Nikephoros Choumnos

[1] He is notable for his eleven-year tenure as chief minister of emperor Andronikos II Palaiologos, his intense intellectual rivalry with fellow scholar and official Theodore Metochites, and for building the monastery of the Theotokos Gorgoepēkoos (Θεοτόκος Γοργοεπήκοος) in Constantinople.

[5] Henceforth, his rise in the hierarchy was rapid: in early 1294, following the death of Theodore Mouzalon, Andronikos II named him mystikos (privy councillor) and mesazōn (in effect, chief minister), while in 1295 he also received the office of epi tou kanikleiou, becoming head of the imperial chancellery.

[3][6] As George Pachymeres reports, the emperor increasingly took absence from his administrative duties in order to devote himself to prayer and fasting, leaving Choumnos to effectively handle the governance of the state.

[8] In 1303, after a planned marriage of his daughter Eirene to Alexios II failed, and despite the opposition of Empress Irene, he secured his ties to the ruling dynasty by marrying her to the emperor's third son, the despotēs John Palaiologos (c.

[2] His works, several of which remain unpublished, include rhetorical pieces, such as the eulogy to Andronikos II, as well as treatises on philosophy, especially on elemental theory, meteorology, cosmology and theology.

[15] According to the French Byzantinist Rodolphe Guilland, "by his love of antiquity, passionate, although a little servile, and by the variety of his knowledge Choumnos heralds Italian humanism and the western Renaissance.