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The architectural shell of the Church of Holy Wisdom surrounds a supernatural space preserving through the centuries the most exquisite acoustical and optical tensions imaginable. John Chrysostom called upon the services of Brison, a eunuch in the service of the empress Eudoxia, to establish the two foundation stones which were to influence the development of musical culture until the 13th century; namely antiphony between two choirs of singers and the use of castrati. Both castrati and regular male singers figured in the choirs of the Hagia Sophia until the 9th century. At the Christmas service in St. Stephen’s chapel in 820, however, the emperor Leo V was murdered by assassins who had assumed the costumes of singers and sneaked into the palace precincts. After this incident singers were required to live in quarters within the imperial palace, a regulation which put ‘bearded’ singers with families at a disadvantage. Theodoros Balsamon states that by the 12th century the ordo cantorum consisted entirely of eunuchs.
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