From O City of Byzantium, Annals of Niketas Choniates, translated by Harry J. Magoulias

1182 Byzantine
Andronikos dresses for an audience with Patriarch Theodosios and clergy. When Andronikos heard that the great high priest was approaching his tent, he immediately went out to greet him, wearing a violet-colored garment of Iberian weave, open at the sides and reaching down to the knees and buttocks and covering the elbows; on his head he word a grayish black headdress shaped like a pyramid.

1182 Byzantine
Opposition to Andonikos' rise to power - …to insure that Andronikos would be dead and stained by his own blood before he should dye his garment with the purple he coveted.

1182 Byzantine
Andronikos' supporters celebrate - They removed the headdresses which denoted their senatorial rank, and taking the white linen stoles that hung down over their shoulders, they rolled them up into balls.

1182 Byzantine
Andronikos inauguration - …some contended that it was fear that gave rise to the spectacle, while others maintained that because of the day-long strain and the fatigue caused by the encumbrance of the imperial trappings, the old man was unable to contain the excreta of his bowels over a long period of time and defecated in his breeches.

1184 Byzantine
Nicholas, archbishop of Nicaea leads a process "donning his sacred vestments".

1185 Byzantine
Strategos David Komnenos not a manly man of war - "Accordingly absolutely no one saw him dressed in his suit of armor; rather he shunned helmet, coat of mail, greaves, and shield like those tenderly reared ladies who know nothing outside their shaded women's apartments, and he made the rounds of the city mounted upon a mule with his mantle gathered and fastened from behind, wearing elegant gold-embroidered buskins reaching to the ankles.

1185 Sicily Barbaric manners - Even if the Roman seized could speak the Italian language perfectly, he was nonetheless so far estranged from this alien race that not even his dress had anything in common with the Latins…

1185 Byzantine
Siege depravations - They appropriated the dwellings, expelling their masters and depriving them of the treasures stored within, and they also removed their clothing, not even refraining from taking their last undergarments, which conceal what nature has commanded to be covered as unseemly....Those who had gathered in the dainties of cuttlefish were left to wander about hungry in the streets, barefoot and without tunic, to sleep upon the earth; and they who heretofore were dressed in fine garments now had the ground for their bed...

1185 Byzantine
Sicilians make fun of the tattered conquered - Thus did they take pity on those who wore tattered garments and covered those parts of the body which needs to be hidden with rush mats, while with the stems of the rush they plaited coverings to provide shade for the heads.

1185 Sicily
The Sicilians hold the unguent from the crypt of Demetrios as miraculous…they would rub their leather footgear with this sweet oil and use it for all the purposes which olive oil now serves.