Only, while supporting Gyllius on this point, Du Cange considers that the identification of the Church of St. John at Kesmè Kaya with the Church of St. John the Baptist at the Hebdomon is a mistake. For the latter is described by Constantine Porphyrogenitus[1193] as without the city walls in the tenth century, and therefore never stood, like the Church of St. John at Kesmè Kaya, within the Theodosian lines. At the same time, Du Cange does not concede that the church of that dedication in the Hebdomon was near the seventh milestone. In harmony with his view regarding the extent of the area to which the term “Hebdomon” was applied, he holds that the church, though outside the Walls of Theodosius, was close to them. Du Cange differs from Gyllius also in laying great stress upon Tekfour Serai as an indication of the site of the Hebdomon, identifying that palace with the Palace of the Magnaura, one of the noted buildings of the suburb.[1194] What induced Du Cange to maintain the application of the term “Hebdomon” to the whole territory extending from the seventh mile eastwards to the walls of the city was the opinion, that only thus could certain statements regarding the suburb become intelligible or credible. The statement, for instance, that the plain at the Hebdomon was “adjacent” (ἀνακείμενον)[1195] to the city implies, he thinks, that the plain of the Hebdomon was contiguous to the city; “quæ (vox) campus urbi adjacuisse situ prodit.” So does, he contends, the statement that the Avars, upon approaching to lay siege to the city, encamped “at what of the city is named the Hebdomon.”[1196] For how could an enemy besiege a city without coming close up to its walls? The consideration, however, which above everything else led Du Cange to attach a wider meaning to the term “Hebdomon” than the seventh mile, was the difficulty of believing that the great religious processions which, on the occasion of a severe earthquake, went on foot from the city to the Campus of the Hebdomon to implore Divine Mercy, walked the whole distance of seven miles on that pious errand.[1197] Such a performance seemed to Du Cange, especially when the emperor and the patriarch took part in the procession, incredible; and since he could not imagine the people going to the Hebdomon, in the strict sense of the word, he made the Hebdomon come to the people, by extending the signification of the term. But Du Cange forgets that the processions to which he refers were recognized to be extraordinary performances, even in the age in which they were undertaken; that they were acts of profoundest humiliation in view of a most awful danger; that they were deeds of penance, whereby men hoped to move the Almighty to spare His people. The distance of seven miles is not too great for men to walk in order to escape a terrible death.