_Other Treasure and Relics._--“Not only kings and patriarchs, but also private individuals and monks brought to Constantinople relics of the apostles and martyrs, ancient ikons, and all kinds of sacred objects connected with the saints of the church. Anything of value in the whole land of Palestine was for the most part moved to Constantinople, and such was the reverence for relics that no church, monastery, nor oratory was built without them.”[176] So early as 415, when S. Sophia was rededicated, it was necessary to have fresh relics (see page 16). A description of the relics and the treasure of Constantinople is given in the letter supposed to have been written in 1095 by Alexius Comnenus to Robert, Count of Flanders, in which he craves the assistance of the West against the Turks. After enumerating the relics scattered throughout the city, he continues, “If you do not care to fight for these, and gold will tempt you more, you will find more of it at Constantinople than in the whole world, for the treasures of its basilicas alone would be sufficient to furnish all the churches of Christendom, and all their treasures cannot together amount to those of S. Sophia, whose riches have never been equalled even in the temple of Solomon.” The dispersion of the relics and treasures of S. Sophia and the other churches at Constantinople has been exhaustively treated by Count Riant.[177] The description by Anthony, Archbishop of Novgorod, who visited S. Sophia in 1200, three years before the capture by the Crusaders, furnishes the best account of the accumulated riches of the great church. We give this in full from the French version contained in _Itinéraires Russes en Orient_.[178] “I, Antonius, Archbishop of Novgorod, an unworthy and humble sinner, by the grace of God and by the help of S. Sophia, who is the Wisdom and the Eternal Word, reached in safety the imperial city, and entered the great Catholic and Apostolic Church. We first worshipped S. Sophia, kissing the two slabs of the Lord’s sepulchre. Furthermore we saw the seals, and the figure of the Mother of God, nursing Christ. This image a Jew at Jerusalem pierced in the neck with a knife, and blood flowed forth. The blood of the image, all dried up, we saw in the smaller sanctuary. “In the sanctuary of S. Sophia is the blood of the holy martyr Pantaleon with milk,[179] placed in a reliquary like a little branch or bough, yet without their having mixed. Besides that there is his head, and the head of the Apostle Quadratus, and many relics of other saints: the heads of Hermolaus and Stratonicus; the arm of Germanus, which is laid on those who are to be ordained patriarchs; the image of the Virgin which Germanus sent in a boat to Rome by sea; and the small marble table on which Christ celebrated His Supper with the disciples, as well as His swaddling clothes and the golden vessels, which the Magi brought with their offerings.