CHONIATES, NICETAS

born c. 1150, , Chonae, Byzantine Empire [now in Turkey] died 1213, Nicaea, Empire of Nicaea [now Iznik, Tur.] also called Nicetas Acominatus Byzantine statesman, historian, and theologian. His chronicle of Byzantium's humiliations during the Third and Fourth Crusades (1189 and 1204) and his anthology of 12th-century theological writings constitute authoritative historical sources for this period and established him among the most brilliant medieval Greek historiographers. Nicetas, a protg of his brother Michael, archbishop of Athens, served as a district governor in Philippopolis (now Plovdiv, Bulg.), where he witnessed the crusaders' ravages under Frederick I Barbarossa. He later experienced the looting of Constantinople (Istanbul) in 1204 by the crusaders from the West. Forced to flee Constantinople, Nicetas moved to Nicaea, site of the Byzantine court-in-exile, and wrote the 21-volume "History of the Times," a record of the rise and fall of the 12th- and 13th-century Byzantine dynasties, beginning with the Greek emperor John Comnenus (1118-43) and concluding with the intrusion of the first Latin Eastern emperor, Baldwin I of Flanders (1204-05). A fervent Greek Byzantine nationalist, Nicetas produced a generally objective and concrete, although rhetorical, account of the crusaders' campaigns in Byzantium. In the theological sphere Nicetas composed the "Thesaurus of Orthodoxy," a collection of tracts as source material for responding to contemporary heresies and to document the 12th-century Byzantine philosophical movement.