ABSTRACT
When Niketas Choniates wrote his anthology of heretical doctrines shortly after the capture and sack of Constantinople by the Latins of the Fourth Crusade, he chose to include a long section about the creation and layout of the cosmos, which also included the description of a range of astronomical and meteorological phenomena. While such an addition may seem strange in a doctrinal work, it finds roots not only in Choniates’s dramatic circumstances but also in the heresiological works of the Komnenian period and in a debate about the shape of the world—spherical or vaulted—that found new wind, particularly in the twelfth century. How one chose to describe the creation and structure of the world was also tied to aspects of Byzantine orthodox identity at the time. By espousing a spherical worldview firmly set within the framework of the Mosaic Creation and Byzantine doctrines, Choniates not only salvaged an elementary curriculum but also ensured that it fits within the boundaries of Byzantine orthodoxy.
