Editing Manuel I Komnenos (section)

===Arrival of the Crusaders===
[[Image:Arrivée des croisés à Constantinople.jpg|thumb|left|Arrival of the Second Crusade before Constantinople, portrayed in Jean Fouquet's painting from around 1455–1460, ''Arrivée des croisés à Constantinople''.]]

Manuel was prevented from capitalising on his conquests by events in the Balkans that urgently required his presence. In 1147 he granted a passage through his dominions to two armies of the Second Crusade under [[Conrad III of Germany]] and [[Louis VII of France]]. At this time, there were still members of the Byzantine court who remembered the passage of the [[First Crusade]], a defining event in the collective memory of the age that had fascinated Manuel's aunt, [[Anna Komnene]].<ref name="AC333">A. Komnene, ''The Alexiad'', 333</ref>

Many Byzantines feared the Crusade, a view endorsed by the numerous acts of vandalism and theft practised by the unruly armies as they marched through Byzantine territory. Byzantine troops followed the Crusaders, attempting to police their behaviour, and further troops were assembled in Constantinople, ready to defend the capital against any acts of aggression. This cautious approach was well advised, but still the numerous incidents of covert and open hostility between the Franks and the Greeks on their line of march, for which it seems both sides were to blame, precipitated conflict between Manuel and his guests. Manuel took the precaution—which his grandfather had not taken—of making repairs to the [[Walls of Constantinople|city walls]], and he pressed the two kings for guarantees concerning the security of his territories. Conrad's army was the first to enter the Byzantine territory in the summer of 1147, and it figures more prominently in the Byzantine sources, which imply that it was the more troublesome of the two.{{Cref|a}} Indeed, the contemporary Byzantine historian [[Kinnamos]] describes a full-scale [[Battle of Constantinople (1147)|clash]] between a Byzantine force and part of Conrad's army, outside the walls of Constantinople. The Byzantines defeated the Germans and, in Byzantine eyes, this reverse caused Conrad to agree to have his army speedily ferried across to [[Üsküdar|Damalis]] on the Asian shore of the Bosphoros.<ref>Kinnamos, pp. 65–67</ref><ref>Birkenmeier, p. 110</ref>

After 1147, however, the relations between the two leaders became friendlier. By 1148 Manuel had seen the wisdom of securing an alliance with Conrad, whose sister-in-law [[Bertha of Sulzbach]] he had earlier married; he actually persuaded the German king to renew their alliance against [[Roger II of Sicily]].<ref name="M621">P. Magdalino, ''The Byzantine Empire'', 621</ref> Unfortunately for the Byzantine emperor, Conrad died in 1152, and despite repeated attempts, Manuel could not reach an agreement with his successor, [[Frederick Barbarossa]].{{Cref|b}}