Byzantine Empire

Later Comneni

The policies of Alexius I were continued by his son John II Comnenus (reigned 1118–43) and his grandson Manuel I Comnenus (reigned 1143–80). In the 12th century, there was growing involvement of the Western powers in the affairs of the East as well as an increasingly complex political situation in Europe. In Asia, too, matters were complicated by the conflict between the Seljuqs and the Dānishmends, by the emergence of the kingdom of Lesser Armenia in Cilicia, and by the activities of the Crusader states. Foreign relations and skillful diplomacy became of paramount importance for the Byzantines. John II tried and failed to break what was becoming the Venetian monopoly of Byzantine trade, and he sought to come to terms with the new kingdom of Hungary, to whose ruler he was related by marriage. Alexius I had seen the importance of Hungary, lying between the Western and Byzantine empires, a neighbour of the Venetians and the Serbs. More ominous still was the establishment of the Norman Kingdom of Sicily under Roger II in 1130. But John II astutely allied himself with the Western emperor against it.

Manuel I realized even more clearly that Byzantium ... (200 of 32,247 words)