AS he lay on his deathbed John II nominated his youngest son Manuel Komnenos as his heir. His two older sons, Alexios and Andronikos, had recently died and he had no confidence in his third son Isaac. It fell to Manuel, young though he was, to lead his father's army back to Constantinople, there to secure his position as emperor. His coronation by the patriarch set the seal of legitimacy on his succession to the throne. Manuel shared his father's conviction of his unique status as Emperor of the Romans, claimant to a sovereignty that had once been, and would again in God's good time become, universal. Yet he was personally attracted by many aspects of western, Latin life and culture; and he was enough of a realist to see that the Byzantines could no longer bury their heads in the sand of their own mystique and hope that the westerners, the German Emperor, the Normans, the Italians, the papacy and the crusaders would melt away. To cement his alliance with the Germans against the Normans of Sicily, John II had arranged that Manuel should marry Bertha of Sulzbach, sister-in-law of Conrad III. Manuel's admiration for western culture was shaken when she reached Constantinople in 1142. Bertha was plain and dull and stubborn. In the end, however, Manuel took her to wife and she became his empress with the less Teutonic name of Eirene. The Eastern and Western Empires were now united against their common enemy, the Norman Kingdom of Sicily; and Manuel was able to return to the east to continue the campaign that had been interrupted by his father's death.