Page 560

~6o A HISTORY OF THE CRUSADES I 
Edessa and the devastation of Cyprus by Reginald and Toros II in ii~6. 
 The recovery before 1150 of the Taurus fortresses by the 1~oupenid prince
bros had not seriously affected Greek power, but his conquest of Mamistra
in i 15 i and the rest of Cilicia in I 152 had necessitated the great expedition
of 1158, which like John's two decades earlier won great renown but little
of permanent value: control of Cilicia for a few years, suzerainty over Antioch
effective only during the presence of a Byzantine army, a truce with Nür-ad-Din
which postponed the full onslaught of Moslem Syria against the Frankish littoral.
His peace in ii6i with the Selchükids of Iconium was more fruitful,
but its effects were to be dissipated in 1176 at Myriokephalon, the absolute
end of Byzantine control over any part of Anatolia except the coastal cities,
since Mleh the 1~oupenid ex-Templar had reconquered Cilicia in 1173. 
 To return to Amairic's visit to Constantinople, however, we may note that
it marks the climax of his reign. The situation in the Moslem world was serious,
but so long as the rift between Nürad-DIn and Saladin continued, not
yet hopeless. The Byzantine alliance should have insured power adequate to
break Saladin's hold over Egypt. This project, however, so full of promise
was destined never to be carried out. Events beyond the frontiers of Jerusalem
and Byzantium delayed the expedition.23 On Amairic's death in 1174 the alliance
lapsed. 
 Furthermore, in 1171, Saladin, at first reluctantly following Nür-ad-DIn's
directives, had ordered that at Friday prayers in Egyptian mosques the name
of the caliph of Baghdad be substituted for the ShI~ite, al-~Açlid.
Then, on September 13, al-~Açlid had died, and no successor was named.
The politicoreligious revolution which had been thus quietly consummated
in Cairo was of tremendous importance. A schism of centuries' duration which
had contributed materially to the security of the Latin states had ended.
Only the strained relations between Saladin and Nür-ad-Din prevented
the encirclement from being fully effective. 
 23 In 1171—1173 there were disturbances in Cilician Armenia and in
Iconium, the latter prompting the intervention of Nur-ad-Din (Stevenson,
Crusaders, pp. 200—201). In i 172 Henry the Lion of Saxony completed
a pilgrimage, but remained in the east only a short time. See E. Joranson,
"The Palestine Pilgrimage of Henry the Lion," Medieval and Historiographical
Essays in Honor of James West fall Thompson, ed. J. L. Cate and E. N. Anderson
(Chicago, 1938), pp. 190—202. It was also during this period that the
murder by a Templar of an envoy from the Assassins who had the king's safe
conduct prompted Amalric to severe measures against the order. Since the
king soon died, nothing was done except to