(Γεώργὶος ὁ Παχυμερής), one of the most important of the later Byzantine writers, was born in, or about A. D. 1242 at Nicaea, whither his father, an inhabitant of Constantinople, had fled after the capture of Constantinople by the Latins, in 1204. Thence Pachymeres sometimes calls himself a Constantinopolitan. After receiving a careful and learned education, he left Nicaea in 1261, and took up his abode in Constantinople, which had then just been retaken by Michael Palaeologus. Here Pachymeres became a priest. It appears that besides divinity he also, according to the spirit of the time, studied the law, for in after years he was promoted to the important posts of Πρωτέκτικος or advocate general of the church (of Constantinople), and Δικαιοφύλαξ, or chief justice to the imperial court, perhaps in ecclesiastical matters, which, however, were of high political importance in the reigns of Michael Palaeologus and his successor, Andronicus the elder. As early as 1267 he accompanied, perhaps as secretary, three imperial commissioners to the exiled patriarch Arsenius, in order to investigate his alleged participation in an alleged conspiracy against the life of Michael Palaeologus. They succeeded in reconciling these two chiefs of the state and the church. The emperor Michael having made preparatory steps towards effecting a union of the Greek and Latin churches, Pachymeres sided with the patriarch Joseph, who was against the union; and when the emperor wrote in defence of the union Pachymeres, together with Jasites Job, drew up an answer in favour of the former state of separation. It was Pachymeres who was the author of the deed of abdication of the patriarch Joannes Beccus. When the emperor Andronicus repealed the union, Pachymeres persuaded the patriarch Georgius Cyprius, who was for it, to abdicate. It seems that Pachymeres also devoted some of his time towards teaching, because one of his disciples was Manuel Phile, who wrote an iambic poem on his death, which is given by Leo Allatius quoted below.
Pachymeres died probably shortly after 1310 ; but some believe that his death took place as late as 1340. There is a wood-cut portrait of Pachymeres prefixed to Wolf's edition of Nicephorus Gregoras, Basel, 1562, which the editor had engraved after a drawing of a MS. of his Historia Byzantina, "which was then at Augsburg." Pachymeres wrote several works of importance, the principal of which are :
[W.P]