The Emperor’s Historians: John Kinnamos, Niketas Choniates.
At the end of the Fourth Crusade, the Venetians came out on top instead of the Church that initially started the Crusade. Pope Innocent’s legacy of re-conquering the Holy Land was preoccupied by financial obligations that allowed the Crusade to be turned into the Venetians plans of greed to dominate the trade rights between Europe and Asia.
O City of Byzantium is the first English translation of a history which chronicles the period of Byzantine history from 1118 to 1207. The historian Niketas Choniates provides an eye-witness account of the inexorable events that led to the destruction of the longest lived Christian empire in history, and to the ultimate catastrophe of the fall of Constantinople in 1204 to the Fourth Crusade.
Niketas Choniates' History is the single most important source for a crucial period in Byzantine history, which began with the death of Alexios I Komnenos in 1118 and culminated with the capture of Constantinople by the armies of the Fourth Crusade in 1204. In this first book-length study of the History in English, Simpson reviews the complex manuscript tradition and transmission of the text.
The fourth crusade often called the “Crusade against Christians”, did not go according to plan. Due to a number of accidents, coupled with their honouring of secular contracts, before that of their vow to God. An overestimation of the number of crusaders when arranging a transportation contract with Venice left the crusaders at its mercy.
The three French chronicles discussed above are, together with the relevant chapters of Nicetas Choniates, the main sources for the history of the Fourth Crusade and the Latin empire. Allowance has to be made for the fact that the three men were very different in background, status and education, so that they each approach their task from a very different angle.
NICETAS CHONIATES Incorrectly called Akominatos, younger brother of Michael Choniates, theologian important Byzantine historian; b. Chonae (Phrygia), 1140; d. Nicaea, 1213. As a child, Nicetas went to Constantinople to study under the guidance of his elder brother. Entering civil service, he became governor of Philippopolis, where he witnessed the destruction caused by armies of frederick i.
Nicetas Choniates gives a vivid account of the sack of Constantinople by the Frankish and Venetian Crusaders of the Fourth Crusade: The date of the battle is unknown, it has generally been ascribed to the year 1177 on the basis of its position within the narrative of Niketas Choniates.