Death of Manuel I Komnenos

September 24, 1180

The charismatic, Latin-loving Byzantine emperor died leaving an eleven-year-old heir and an empire overstretched by forty years of campaigning. His cousin Andronikos would seize power two years later in a bloodbath. Byzantine recovery staggered and fell. Manuel's death ended the last sustained period of Byzantine military and diplomatic assertiveness, and the empire entered a long decline from which it would never fully recover.