Distortion, divine providence and genre in Nicetas Choniates's account of the collapse of Byzantium 1180–1204

Abstract

Historians have differed widely in their assessments of the Byzantine historian, Nicetas Choniates, and his account of the collapse of the Byzantine empire during the years 1180–1204. Some have seen him as blaming the Latins in general and as doggedly believing that they were planning to conquer Constantinople from the outset. Others have presented him as a balanced commentator who could see wrong on both sides, and have suggested that his real explanation for the downfall of the empire lies in divine providence. This paper argues that neither assessment does justice to Choniates's skill as an historian, and that the only way to understand his explanations is to appreciate the literary genre in which he wrote. It was a genre which, although superficially dependent on classical models, based its conception of historical causation on a very Byzantine preoccupation, the character and deeds of individual emperors. For Choniates, the main reason for the collapse of the empire was the weaknesses of the emperors ruling at the time, and their failure to live up to the divinely ordained ideal.