one
thousand monks.[46] Its first inmates were taken from a fraternity known
as the Akoimeti, 'the sleepless'; so named because in successive
companies they celebrated divine service in their chapels day and night
without ceasing, like the worshippers in the courts of heaven.

[Illustration: PLATE V.
(1) S. JOHN OF THE STUDION. RUINED INTERIOR, SEEN FROM THE MINARET OF
THE MOSQUE.
(2) S. JOHN OF THE STUDION, FROM THE WEST.
_To face page 36._]

'Even thus of old
Our ancestors, within the still domain
Of vast cathedral or conventual church
Their vigils kept: where tapers day and night
On the dim altar burned continually.
In token that the House was ever more
Watching to God. Religious men were they;
Nor would their reason, tutored to aspire
Above this transitory world, allow
That there should pass a moment of the year
When in their land the Almighty's service ceased.'

But this devout practice does not seem to have been long continued at
the Studion; for we never hear of it in any account of the discipline of
the House. The monks of the Studion should therefore not be identified
with the Akoimeti who took up such a determined and independent attitude
in the theological conflicts under Zeno, Basiliscus, and Justinian the
Great.[47]

In the course of its history the church underwent noteworthy repairs on
two occasions. It was first taken in hand for that purpose, soon after
the middle of the eleventh century,[48] by the Emperor Isaac Comnenus
(1057-58), who was interested in the House because he and his brother
had received part of their education in that 'illustrious and glorious
school of virtue.'[49] What the repairs then made exactly involved is
unfortunately not stated. But, according to Scylitzes, they were so
extensive that 'to tell in detail what the emperor and empress did for
the embellishment of the church would surpass the labour of
Hercules.'[50] Probably they concerned chiefly the decoration of the
edifice.

The next repairs on record were made about the year 1290, in the reign
of Andronicus II., by his unfortunate brother Constantine
Porphyrogenitus. Owing to the neglect of the building during the Latin
occupation the roof had fallen in, the cells of the monks had
disappeared, and sheep grazed undisturbed on the grass which covered the
grounds. Constantine, rich, generous, fond of popularity, did all in his
power to restore the former glory of the venerated