Ancient Byzantine Empire Coin MANUEL I St. George Bronze Tetarteron

Description

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BYZANTINE
EMPIRE
Ancient Coin
AE
Tetarteron
Of
MANUEL I
Commenus
Byzantine Emperor: 1143-1180AD
Obv: QGE to left P over w GIOS
Facing bust of St. George, nimbate, wearing tunic, holding spear and shield
Rev: MANVHL DEC
Crowned unbearded bust of Manuel I facing
holding labarum and cross on globe
19.00 mm
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The attribution label is printed on archival museum quality paper
An interesting  coin of Manuel I. St.George on obverse and Manuel I on reverse. This coin comes with  display stand and attribution label attached as pictured. A great way to display an ancient coins collection!  You are welcome to ask any questions prior buying or bidding. We can ship it anywhere within continental U.S. for a flat rate of 6.00$. It includes shipping, delivery confirmation  and packaging material.
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Manuel I Komnenos
Manuel I Komnenos (or Comnenus) (28 November 1118 – 24 September 1180)  was a Byzantine Emperor of the 12th century who reigned over a crucial turning point in the history of Byzantium and the Mediterranean.
Eager to restore his empire to its past glories as the superpower of the Mediterranean world, Manuel pursued an energetic and ambitious foreign policy. In the process he made alliances with the Pope and the resurgent west, invaded the Kingdom of Sicily, successfully handled the passage of the dangerous Second Crusade through his empire, and established a Byzantine protectorate over the Crusader states of Outremer. Facing Muslim advances in the Holy Land, he made common cause with the Kingdom of Jerusalem and participated in a combined invasion of Fatimid Egypt. Manuel reshaped the political maps of the Balkans and the eastern Mediterranean, placing the kingdoms of Hungary and Outremer under Byzantine hegemony and campaigning aggressively against his neighbours both in the west and in the east. However, towards the end of his reign Manuel's achievements in the east were compromised by a serious defeat at Myriokephalon, which in large part resulted from his arrogance in attacking a well-defended Seljuk position. Although the Byzantines recovered and Manuel concluded an advantageous peace with Sultan Kilij Arslan II, Myriokephalon proved to be the final, unsuccessful effort by the empire to recover the interior of Anatolia from the Turks.
Called ho Megas (? Μ?γας, translated as "the Great") by the Greeks, Manuel is known to have inspired intense loyalty in those who served him. He also appears as the hero of a history written by his secretary, John Kinnamos, in which every virtue is attributed to him. Manuel, who was influenced by his contact with western Crusaders, enjoyed the reputation of "the most blessed emperor of Constantinople" in parts of the Latin world as well. Modern historians, however, have been less enthusiastic about him. Some of them assert that the great power he wielded was not his own personal achievement, but that of the dynasty he represented; they also argue that, since Byzantine imperial power declined catastrophically after Manuel's death, it is only natural to look for the causes of this decline in his reign.
Manuel Komnenos was the fourth son of John II Komnenos and Piroska of Hungary, so it seemed very unlikely that he would succeed his father. His maternal grandfather was St. Ladislaus. Having distinguished himself in his father's war against the Seljuk Turks, in 1143 Manuel was chosen as his successor by John, in preference to his elder surviving brother Isaac. After John died on 8 April 1143, his son, Manuel, was acclaimed emperor by the armies. Yet his succession was by no means assured: At his father's deathbed in the wilds of Cilicia far from Constantinople, he recognised that it was vital he should return to the capital as soon as possible. He still had to take care of his father's funeral, and tradition demanded he organise the foundation of a monastery on the spot where his father died. Swiftly, he dispatched the megas domestikos John Axouch ahead of him, with orders to arrest his most dangerous potential rival, his brother Isaac, who was living in the Great Palace with instant access to the imperial treasure and regalia. Axouch arrived in the capital even before news of the emperor's death had reached it. He quickly secured the loyalty of the city, and when Manuel entered the capital in August 1143, he was crowned by the new Patriarch, Michael Kourkouas. A few days later, with nothing more to fear as his position as emperor was now secure, Manuel ordered the release of Isaac. Then he ordered 2 golden pieces to be given to every householder in Constantinople and 200 pounds of gold (including 200 silver pieces annually) to be given to the Byzantine Church.
The empire that Manuel inherited from his father had undergone great changes since its foundation by Constantine, eight centuries before. In the time of his predecessor Justinian I (527–565), parts of the former Western Roman Empire had been recovered including Italy, Africa and part of Spain. However, the empire had diminished greatly following this, the most obvious change had occurred in the 7th century: the soldiers of Islam had taken Egypt, Palestine and much of Syria away from the empire irrevocably. They had then swept on westwards into what in the time of Constantine had been the western provinces of the Roman Empire, in North Africa and Spain. In the centuries since, the emperors had ruled over a realm that largely consisted of Asia Minor in the east, and the Balkans in the west. In the late 11th century the Byzantine Empire entered a period of marked military and political decline, which had been arrested and largely reversed by the leadership of Manuel's grandfather and father. Yet the empire that Manuel inherited was a polity facing formidable challenges. At the end of the 11th century, the Normans of Sicily had removed Italy from the control of the Byzantine Emperor. The Seljuk Turks had done the same with central Anatolia. And in the Levant, a new force had appeared – the Crusader states – who presented the Byzantine Empire with new challenges. Now, more than at any time during the preceding centuries, the task facing the emperor was daunting indeed.
Failure of the Church union
During the Italian campaign, and, afterwards, during the struggle of the Papal Curia with Frederick, Manuel tried to seduce the Popes by hints of a possible union between the Eastern and Western Churches. Although in 1155 Pope Hadrian had expressed his eagerness to prompt the reunion of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, hopes for a lasting Papal-Byzantine alliance came up against insuperable problems. Pope Adrian IV and his successors demanded recognition of their religious authority over all Christians everywhere, and wished themselves to reach superiority over the Byzantine Emperor; they were not at all willing to fall into a state of dependence from one emperor to the other. Manuel, on the other side, wanted an official recognition of his secular authority on both East and West. Such conditions would not be accepted by either side. Even if a pro-western Emperor such as Manuel agreed to it, the Greek citizens of the Empire would have rejected outright any union of this sort, as they did almost three hundred years later when the Orthodox and Catholic churches were briefly united under the Pope. In spite of his friendliness towards the Roman Church and his cordial relations with all the Popes, Manuel was never honoured with the title of Augustus by the Popes. And although he sent twice (in 1167 and 1169) an embassy to Pope Alexander III offering to reunite the Greek and Latin churches, the latter refused, under pretext of the troubles that would follow that union.  Ultimately, a deal proved elusive, and the two churches have remained divided.
The final results of the Italian campaign were limited in terms of the advantages gained by the Empire. The city of Ancona became a Byzantine base in Italy, accepting the Emperor as sovereign. The Normans of Sicily had been damaged, and now came to terms with the Empire, ensuring peace for the rest of Manuel's reign. The Empire's ability to get involved in Italian affairs had been demonstrated. However, given the enormous quantities of gold which had been lavished on the project, it also demonstrated the limits of what money and diplomacy alone could achieve. The expense of Manuel's involvement in Italy must have cost the treasury a great deal (probably more than 2,160,000 hyperpyra or 30,000 pounds of gold), and yet it produced only limited solid gains.
Failure of the expedition
The joined forces of Manuel and Amalric laid siege to Damietta on 27 October 1169, but the siege was unsuccessful due to the failure of the Crusaders and the Byzantines to co-operate fully.  According to Byzantine forces, Amalric, not wanting to share the profits of victory, dragged out the operation until the emperor's men ran short of provisions and were particularly affected by famine; Amalric then launched an assault, which he promptly aborted by negotiating a truce with the defenders. On the other hand, William of Tyre remarked that the Greeks were not entirely blameless. Whatever the truth of the allegations of both sides, when the rains came, both the Latin army and the Byzantine fleet returned home, although half of the Byzantine fleet was lost in a sudden storm.
Despite the bad feelings generated at Damietta, Amalric still refused to abandon his dream of conquering Egypt, and he continued to seek good relations with the Byzantines in the hopes of another joined attack, which never took place. In 1171 Amalric came to Constantinople in person, after Egypt had fallen to Saladin. Manuel was thus able to organise a grand ceremonial reception which both honoured Amalric, and underlined his dependence: for the rest of Amalric's reign, Jerusalem was a Byzantine satellite, and Manuel was able to act as a protector of the Holy Places, exerting a growing influence in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. In 1177, a fleet of 150 ships was sent by Manuel I to invade Egypt, but returned home after appearing off Acre due to the refusal of Count Philip of Flanders and many important nobles of the Kingdom of Jerusalem to help.
To the rhetors of his court, Manuel was the "divine emperor". A generation after his death, Choniates referred to him as "the most blessed among emperors", and a century later John Stavrakios described him as "great in fine deeds". John Phokas, a soldier who fought in Manuel's army, characterised him some years later as the "world saving" and glorious emperor. Manuel would be remembered in France, Italy and the Crusader states as the most powerful sovereign in the world. A Genoese analyst noted that with the passing of "Lord Manuel of divine memory, the most blessed emperor of Constantinople ... all Christendom incurred great ruin and detriment." William of Tyre called Manuel "a wise and discreet prince of great magnificence, worthy of praise in every respect", "a great-souled man of incomparable energy", whose "memory will ever be held in benediction." Manuel was further extolled by Robert of Clari as a "a right worthy man, and richest of all the Christians who ever were, and the most bountiful."
A telling reminder of the influence that Manuel held in the Crusader states in particular can still be seen in the church of the Holy Nativity in Bethlehem. In the 1160s the nave was redecorated with mosaics showing the councils of the church. Manuel was one of the patrons of the work. On the south wall, an inscription in Greek reads: "the present work was finished by Ephraim the monk, painter and mosaicist, in the reign of the great emperor Manuel Porphyrogennetos Komnenos and in the time of the great king of Jerusalem, Amalric." That Manuel's name was placed first was a symbolic, public recognition of Manuel's overlordship as leader of the Christian world. Manuel's role as protector of the Orthodox Christians and Christian holy places in general is also evident in his successful attempts to secure rights over the Holy Land. Manuel participated in the building and decorating of many of the basilicas and Greek monasteries in the Holy Land, including the church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, where thanks to his efforts the Byzantine clergy were allowed to perform the Greek liturgy each day. All this reinforced his position as overlord of the Crusader states, with his hegemony over Antioch and Jerusalem secured by agreement with Raynald, Prince of Antioch, and Amalric, King of Jerusalem respectively. Manuel was also the last Byzantine emperor who, thanks to his military and diplomatic success in the Balkans, could call himself "ruler of Dalmatia, Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria and Hungary".
Byzantium looked impressive, when Manuel died in 1180, having just celebrated the betrothal of his son Alexios II to the daughter of the king of France. Thanks to the diplomacy and campaigning of Alexios, John, and Manuel, the empire was a great power, economically prosperous, and secure on its frontiers; but there were serious problems as well. Internally, the Byzantine court required a strong leader to hold it together, and after Manuel's death stability was seriously endangered from within. Some of the foreign enemies of the Empire were lurking on the flanks, waiting for a chance to attack, in particular the Turks in Anatolia, whom Manuel had ultimately failed to defeat, and the Normans in Sicily, who had already tried but failed to invade the Empire on several occasions. Even the Venetians, the single most important western ally of Byzantium, were on bad terms with the empire at Manuel's death in 1180. Given this situation, it would have taken a strong Emperor to secure the Empire against the foreign threats it now faced, and to rebuild the depleted Imperial Treasury. But Manuel's son was a minor, and his unpopular regency government was overthrown in a violent coup d'état. This troubled succession weakened the dynastic continuity and solidarity on which the strength of the Byzantine state had come to rely.
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