Describing Constantinople

Viewing the city

1. The visitors' view

Texts

Liudprand, Bishop of Cremona, d. ca. 972

The works of Liudprand of Cremona, trans. F. A. Wright (London : Routledge, 1930) inc. Antapodosis (Tit-for-tat)-Liber de rebus gestis Ottonis (A chronicle of Otto's reign)-Relatio de legatione constantinopolitana (The embassy to Constantinople) Reprinted asThe Embassy to Constantinople and Other Works (Everyman Paperback reprint ed. John Julius Norwich).

Mission to Constantinople 968 A.D.. ed.and trans. Lynn H. Nelson (Coronado Press 1972) ed and trans. B. Scott (BCP, 1993) and on the web

Horatio Robert Forbes Brown, 'Il viaggio di Vincenzo Gradenigo : Bailo da Venezia a Costantinopoli', Estratto dal volume: Scritti vari in memoria del prof. Giovanni Monticolo (Venezia : Fabbris, 1913), 45-70

For the reaction of W. B. Yeats see the www

Arab

Ca. 900, Harun ibn Yahya, in The Book of Precious Things, an anthology by Ibn Rusteh, includes his description of Constantinople: walls, gates, statues, relics, water supplies, the palace, Hagia Sophia, Christmas feast, banquets, imperial processions, chariot races and Muslim prisoners.

Fr tr. By G. Wiet, Les atours precieux (Cairo 1955)
Cf. A. A. Vasiliev, Byzance et les Arabes, 2. 2, 379-94
summary by Vasiliev in Seminarium Kondakovianum, 5 (1932), 149-63
cf. summary by Nadia Maria El Cheikh, Byzantium viewed by the Arabs (Cambridge Mass 2004), 142-50

For another Arab account, late 10th century see Fordham

Studies:

Albrecht Berger, 'Sightseeing in Constantinople: Arab Travellers, ca. 900-1300', in: Travel in the Byzantine World. The 34th Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, ed. R. Macrides (Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies, Publications 4), Aldershot 2002, 179-191

Liliana Simeonova. “Foreigners in tenth century Byzantium” in Strangers to Themselves: the Byzantine Outsider, ed. Dion Smythe (Aldershot 2000), 229-44

eadem, “In the depths of tenth century Byzantine ceremonial” ByzModGreekSts 22 (1998) 74-103

Sophie Métvier, “Notes sur l’Hippodrome de Constantinople vu par les Arabes” Travaux et Mémoires 13 (2000) 175-80

I. Izeddine, “Un prisonnier arabe à Byzance au IXe siècle: Haroun ibn Yahya”, Revue des études islamiques (1941-46), 41-66

M. Izzedin, 'Quelques voyageurs Musulmans à Constantinople au Moyen Age', Orient 9 (1965)

Jean Ebersolt. Constantinople byzantine et les voyageurs du Levant (1918)

Western

The anonymous English pilgrim’s text is edited by Krijnie Ciggaar,
“Une description de Constantinople traduite par un pèlerin anglais du XII siècle”, Revue des etudes byzantines, 34 (1976), 211-67

See also her article: “Une description de Constantinople dans le Tarragonensis 55 REB 53 (1995), 117-40

And her book, Western Travellers to Constantinople. The West and Byzantium, 962-1204 (Leiden 1996)

For Benjamin of Tudela:
The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela, ed. M. N. Adler (London 1907, repr New York, no date); partial tr. in A. Scharf, Byzantine Jewry (London 1971), 134-6

Sandra Benjamin, ed. The World of Benjamin of Tudela. A Medieval Mediterranean Travelogue (Madison, California 1995)

N. Oikonomides, Hommes d'affaires Grecs et Latins a Constantinople (XIIIe-XVe siecles). 1979

Narrative of the embassy of Ruy Gonzales de Clavijo to the court of Timur …, tr. C. R. Markham (London 1859), tr. G Le Strange (London 1928). See translation
and Spanish

George P. Majeska, 'St. Sophia in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries: The Russian Travelers on the Relics' DOP 27 (1973)

and his

Russian travelers to Constantinople in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries (Washington, D.C : Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 1984. Dumbarton Oaks studies 19)

The visitor's view: mythical

Harald Hardrada, Haraldsaga in Heimskringla

Charlemagne

Le voyage de Charlemagne a Jerusalem et a Constantinople : traduction critique par Madeleine Tyssens (Gand, Belgique : E. Story-Scientia, 1978)

The pilgrimage of Charlemagne = (Le Pelerinage de Charlemagne), edited and translated by G. S. Burgess (New York : Garland, 1988)

Journey of Charlemagne to Jerusalem and Constantinople (Le Voyage De Charlemagne à Jerusalem et à Constantinople) ed. Jean-Louis Picherit (Editor) (Summa pubns. 1985)

See article by Langille (in French)

Back to introduction