Frederick Barbarossa died before reaching the Holy Land and his son and successor, Henry VI, pursued a foreign policy in which he aimed to force the Byzantine court to accept him as the superior (and sole legitimate) emperor. By 1194, Henry had successfully consolidated Italy under his own rule after being crowned as King of Sicily, in addition to already being the Holy Roman emperor and the King of Italy, and he turned his gaze east. The Muslim world had fractured after Saladin's death and Barbarossa's crusade had revealed the Byzantine Empire to be weak and also given a useful casus belli for attack. Furthermore, Leo II, the ruler of Cilician Armenia, offered to swear fealty to Henry VI in exchange for being accorded a royal crown. Henry bolstered his efforts against the eastern empire by marrying a captive daughter of Isaac II, Irene Angelina, to his brother Philip of Swabia in 1195, giving his brother a dynastic claim that could prove useful in the future.
