or Niketas Khoniates
Nicetas was a member of the lesser nobility from Chonia and his brother was the Archbishop of Athens. Nicetas was the author of a twenty-one volume History of the Times, which began in 1118 where Anna Comnena's history ended. His work details both the Third and Fourth Crusades, but is especially valuable as an eyewitness account of the Fourth Crusade.
After the capture of Constantinople in 1204, Nicetas fled to Nicaea, the site of the Byzantine government in exile under the leadership of Emperor Theodoris Lascaris. There he completed his Byzantine account of the Fourth Crusade as well as his smaller work On the Statues Destroyed by the Latins. he died between 1210 and 1220, most likely around 1216.
His descriptions of the crusader's sack of Constantinople are exceptionally vivid. He describes the looting of relics from the churches, as well as the desecration of the churches, particularly Hagia Sophia. Below is a selection from the work that best demonstrates the tone and spirit of the account.
Nay more, a certain harlot, a sharer in their [the crusaders] guilt, a minister of the furies, a servant
of the demons, a worker of incantations and poisonings, insulting Christ, sat in the Patriarch's seat,
singing an obsene song and dancing frequently. Nor, indeed, were these crimes committed and others
left undone, on the ground that these were of lesser guilt, the others of greater. But with one consent
all the most heinous sins and crimes were committed by all with equal zeal. Could those, who showed
so great madness against God Himself, have spared the honorable matrons and maidens or virgins
consecrated to God?
For a lengthier selection of the work, see the partial text provided below by the Internet History Sourcebooks