Manuel I Komnenos, who reigns from 1143…
1144 CE to 1155 CE
Manuel I Komnenos, who reigns from 1143 to 1180, realizes even more clearly that Constantinople cannot presume to ignore or offend the new powers in the West, and he goes out of his way to understand and to appease them.
Certain aspects of the Western way of life appeal to Manuel.
His first and second wives are both Westerners, and Latins are welcomed at his court and even granted estates and official appointments.
This policy is distasteful to most of his subjects; and it is unfortunate for his intentions that the disastrous Second Crusade occurs early in his reign (1147), for it aggravates the bitterness between Greeks and Latins and brings Constantinople deeper than ever into the tangled politics of western Europe.
