Stephen of Novgorod (1350) says that the first gate of the church was by the column of Justinian; then there was a second, a third, fourth, fifth and sixth and by the seventh you entered the great church. This may be exaggeration, but Gyllius speaks of the south entrance formerly being by six _valvae_ of brass, “now there are only three, ingeniously worked,” so that there would appear to have been at least one more double door in his time than the two now existing. If we consult the careful drawings made by Grelot, which take us half way back to the conquest, we shall see that the boundaries of the cypress garden on the south side agree entirely with the present walls. The first of the turbehs was built here about a hundred years after the conquest, and we may almost safely assume that it was backed against the outer wall, as at present. Now when we find Clavijo, some fifty years before the conquest, in approaching the church from this side, speak of an outer gateway and a court before the church was reached, we shall almost certainly be justified in placing this outer gate on the present boundary. The fountain in the south court we suppose occupies the site of an ancient fountain. A comparison of Grelot’s plan (1680) with Fossati’s (1850), will make clear the south boundaries of the church, as they existed at the time of the conquest. The octagonal building attached to the south side of the church shown in Fossati’s plan must be Turkish, probably the library of the sultan mentioned by Pococke. The palace of the patriarch, with the library of the Thomaites, we would place on the ground between the south boundary and the church, the gardens which belonged to it occupying the ground of one of the courts. It had evidently been destroyed by the time of Clavijo’s visit, and for what is known as to the buildings we must refer to Paspates. The courts to the north of the church were probably occupied by the cells of the clergy and the college called Didaskalion (see our page 49); Bondelmontius speaks of “the way of a thousand columns in pairs” (the Mese) through which the emperor walked to S. Sophia “where the houses of the 800 clergy were round the church.”[307] _The Atrium._--The street lying at an angle to the west wall of the entrance courtyard, rising steeply towards the hippodrome, is probably ancient.