drove his enemies out of the Aegean Sea. On his northern frontier Manuel reduced the rebellious Serbs to vassalage (1150–52) and made repeated attacks upon the Hungarians with a view to annexing their territory along the Save. In the wars of 1151–53 and 1163–68 he led his troops into Hungary but failed to maintain himself there; in 1168, however, a decisive victory near Semlin enabled him to conclude a peace by which Dalmatia and other frontier strips were ceded to him. In 1169 he sent a joint expedition with King Amalric of Jerusalem to Egypt, which retired after an ineffectual attempt to capture Damietta. In 1158–59 he fought with success against Raymond of Antioch and the Turks of Iconium, but in later wars against the latter he made no headway. In 1176 he was decisively beaten by them in the pass of Myriokephalon, where he allowed himself to be surprised in line of march. This disaster, though partly retrieved in the campaign of the following year, had a serious effect upon his vitality; henceforth he declined in health and in 1180 succumbed to a slow fever.
In spite of his military prowess Manuel achieved but in a slight degree his object of restoring the East Roman empire. His victories were counterbalanced by numerous defeats, sustained by his subordinates, and his lack of statesmanlike talent prevented his securing the loyalty of his subjects. The expense of keeping up his mercenary establishment and the sumptuous magnificence of his court put a severe strain upon the financial resources of the state. The subsequent rapid collapse of the Byzantine empire was largely due to his brilliant but unproductive reign. Manuel married, firstly, a sister-in-law of Conrad III. of Germany; and secondly, a daughter of Raymond of Antioch. His successor, Alexis II., was a son of the latter.
See John Cinnamus, History of John and Manuel (ed. 1836, Bonn); E. Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (ed. Bury, London, 1896), v. 229 sqq., vi. 214 sqq.; G. Finlay, History of Greece (ed. 1877, Oxford), iii. 143–197; H. v. Kap-Herr, Die abendländische Politik Kaiser Manuels (Strassburg, 1881). (M. O. B. C.)
MANUEL II. PALAEOLOGUS (1350–1425), Byzantine emperor from 1391 to 1425, was born in 1350. At the time of his father’s death he was a hostage at the court of Bayezid at Brusa, but succeeded in making his escape; he was forthwith besieged in Constantinople by the sultan, whose victory over the Christians at Nicopolis, however (Sept. 28, 1396), did not secure for him the capital. Manuel subsequently set out in person to seek help from the West, and for this purpose visited Italy, France, Germany and England, but without material success; the victory of Timur in 1402, and the death of Bayezid in the following year were the first events to give him a genuine respite from Ottoman oppression. He stood on friendly terms with Mahommed I., but was again besieged in his capital by Murad II. in 1422. Shortly before his death he was forced to sign an agreement whereby the Byzantine empire undertook to pay tribute to the sultan.
Manuel was the author of numerous works of varied character—theological, rhetorical, poetical and letters. Most of these are printed in Migne, Patrologia graeca, clvi.; the letters have been edited by E. Legrand (1893). There is a special monograph, by B. de Xivrey (in Mémoires de l’Institut de France, xix. (1853), highly commended by C. Krumbacher, whose Geschichte der byzantinischen Litteratur (1897) should also be consulted.
MANUEL I. (d. 1263), emperor of Trebizond, surnamed the Great Captain (ὁ στρατηγικώτατος), was the second son of Alexius I., first emperor of Trebizond, and ruled from 1228 to 1263. He was unable to deliver his empire from vassalage, first to the Seljuks and afterwards to the Mongols. He vainly negotiated for a dynastic alliance with the Franks, by which he hoped to secure the help of Crusaders.
Manuel II., the descendant of Manuel I., reigned only a few months in 1332–1333. Manuel III. reigned from 1390 to 1417, but the only interest attaching to his name arises from his connexion with Timur, whose vassal he became without resistance.
See G. Finlay, History of Greece (ed. 1877, Oxford), iv. 338–340, 340–341, 386; Ph. Fallmerayer, Geschichte des Kaisertums Trapezunt (Munich, 1827), i. chs. 8, 14, ii. chs. 4, 5; T. E. Evangelides, Ἱστορία τῆς Τραπεζοῦντος (Odessa, 1898), 71–73, 87–88, 126–132.
MANUEL, EUGENE (1823–1901), French poet and man of letters, was born in Paris, the son of a Jewish doctor, on the 13th of July 1823. He was educated at the École Normale, and taught rhetoric for some years in provincial schools and then in Paris. In 1870 he entered the department of public instruction, and in 1878 became inspector-general. His works include: Pages intimes (1866), which received a prize from the Academy; Poèmes populaires (1874); Pendant la guerre (1871), patriotic poems, which were forbidden in Alsace-Lorraine by the German authorities; En voyage (1881), poems; La France (4 vols., 1854–1858); a school-book written in collaboration with his brother-in-law, Lévi Alavarès; Les Ouvriers (1870), a drama dealing with social questions, which was crowned by the Academy; L’Absent (1873), a comedy; Poésies du foyer et de l’école (1889), and editions of the works of J. B. Rousseau (1852) and André Chénier (1884). He died in Paris in 1901.
His Poésies complètes (2 vols., 1899) contained some fresh poems; to his Mélanges en prose (Paris, 1905) is prefixed an introductory note by A. Cahen.
MANUEL, JACQUES ANTOINE (1775–1827), French politician and orator, was born on the 10th of December 1775. When seventeen years old he entered the army, which he left in 1797 to become a lawyer. In 1814 he was chosen a member of the chamber of representatives, and in 1815 he urged the claim of Napoleon’s son to the French throne and protested against the restoration of the Bourbons. After this event be actively opposed the government, his eloquence making him the foremost orator among the members of the Left. In February 1823 his opposition to the proposed expedition into Spain to help Ferdinand VII. against his rebellious subjects produced a tumult in the Assembly. Manuel was expelled, but he refused to accept this sentence, and force was employed to remove him. He died on the 20th of August 1827.
MANUEL, LOUIS PIERRE (1751–1793), French writer and Revolutionist, was born at Montargis (Loiret). He entered the Congregation of the Christian Doctrine, and became tutor to the son of a Paris banker. In 1783 he published a pamphlet, called Essais historiques, critiques, littéraires, et philosophiques, for which he was imprisoned in the Bastille. He embraced the revolutionary ideas, and after the taking of the Bastille became a member of the provisional municipality of Paris. He was one of the leaders of the émeutes of the 20th of June and the 10th of August 1792, played an important part in the formation of the revolutionary commune which assured the success of the latter coup, and was made procureur of the commune. He was present at the September massacres and saved several prisoners, and on the 7th of September 1792 was elected one of the deputies from Paris to the convention, where he was one of the promoters of the proclamation of the republic. He suppressed the decoration of the Cross of St Louis, which he called a stain on a man’s coat, and demanded the sale of the palace of Versailles. His missions to the king, however, changed his sentiments; he became reconciled to Louis, courageously refused to vote for the death of the sovereign, and had to tender his resignation as deputy. He retired to Montargis, where he was arrested, and was guillotined in Paris on the 17th of November 1793. Besides the work cited above and his political pamphlets, he was the author of Coup d’œil philosophique sur le règne de St Louis (1786); L’Année française (1788); La Bastille dévoilée (1789); La Police de Paris dévoilée (1791); and Lettres sur la Révolution (1792). In 1792 he was prosecuted for publishing an edition of the Lettres de Mirabeau à Sophie, but was acquitted.
MANUEL DE MELLO, DOM FRANCISCO (? 1611–1666), Portuguese writer, a connexion on his father’s side of the royal house of Braganza, was a native of Lisbon. He studied the Humanities at the Jesuit College of S. Antão, where he showed a precocious talent, and tradition says that at the age of fourteen he composed a poem in ottava rima to celebrate the recovery of Bahia from the Dutch, while at seventeen he wrote a scientific work, Concordancias mathematicas. The death of his father,
