The reign of Manuel I (1143–1180) marked the high point of the revival of the Byzantine empire under the Comnenian dynasty. It was, however, followed by a rapid decline, leading to the sack of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade in 1204. This book, the first devoted to Manuel's reign for over eighty years, re-evaluates the emperor and his milieu in the light of recent scholarship. It shows that his foreign policy was a natural response to the western crusading movement and the expansionism of the German emperor Frederick Barbarossa. It also shows that what he ruled was more than the impoverished rump of a once great empire, or a society whose development had been arrested by a repressive regime. The twelfth century is presented here as a distinctive, creative phase in Byzantine history, when the empire maintained existing traditions and trends while adapting to a changing world.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. This content downloaded from 150.135.239.97 on Mon, C onstantinople, like New York, is a city not only by the sea, but also, to a large extent, in the sea. The effect of the sea on the fabric of the city is strongly pervasive, and it makes sense to start from the sea when investigating urban neighborhoods. By far the best evidence for the texture of urban neighborhoods comes from twelfth-century documents concerning the real estate conceded to the Italian maritime republics of Venice, Pisa, and Genoa-real estate that lay close to the shores of the Golden Horn.Since the sea is not far from any part of the city or its suburbs, and is indeed visible from almost anywhere within the Theodosian walls, it may well be asked what is meant by a maritime neighborhood. What distinguishes it from an inland neighborhood? Where does the one end and the other begin? Eleven of the twelve urban regions of the fifth-century Notitia urbis Constantinopolitanae bordered on the sea, but only Regions I and IX had a long coastline.' Most of the other regions extended from a narrow stretch of coast to a narrow bloc of the city center. However, the regions were administrative rather than social or economic units. If we take into account the topography, the layout of public spaces, and the location of public monuments, we can draw a broad working distinction between those parts of the city that looked primarily toward the sea and those orientated toward the central avenue (Mese), the fora, and the great public buildings. Only in rare cases was a focal point such as the Strategion or the Leomakellon situated so close to the sea as to constitute a rival attraction.2 In this paper, I shall be concerned with those neighborhoods whose proximity to the sea may be assumed to have been decisive, whether directly or indirectly, for the location of houses and businesses. The assumption is that a seaside location was desirable, first, for the loading, unloading, storage, and marketing of seaborne merchandise, and second, for the recreation afforded by a view of the sea. The commercial importance of proximity to the sea is self-evident, although, given the low status of commerce in Byzantine society and culture, it is almost never

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That the emperor Manuel I Komnenos (1143-80) was responsible for some building activity in the Great Palace of Constantinople is a fact well attested by published sources and not entirely unknown to modern scholarship. However, the armchair archaeology of this work remains confused and obscure, and can benefit from a fresh review of the evidence. Choniates, in reviewing Manuel's constructions, writes that the Emperor built long colonnaded halls 'in both palaces', which he decorated with mosaics depicting his victories. 1 That one of these halls was at the Blachernae is confirmed by Benjamin of Tudela; 2 that the other was in the Great Palace is clear not only by implication from a passage where Choniates states that a 'huge gilded hall' built by Manuel housed a porphyry basin formerly belonging to the open-air courtyard of the apartments of Nikephoros Phokas overlooking the Boukoleon. 3 Kinnamos, referring to the successes of Manuel's forces in southern Italy (1157), says that they took San Germano 'and three hundred other towns; the name of each can be read by whoever wishes from the building erected by this emperor at the old palace in the south of the city'. The artist apparently exaggerated the number of towns out of flattery, to Manuel's