Decline & Fall - Byzantium 03 (22 page)

A few days later King Baldwin arrived from Jerusalem. Though he and Manuel had never met, there was a strong family connection since he had recently married the Emperor's niece Theodora, daughter of his elder brother Isaac. The bride, though still only thirteen, was plainly nubile and extremely beautiful, and Baldwin was delighted with her. He had not, however, attempted to conceal his dissatisfaction at the news of Reynald's pardon; and the Emperor, wrongly suspecting that he wanted Antioch for himself, had at first been reluctant to receive him. But he soon relented and the two took to each other the moment they met. Baldwin was now thirty, intelligent and cultivated and possessed of more than a little of Manuel's famous charm. He remained ten days in the camp, during which time he secured a pardon for Thoros, who was subjected to the same treatment as Reynald but was allowed to keep his possessions in the mountains. It was probably due to his intervention, also, that the change of Patriarch was indefinitely postponed. Aimery was restored to his patriarchal throne and was formally reconciled with Reynald - though it is unlikely, after what had happened, that the two ever became close friends.

On Easter Sunday,
12
April
11
59,
Manuel Comnenus made his cere
monial entry over the fortified bridge into Antioch. Twenty-one years before, he had accompanied his father in a similar procession; the present occasion was still more impressive. The local authorities had done their best to prevent it: there was, they claimed, a conspiracy to assassinate him and they could not guarantee his safety. Manuel demanded a number of hostages, and insisted that all the Franks taking part in the ceremony - including even the King of Jerusalem himself -should be unarmed; but he refused to cancel the procession. In the forefront marched the blond giants of the Varangian Guard, each with his battle-axe carried on a massive shoulder. Then came the Emperor himself, his imperial purple mantle all but concealing his coat of mail, the pearl-hung diadem on his head. At his side, 'busying himself, writes Cinnamus, 'with the stirrup-leather of the imperial saddle', walked the Prince of Antioch, the other Frankish vassals following; then Baldwin of Jerusalem, bare-headed; and finally the members of the imperial court. Just inside the gates Aimery stood waiting in his patriarchal robes, his clergy behind him; and it was he who led the procession through flower-strewn streets, first to Mass in St Peter's Cathedral and then on to the palace.

The celebrations continued for eight days. Apart from endless church services, there were banquets, receptions, investitures and parades of every kind. As a gesture to the Franks, Manuel even organized a knightly tournament — something unknown in the East - during which he himself, to the horror of most of his older subjects, took part in the jousting. Majestic where majesty was required, smiling and friendly on less formal occasions, he endeared himself to the Antiochenes, nobles and citizens alike. Meanwhile he and the King of Jerusalem took an ever greater liking to each other, and when Baldwin broke his arm in a hunting accident Manuel insisted on treating it himself, just as he had treated King Conrad a dozen years before.

By the time the Emperor left Antioch, relations between Byzantium and Outremer were better than they had ever been; and they might well have so continued had he now moved against Aleppo, as the Franks expected. As soon as he reached the frontier, however, he was met by Nur ed-Din's ambassadors with proposals for a truce. The Emir's offer was generous indeed: not only would he release all his six thousand Christian prisoners, he would also send a military expedition against the Seljuk Turks. Manuel - possibly with some relief - agreed to call off his campaign and immediately started back to Constantinople, his army behind him.

The reaction of the Franks can well be imagined. Why had the Emperor bothered to march all the way across Asia Minor with his huge army, only to march all the way back again without once engaging the Saracen enemy? For the six thousand returned prisoners they cared little. True, these included one or two distinguished Frenchmen like Bertrand of Blancfort, Grand Master of the Temple; but the vast majority were Germans captured during the Second Crusade, many of whom were by now broken in health and would constitute only an additional burden on the depleted treasury. Nothing could alter the fact that Manuel had been received with all the honour due to him, in the belief that he would rid the Crusader states of an enemy who threatened their very existence. Instead, he had made a shameful agreement with that enemy and was now leaving them to their fate. No wonder they felt betrayed.

In fact, Manuel had had little choice. However vital Syria might be to the Crusaders of Outremer, to him it was only one — and by no means the most important - of the many outlying provinces of his Empire. His throne was relatively secure, but not to the point where he could afford to spend many months several hundred miles from his capital, at the end of impossibly long lines of communication and supply which could be broken from one moment to the next by Arab or Turkish raiders. Already there were reports of conspiracy in Constantinople and trouble on the European frontier. It was time to return. Besides, was Nur ed-Din doing him any real harm? On the contrary, he was frightening the Franks, and Manuel was well aware that the Franks remained loyal to him only when they were afraid. The Seljuks of Anatolia were in any case an infinitely greater danger than the Atabeg of Aleppo, whose offer of what would effectively be an alliance against them was not one that he could afford to refuse.

Subsequent events proved him right. In the autumn of
1159,
after only some three months in Constantinople, he was back again in Anatolia fighting the Seljuk Sultan, Kilij Arslan II. It was a four-pronged attack: the Emperor himself, with the main body of his army further strengthened by a detachment of troops sent by the Prince of Serbia, swept up the Meander valley; his general John Contostephanus, with levies provided according to their respective treaties by Reynald and Thoros and a contingent of Pechenegs, drove north-westwards through the Taurus passes; Nur ed-Din advanced from the middle Euphrates; and the Danishmends invaded from the north-east. Against such an onslaught the Sultan quickly gave up the struggle; by the terms of a treaty signed early in
1162
he returned all the Greek cities occupied

by his subjects within recent years, promised to respect the frontiers, forbade all further raiding, and agreed to provide a regiment whenever called upon to do so, to fight alongside the imperial army. Finally, in the spring of that same year, he paid a state visit to Constantinople.

From the moment of Kilij Arslan's first arrival, the Emperor was determined to dazzle him. He first received his guest seated on a throne raised on a high dais, covered in slabs of gold and set with carbuncles and sapphires surrounded with pearls. He himself wore on his head the imperial diadem, around his shoulders a great cloak of purple encrusted with still more pearls, together with huge cabochon jewels. From his neck, on a golden chain, hung a ruby the size of an apple. Invited to sit by his side, Cinnamus tells us that the Sultan at first hardly dared to obey. And this was only the beginning. Twice each day during his twelve-week stay in the capital, the Sultan's food and drink were brought to him in vessels of gold and silver, all of which immediately became his property; none were ever returned to the palace. After one banquet Manuel presented him with the entire table service. Meanwhile hardly a day passed without some new and ever more brilliant entertainment. There were banquets, tournaments, circuses, games in the Hippodrome — even a water pageant, at which the wonders of Greek fire were displayed to remarkable effect. Throughout the festivities, however, the Emperor made clear by a thousand little signs, negligible by themselves but unmistakable when taken together, that his honoured guest was not a foreign monarch but a vassal prince.

The only attempt from the Sultan's side to match these manifestations was unfortunately less successful, when a member of his suite announced that he would give a demonstration of flying. Swathed in a coat which appeared to consist entirely of immense and cavernous pockets, he explained that the air trapped in these pockets would support him as he flew. He then climbed up to a platform high above the Hippodrome, whence he launched himself into space. When the body was carried from the arena a moment later the assembled populace, we are told, could not contain its laughter; and for the remainder of their stay in the city the surviving members of the Sultan's suite had to endure constant taunts and catcalls as they walked through the streets.

John II had left the Byzantine position in Asia Minor stronger than it had been at any time since Manzikert; his son had now made it stronger still. The Seljuk Sultan had been brought low, the Atabeg of Mosul had been badly frightened. Manuel was now on the friendliest possible terms with both of them; but they had learned their lesson. The land route to the Holy Land was once again open to pilgrims from the West. Among Christians, only the Franks of Outremer continued to grumble. They were to have even greater reason for dissatisfaction before long.

At the end of
11
59,
while her husband was campaigning in Anatolia, the Empress Irene, nee Bertha of Sulzbach, had died in Constantinople, leaving only two daughters. Manuel gave her a splendid funeral, and buried her in his father's monastery of the Pantocrator; but he still desperately needed a son. Accordingly, after a decent interval of mourning had elapsed, he sent an embassy to Jerusalem under his general John Contostephanus to ask King Baldwin to nominate as his second bride one of the princesses of Outremer.

There were two obvious candidates, both Baldwin's cousins and both, we are told, of exceptional beauty. Melisende, and Mary, respectively the daughters of the late Count Raymond II of Tripoli and of Constance of Antioch by her first husband, Raymond of Poitiers. To Baldwin, the House of Antioch gave nothing but trouble; it was therefore not surprising that his choice should have fallen on Melisende. Excitement spread quickly through the Crusader East. Count Raymond III spent a fortune on his sister's trousseau and preparations for the wedding, meanwhile making ready a fleet of no fewer than twelve galleys to escort her in suitable state to her new home. Only gradually was it realized that there had been no word from Constantinople. What had happened? Was there to be no marriage after all? Had the Byzantine ambassadors been so indelicate as to mention those persistent rumours of her illegitimacy, which were founded on nothing more than the strained relations known to have existed between her parents?

Perhaps they had; but the Emperor had other reasons to delay his decision. In November
1160
Reynald of Antioch had been captured by Nur ed-Din. His wife Constance had immediately assumed power; but she had never been popular, and a strong body of opinion had preferred the claims of her fifteen-year-old son Bohemund, known as the Stammerer. In theory, the question should have been referred to the Byzantine Emperor, as suzerain of Antioch, for a decision; in fact, however, the Antiochenes tended to look towards Jerusalem on such occasions, and it was to King Baldwin, rather than to Manuel, that they had turned. The King had declared for young Bohemund, with Patriarch Aimery acting as Regent until he came of age. Furious and humiliated, Constance had promptly appealed to the imperial court.

Manuel too was angered at Baldwin
's presumption; and it was this
incident, rather than any doubts about the paternity of Melisende, that decided him. But he volunteered no statement. Only when, in the summer of
1161,
the impatient Raymond sent an embassy to ask his intentions did he finally confirm that the marriage would not after all take place. In Tripoli there was consternation. Poor Melisende went into a decline from which she never recovered;
1
her brother converted his twelve galleys into men-of-war and led them off to harass the coastal towns of Cyprus. King Baldwin, deeply concerned, rode up to Antioch, where to his astonishment he found another high-powered delegation from Constantinople, headed by Anna Comnena's son Alexius Bryennius, which had re-established Constance on the throne and was already in the process of drawing up a marriage contract between the Emperor and the ravishing young Princess Mary. In September
1161
she set sail from St Symeon and at Christmas, in the presence of the Patriarchs of Constantinople, Antioch and Alexandria, she was married to Manuel in St Sophia.

Baldwin could only accept the inevitable. He gave his young cousin his blessing and then started back, via Tripoli, to Jerusalem; but he never reached it. In Tripoli he fell gravely ill. After Christmas, still not recovered, he struggled on to Beirut but could go no further. He died there on
10
February
1162,
aged just thirty-two.

Manuel Comnenus wept when he heard the news. Baldwin had been a good King; with his energy, his intelligence and his natural political flair he might even have proved a great one. Although the two had inevitably had their differences, on a personal level they had been firm friends who had genuinely enjoyed each other's company - no small consideration where ruling monarchs are concerned.

But the Emperor's thoughts were no longer in the East; it was the consequences of another royal death, occurring on
31
May
1161,
which now preoccupied him - that of King Geza II of Hungary. The Hungarians had always been troublesome neighbours, sandwiched as they were between the two great Empires and with interests in Croatia and Dalmatia which could not but conflict with those of Byzantium. Geza had particularly mistrusted the alliance between Conrad and Manuel. In the early years he had not dared to take much serious action, but after Conrad's death he had grown bolder, and had waged intermittent