(999-1019). In it the Emperor Romanus Argyrus (1028-1034) confined
Prussianus, a relative of the Bulgarian royal family, on a charge of
treason;[446] and there Michael VII., nicknamed Parapinakes (the
peck-filcher), because he sold wheat at one-fourth of its proper weight,
and then at an exorbitant price, ultimately retired after his
deposition.[447] The connection of so many prominent persons with the
monastery implies the importance of the House.

_Architectural Features_

Kefele Mesjedi is a large oblong hall, m. 22.6 long by m. 7.22 wide,
with walls constructed in alternate courses of four bricks and four
stones, and covered with a lofty timber roof. It terminates to the north
in an arch and a semicircular apse in brick. Two niches, with a window
between them, indent the walls of the apse, and there is a niche in each
pier of the arch. The building is entered by a door situated in the
middle of the western wall. Originally the eastern and western walls,
which form the long sides of the building, were lighted by two ranges of
round-headed windows, somewhat irregularly spaced. The upper range is
situated a little below the ceiling, and forms a sort of clearstory of
ten lights; the lower range has five windows, except in the western
wall, where the place of one window is occupied by the entrance. The
southern wall is also lighted by two ranges of windows, the lower
windows being much larger than the higher. At some time buttresses were
built against the eastern wall. Under the west side is a cistern, the
roof of which rests on three columns. In view of all these features it
is impossible to believe that the building was a church. Its
orientation, the absence of lateral apses in a structure of such
dimensions, the position of the entrance, are all incompatible with that
character. We have here, undoubtedly, the refectory and not the
sanctuary of the monastic establishment. It resembles the refectory of
the Laura on Mt. Athos,[448] and that of Daphni near Athens. It recalls
the 'long and lofty building,' adorned with pictures of saints, which
formed the refectory of the Peribleptos at Psamathia.[449]

There is a tradition that the use of the building was granted at the
conquest to the Armenian colony which was brought from Kaffa in 1475 to
repeople the capital, Hence the Turkish name of the building.[450]

[Illustration: PLATE LXXVI.
THE REFECTORY OF THE MONASTERY OF MANUEL, FROM THE WEST.]

[Illustration: