Hello everyone, I just wanted to say a big and sincere thank you to all your kindness and generosity

during this difficult time.

Hello everyone and welcome to the history of Byzantium, episode 230, the sack of Odessa.

We last left our narrative with the death of John II, Comni Nos.

After marching to the gates of Antioch and demanding that Prince Raymond hand the city over,

the emperor was rebuffed. Raymond managed to prouverricate long enough that John left for

Celicia, promising to be back in spring. But for John, spring never came. After cutting himself

on an arrow while hunting, the emperor grew sick and died at Easter 1143.

John's two eldest sons had also died the previous summer, leaving the succession in doubt.

In the end, the army acclaimed Manoel, John's youngest son, who was present in Celicia.

Before we get to what Manoel did next, let's talk about our sources.

I mentioned last time that we have two Byzantine historians who covered the reigns of John and Manoel.

They are John Kinemus and Nikita's Coniates. Both men were born after John died,

hence the lack of details on life in Constantinople during his reign.

Both men are accused by modern historians of having biases which color their description

of Manoel, a biases that we need to be aware of going forward.

Coniates is going to be with us all the way to the sack of Constantinople in 1204 AD.

He was in the city when it was taken by the crusaders and had to sneak his family out.

He was a high official by that point, and so will be a key witness to the late 12th century.

As we've discussed before though, the fact that Coniates wrote his history after this terrible event

inevitably colors his perception. It was Coniates who described Alexius' family as dysfunctional

and claimed that Anna tried to kill John, all of which has a basis in truth, but seems to be

...