Cover photo: interactive display about Ibn Battuta in Ibn Battuta Mall in Dubai, United Arab Emirates on 2 June 2007.

Text by Ilias Anagnostakis.

Ibn Battuta (1304-1388) was a Moroccan explorer and traveler of the 14th century and is considered one of the greatest travelers of all time. Starting from Tangier on June 14, 1325, at the age of just 21, Battuta embarked on a pilgrimage to Mecca. Little did he imagine that he would return to his homeland in midlife after 29(!) years, having completed a colossal journey through Libya, Mamluk Egypt, Arab lands, Syria, Iraq/Mesopotamia, the Turkish region of Anatolia, Constantinople, the Golden Horde Khanate in present-day Ukraine, the “Black” Bulgars of the Volga, Mongol Ilkhanid Iran, the Sultanate of Delhi, Indonesia, Mongol China, the magnificent Kingdom of Niger in Africa, Andalusia, ultimately ending up back in Morocco at the age of over 50, completing a monumental journey of 100,000(!) kilometers.

However, what interests us here is his amazing description of Constantinople, “the land of the Greeks,” as he called it. At that time, Constantinople was nothing more than the territorially diminished Empire of the young Andronikos III Palaiologos (1328-1341), the penultimate serious leader of the Empire, who struggled to hold onto whatever he could from Bithynia in Asia Minor (Prusa had just fallen to the Turks in 1326), while the Empire still held the entirety of Thrace, Macedonia, and 70% of the Peloponnese.

During Ibn Battuta’s stay in Greek territories between July 7 and August 12, 1331, the ever-observant 26-year-old Moroccan narrates astonishing details:

Coming from the Golden Horde Khanate in present-day Ukraine, accompanied by someone called “Khatun Bai’alun” (who was none other than an anonymous 15-year-old Greek princess, illegitimate daughter of Andronikos III, given as a wife to an anonymous Tatar warlord), they crossed Bulgaria and entered Imperial territories in late June 1330 in Northern Thrace, near Varna. There, her brother, referred to as “Kefali” (Κεφαλή) (probably a military title), awaited them, dressed in white, with a sunshade adorned with precious stones(!) over his head.

The young high-ranking military officer led 5,000(!) cavalrymen, fully armed for war. Ahead of them, a hundred infantry soldiers and a hundred cavalrymen walked, each wearing long iron armor for both themselves and their horses (apparently “cataphracts”). Each cavalryman rode a saddled and armored horse, carrying the weapons of a knight, “a helmet with precious stones, armor, a bow and a sword, and each of them had a spear with a small narrow flag at its top, and most of these flags were covered with plates of gold and silver.”

And the astonishing description of the five thousand Imperial horsemen continues: “These riders are divided into squads, two hundred riders in one cavalry squad. Their leader was a commander, who had in front of him ten of the riders in full military equipment, each with his horse. Behind them, ten colorful banners were carried by ten of the riders, and ten drums hung on their backs(!), carried by ten riders, along with six others playing equestrian trumpets, trumpets, and flutes.”

The Greek prince approached his sister to embrace her, riding a gray horse, and on his left and right, “five young princes, all dressed in white, with sunshades embroidered in gold above their heads.” And the invaluable information from the young Moroccan regarding medieval Greek history continues: “The next day we arrived in a large coastal city, the name of which I have forgotten (Aghialos?). Another brother of hers came, more high-ranking, ‘with a great outfit and a strong army of ten thousand horsemen. He wore a helmet on his head, and on his left and right, twenty (!) young princes, much more heavily armed than the previous ones’ ( Cataphracts?).”

On the morning of July 6, from a distance, the Emperor and his wife were seen, surrounded by dozens of officials and courtiers. However, young Battuta was astonished when he saw, amid the sounding of trumpets and cheers from thousands of infantry and cavalry, the Imperial couple approaching. Above Andronikos’ head was a portable (!) throne canopy, carried by a number of infantry and cavalry, each holding a long plank with a leather ball at its top, used to lift the canopy. The dust raised by the vast number of troops was so thick “that one could hardly see anything, except for the Mongolian maiden who approached her parents, dismounted, and kissed the ground in front of them, as well as the weapons of their horses, just like everyone in her retinue.”

However, Battuta did not approach because “the Greeks were very fierce and shouted like madmen.” The entry into Constantinople took place around 13:00 on June 7, 1331, with “thousands of bells ringing, and the heavens trembling from the tolling of bells.” When the small company of Muslims reached the first gate of the palace, they were blocked by “one hundred fully armed infantrymen, with an officer on a platform,” and they heard them shouting in Greek, “Saracens, Saracens!” The officer correctly told them, “they won’t enter without permission.” Eventually, with the intervention of the anonymous Greek princess to her father, they were allowed entry into the Imperial complex and freely supplied with flour, bread, sheep, chickens, butter, fruits, fish, and money.

On July 11, they were led to the central palace (Vlachernae?). “I passed through four gates, each with arches where soldiers with their weapons were present (‘Varangians’ or ‘Paramonai’;), while the commander (guardian/officer on duty) stood on a platform covered with a carpet in front of them.” However, at the fifth gate, the Guardian stopped him, and immediately four young men, 16-17 years old, searched him for a long time to make sure he had no knife. Despite his protests, the Guardian told him to “shut up because that’s the custom.”

Immediately afterward, four other men took him, two holding his sleeves, two behind him, and brought him to a large hall with mosaic walls depicting human and non-human figures. In the center, there was running water with trees around, and men stood on the right and left without speaking. As soon as he entered, three more men, holding his sleeves, reassured him, while the third walked right behind him. One of them was a bilingual young Jew serving as a translator from Arabic to Greek, who reassured him, saying, “Don’t be afraid because that’s the custom of the Greeks.”

In the end, they reached an enclosed large garden, in the center of which was an elaborate pavilion where the Imperial couple, their daughter, her siblings, and six men on their right and four on their left were seated, all “armed to the teeth”. After the necessary greetings, the 35-year-old Andronikos III gave the Moroccan a “honorary garment, a saddled horse, and an ornate umbrella for the sun,” as well as an escort to explore the vast Capital.

Indeed, Battuta found the city enormous, with a central nucleus around Hagia Sophia, the Palace, and the Hippodrome, and thirteen large villages within the colossal walls, along with many fields, vineyards, and groves. (It seems that after the terrible sack of 1204 and the dreadful fire that preceded it, Constantinople had lost its dense residential fabric, at least concerning private homes, while most public buildings, columns, and churches remained relatively intact, as evidenced by the map of the Italian traveler Buaneldemonti in 1422. At least half of its 700,000 inhabitants had sought refuge in Thrace and Asia Minor by 1210. Nevertheless, during Ibn Battuta’s visit to Constantinople in 1331, the capital was still a very large city with over 150,000 inhabitants).

And the sympathetic Moroccan continues: “The city streets are wide and paved with slabs; each market has gates that lock at night, and the majority of artisans and merchants in them are women. Almost everyone, citizens and soldiers alike, walks around on hot summer days with umbrellas for the scorching sun, while many women wear turbans.” (..)The churches are countless; outside Hagia Sophia, which is enormous, there is a colossal cross on its central gate, encased in a ten-foot golden sheath, while the entire gate is covered with silver and gold plates, and both of its rosettes are made of solid gold (..)Near the Great Church, there is a large women’s monastery, in which five hundred virgins with shaved heads and unusually beautiful faces live. A young man was standing at the ambo reading them the Gospel, while eight other young men, sons of nobles, were singing with very sweet voices.”

Ibn Battuta left Constantinople laden with gifts and memories on August 12, 1331, but we should be eternally grateful to him for the incredible information he provided us through a manuscript found in a dusty library in Algiers in 1853 and translated into French by Defremery and Sanguinetti.

We can draw two crucial conclusions from Ibn Battuta’s observations:

A) The empire of the 1330s, despite nearly losing all of Asia Minor (Nicaea to the Ottomans in 1331 and Nicomedia in 1337), retained significant echoes of its former splendor and majesty. One might ponder how Ibn Battuta would have reacted if he had seen comparable rituals and displays of the Komnenoi, let alone those of the illustrious Macedonian Emperors.

B) Despite the sack of 1204 and the tragic rule of the Latin Emperors from 1204 to 1259, who plundered everything, Constantinople continued to be a splendid city with a population of 150,000 in the 1330s. Its population began to decrease only after the Plague of 1347/8 and even more so during the eight-year blockade (1394-1402) by the Turkish Sultan Bayezid I, during which many residents fled, so that by 1453, on the eve of the Fall, it had fallen to 50,000 inhabitants.

C) The Moroccan traveler constantly refers to “Greeks” when writing about anything related to the Empire.

Bibliography

Gibb, H.A.R. trans. and ed. , The Travels of Ibn Baṭṭūṭa, A.D. 1325–1354 , publ. Hakluyt Society, London, 1962.