Fifty years previously the armies of the First Crusade had arrived in response to a plea for help from Manuel’s grandfather, Alexius I Comnenus, who had begged the Latin West to help him in his war against the Seljuqs. There had been no such request on this occasion. Indeed, the Byzantine emperor was positively irked by the thought of the Latin crusaders making further gains in Syria, not least around Antioch, which he thought was rightfully part of his own empire.
