a bunch of reasoned guesses from scholars with the limited information we have.
But, over time, the city did begin to shed people, and almost surely never hit 500,000 again. The Egyptian grain shipments which scholars used to estimate the population were lost in the 7th century. The Persians seized Egypt and the shipments halted around 619, though Egypt was briefly reconquered. After the Arab conquest in 642, Roman rule was permanently over in Egypt. The city population entered a downward spiral, possibly plummeting to as low as 70,000 people. The Aqueduct network also ceased function in the 7th century, which limited the upper ceiling of the population. Now, despite the huge decreases of this century, Constantinople was still bigger than any other contemporary cities in Medieval Europe. But, 70,000 inside a city which held at least half a million must have left many areas of urban ruins and cultivated land.
After bottoming out as the Empire nearly collapsed in the face of the Arab threat, Constantinople sort of reflected the situation of the Roman Empire. As the Empire stabilized and recovered, so did the Queen of Cities. The growth was more gradual, though it seems it accelerated in the 11th century. The population is cited as being as high as 400,000 as per Geoffrey Villehardouin, who thoroughly destroyed the city with the Fourth Crusaders in 1204. Anthony Kaldellis says it seems high, but does not specifically refute the number or offer an alternative. So it seems 300-400,000 is a reasonable estimate for the 12th century second peak of Constantinople.
The Fourth Crusade shattered the fabric of the Empire, and Constantinople in an irreversible and tragic way. The city population severely declined, as did its material wealth. It possibly went as low as 30,000 people. When the Romans liberated Constantinople in 1261, the city did rebound slightly but the Romans did not possess the resources necessary to truly rebuild and restore the city to its former splendor. Anthony Kaldellis says in the early 15th century there were around 70,000 people while in 1453 the population was possibly as low as 25,000.
SOURCES:
Accounts of Medieval Constantinople: The Patria. Translated by Albrecht Berger (2013)
Building Medieval Constantinople, Ousterhout, R. G. (1996)
Medieval Constantinople: Built Environment and Urban Development. Paul Magdalino
The Cambridge Companion to Constantinople, Edited by Sarah Bassett
Streets and Public Spaces in Constantinople by Albrecht Berger. Dumbarton oaks Papers Vol. 54 (2000)
shadowsofconstantinople.com 