Despite Manuel's obsession with sex, he did administer the empire, using at first money left in the treasury by Ioannes II, then in a less generous way. His ministers were Ioannes of Poutza for raising revenue, Ioannes Hagiotheodoretes for carrying out his edicts and Theodoros Stypeiotes, the epi tou kanikleiou, for the written word.Ioannes of Pouzta would sometimes work all day at the palace of Blachernai. Once his mind was made up, it never changed; he was impervious to tears, supplications or bribery, completely unapproachable, and often responded to petitioners with silence, dismissing them with no word of reply. He became a miser, recycling presents, even of fish, wolfing down cheap street food and grasping every chance to save money. Ioannes Hagiotheodorites was always in Manuel's presence, treating his every word as divinely inspired, a most succesful administrator. He was a rival of Theodoros Stypeiotes, and originally his superior. But the ambitious Theodoros used the opportunity of a quarrel between Hagiotheodoretes and Joseph Balsamon to send the former away to a distant post as as praetor of Hellas and Peloponnesos, and so gain the upper hand as epi tou kanikleiou. He was the most prominent of the many learned men in the palace, operating confidently and charmingly, in close cooperation with Manuel I