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Wolff, R. L.; Hazard, H. W. (ed.) / Volume II: The later Crusades, 1189-1311
(1969)
IV: Byzantium and the Crusades, 1081-1204, pp. [unnumbered]-151
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Page 140
140 A HISTORY OF THE CRUSADES II of Constance of Antioch. With Greek support, Bela succeeded to the Hungarian throne in 1173, and as long as Manuel lived he was loyal to Byzantium, making no attempt to regain lost territory until after 1180. Manuel had thus gained some measure of security in the Balkans and in the north, as well as considerable territory. In the east, before he was really hampered by Frederick Barbarossa, Manuel successfully developed his father's policy.19 He asserted his suzerainty, first over the Armenian prince Toros II in Cilicia in 1 158, and then over Reginald of Antioch in where the crowning symbol of his victory was to be the restoration of a Greek, Athanasius, to the ancient patriarchate in 1165. He was on particularly friendly terms with Baldwin III of Jerusalem, and anxious to prevent the encirclement of the crusading principalities by a single Moslem power. Manuel may have foreseen that any drastic reduction of crusading prestige and territory might turn the Latins towards his own lands. But neither his overtures to the ruler of Aleppo, Nür-ad-Din, nor his expeditions with Amalric of Jerusalem against Egypt, could stay the rise of Saladin. Moreover the death of Nür-ad-Din in 1174 affected the political situation in Anatolia, as well as in Syria and Egypt. Manuel's position in Anatolia had to some extent been safeguarded by the tension between the rival Moslem powers, the Selchukids at Iconium and the Dänishmendids. The eastern ambitions of the former had been kept in check by Nür-ad-Din's support of the Dänishmendids. Now dissident Moslem elements looked to Constantinople for help. Manuel, aware of the Selchükid sultan's quiet consolidation of his position, turned to his own frontier defenses on the marches of Iconium. He refused the overtures of Kilij Arslan II and led an expedition against him in 1176. Showing marked lack of generalship he allowed himself to be trapped in the pass of Myriokephalon, and was prevented from headlong flight only by the firm refusal of his officers to countenance this. What might well have been a wholesale massacre was checked by Kilij Arslan, who again offered terms. Manuel's prestige and that of the Christians in Syria was shaken by this defeat, though his generals still carried on intermittent warfare against Moslem penetration into the Maeander valley. Manuel himself may have felt that his earlier policy towards Iconium, in particular the treaty of 1161,20 had been mistaken and perhaps opportunist. He had obtained an 19 See volume I, chapter XVII, and below, chapter XIX. 20 Dolger, Regesten, no. 1444.
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