Vasilief, A History of the Byzantine Empire

Byzantium and the Crusades

Policies of Manuel I and the Second Crusade 

Page 9

Nevertheless, the danger to the Empire proved not to be great. The plan of the king of France was not carried into effect partly because the French chivalry responded to the idea coldly and partly because Suger died shortly after. Conrad remained loyal to the alliance with the Eastern Empire.

But at the very time when Manuel might have expected a particular advantage from his alliance with Germany, Conrad III died (1152). His death, which had occurred just when the Italian campaign had been decided upon, evoked in Germany rumors that the king had been poisoned by his court physicians. They had come to Germany from Italy, from the famous medical school of Salerno, which was at that time in the power of Roger. Conrad's successor Frederick I Barbarossa ascended the throne believing in unlimited imperial power granted him by God; he would not admit that his power in Italy should be divided with the eastern Emperor. In a treaty with the pope concluded shortly after Frederick's accession to the throne the king of Germany, calling Manuel rex, not imperator, as Conrad had addressed him, pledged himself to expel the eastern Emperor from Italy. But, shortly after, for some unexplained reasons, Frederick changed his plans and seems to have intended to return to the idea of the Byzantine alliance.

In 1154 the terrible foe of Byzantium, Roger II, died. The new Sicilian king, William I, set as his goal the destruction of the alliance of the two empires and of the alliance between Byzantium and Venice. The Republic of St. Mark, aware of Manuel's plans for establishing himself in Italy, could not approve of them; it would have been just as bad for Venice as if the Normans had established themselves on the opposite coast of the Adriatic, for in either case both coasts would have belonged to one power, which would have barred to the Venetian vessels the free use of the Adriatic and Mediterranean. Accordingly Venice broke off her alliance with Byzantium and having obtained important trade privileges in the kingdom of Sicily, made an alliance with William I.

After the Byzantine arms had had some success in southern Italy, i.e. after Bari and some other cities had been captured, William inflicted a severe defeat on Manuel's troops at Brindisi in 1156, which at once nullified all the results of the Byzantine expedition. In the same year the capital of Apulia, Bari, was by order of William razed. A contemporary wrote: The powerful capital of Apulia, famous for its glory, strong in its wealth, proud of the noble and aristocratic origin of its citizens, an object of general admiration for the beauty of its buildings, lies now as a pile of stones.

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