some way to redressing the losses to the imperial treasury, but his officials' zeal in uncovering blatant tax frauds, especially by monastic houses, did nothing to endear the government at Constantinople to the 'powerful' of the provinces.
The twelfth century saw a partial recovery in Byzantine fortunes, both territorial and monetary. The Comnene emperors, Alexius I, John II ( 1118-43) and, particularly, Manuel I ( 1143-80) all built upon the success of the crusades in reconquering areas of Asia Minor and whilst they never re-established the frontiers of the tenth century, their treaties with the Seljuk rulers at least ensured that the western regions of Anatolia were relatively free from attack. Manuel also launched an attempt to regain the old Byzantine lands in Italy. The expedition's failure was mainly due to the untrustworthiness of potential allies (including the papacy), disease, and the old problem of supplying troop reinforcements over long distances. But there was another, more fundamental reason for the failure of the central government in Constantinople to reassert its authority over one of its more distant provinces--just as true in the Balkans as it was in Italy.
The Byzantine practice of using religious, diplomatic, and cultural weapons rather than military force to establish hegemony in the Balkans worked well in the eleventh century after the threat of Bulgarian expansion had been removed. Local dynasties in Serbia, Croatia, and Dalmatia ruled with judicious support from Constantinople and, further afield, the kingdom of Hungary, Christian by the year 1000, seemed grateful enough to accept the political patronage of Byzantium. But the late twelfth century saw the development of local territorial ambitions which drew Constantinople into a series of wars. The expansion of the kingdom of Hungary towards the Adriatic caused a fundamental realignment in the western Balkans. Byzantium's unsuccessful interference in the dynastic rivalries of the Hungarian ruling house culminated in her acceptance of Hungarian rule in Croatia and Dalmatia--a development which seriously alarmed Byzantium's old ally, Venice, on the opposite shore of the Adriatic. In 1166 the Serbians revolted under Stephen Nemanja and in 1185 two
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