Manuel I Komnenos

Manuel I Komnenos became Byzantine emperor in 1118 and spent his reign chasing the empire's old reach. He cut deals with Pope Adrian IV, sent armies against Norman Sicily, steered the Second Crusade through his territory without disaster, and turned the Crusader states of Outremer into Byzantine protectorates. He reshaped the Balkans and the eastern Mediterranean, placing Hungary and Jerusalem under his hegemony and launching a joint invasion of Fatimid Egypt. But in his final years, arrogance led him into a trap at Myriokephalon - a heavily defended Seljuk position that dealt him a serious defeat. He recovered and negotiated peace with Sultan Kilij Arslan II, but the loss marked the end of Byzantine hopes to reclaim Anatolia's interior from the Turks. His secretary John Kinnamos wrote him up as a hero with every virtue; parts of the Latin world called him "the most blessed emperor of Constantinople." After his death in 1180, the empire's power collapsed so fast that historians still argue whether the rot began on his watch or whether he was simply the last man holding the structure together.