History
A history of the Byzantine empire under Michael VIII and Andronikos II by a deacon and official of the church of Constantinople. It is the main Greek account of how the union of Lyon was imposed on the clergy and undone after the emperor’s death.
Read the text at archive.org ↗Volume 2, on the reign of Andronikos II (Internet Archive) ↗
Pachymeres was a deacon of the church of Constantinople who held the offices of protekdikos and dikaiophylax, and he lived through what he describes. Six of his thirteen books cover the reign of Michael VIII Palaiologos and seven that of his son Andronikos II; the narrative runs to 1308.
He belonged to the clergy on whom the union was pressed, and he records the emperor’s arguments, the objections of the bishops and the punishments of those who refused in more detail than any Latin source. He is no friend of the union, but he is also critical of the zealots who took revenge after 1282. He is cited here from the Latin translation printed beneath the Greek in the Bonn edition.
Cited in
- May 1274, firm date