Lordship of Beirut

Last updated January 16, 2025

The Lordship of Beirut was a feudal seigneury in the Kingdom of Jerusalem centered on the city of Beirut (in modern-day Lebanon). The lord of Beirut was one of the most powerful vassals of the king of Jerusalem. In the 12th century the lordship was ruled by the Brisebarre family. At some point between 1165 and 1174, Beirut was taken back into the royal domain. Count Raymond III of Tripoli held it in 1185-86, and in 1187 it was conquered by the Ayyubids. It was recovered in 1197, and in the 13th century the lordship was held by the Ibelin family.

History

First kingdom

The city of Beirut was captured by the Franks and annexed to the Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1110. King Baldwin I granted it to his distant relative Fulk of Guînes. By 1125, Fulk had died, and Beirut had been given to Walter I Brisebarre. The origin of the Brisebarre family is unknown: their name does not refer to any place and no relationship with the counts of Guînes is known.^[1]

Beirut owed 21 knights to the crown, making it one of the greatest fiefs of the kingdom.^[2] The Lordship of Banias, established in 1128,^[3] and the Lordship of Chastel Neuf, were sub-fiefs of the Lordship of Beirut.^[4] According to the historian Mary E. Nickerson, the lordship extended from the Nahr al-Kalb at the kingdom's border with the County of Tripoli to the Damour river and from the Lebanon Mountains to the sea.^[5] This is the prevailing view in the 20th-century historiography. The historian Steven Tibble dismisses it as "assumptions that are either not supported or directly contradicted by charter evidence".^[6] The lordship contained a lucrative port.^[7]

Sometime between 1164 and 1167 the lord of Beirut, Walter III Brisebarre, was forced to cede the lordship to King Amalric to pay for the ransom he owed to his former Muslim captors.^[2] In 1185 Count Raymond III of Tripoli, acting as regent for the minor King Baldwin V, was granted Beirut to defray the costs of the regency. When the young king died, Joscelin of Courtenay swiftly seized Beirut and other towns for Queen Sibylla. The right to Beirut was then disputed between Raymond and King Guy.^[7]

Second kingdom

Beirut was conquered by the Muslims along with most of the kingdom in 1187.^[7] In 1197 it was recovered by the Christians. Queen Isabella I granted the lordship to her half-brother John, of the Ibelin family. Around 1207 John acquired the Lordship of Arsuf through marriage with its lady, Melisende. Henceforth two coastal lordships were held by close relatives of the royal family.^[8] By the 13th century at the latest, the lordship consisted of only a strip of coast around the city of Beirut.^[9] Tibble argues that the lordship encompassed very little agricultural land, and that "the vast majority" of the lord's revenue came from urban trade.^[10]

In the 13th century the lord of Beirut held numerous properties in the royal domain, especially in the vicinity of Acre. The most prominent vassals of the lord of Beirut were the Mimars family. Emperor Frederick II, as king of Jerusalem, tried to take Beirut back in the royal domain in 1228.^[11] King Hugh I granted susbtantial property to the lord of Beirut, Balian of Ibelin, noting that this was in expansion of the lordship.^[12] In 1256 the lord of Beirut, John of Ibelin, leased most of his estate to the Teutonic Knights in order to alleviate his financial hardships.^[13] The Franks permanently lost Beirut, as well as all the remaining land of the kingdom, to the Muslim ruler of Egypt, Al-Ashraf Khalil, in 1291.^[14]

Lords

Fulk of Guînes, lord from 1110 to sometime between 1117 and 1125^[15]

Brisebarre succession according to Mayer^[16]

Walter I Brisebarre, 1117/25–1132/34
Guy the Elder Brisebarre, 1133/34–1143
Walter I Brisebarre, 1144–1145
Guy the Elder Brisebarre, 1145/47–1156/57
Walter II Brisebarre, 1156/57–c. 1166

Brisebarre succession according to Nickerson^[17]^[18]

Walter I Brisebarre, 1125–1126
Guy I Brisebarre, 1127–1140
Walter II Brisebarre, 1140–1147
Guy II Brisebarre, 1147–1156
Walter III Brisebarre, 1156–1166

Mary E. Nickerson posited a succession of the Brisebarre lords in which every appearance of a Walter or Guy was assumed to represent a new individual. This remained the dominant view through much of the 20th century.^[17] Hans E. Mayer argued that Nickerson's Walter I and Walter II are the same person, who lost and regained the lordship, and that only one Guy held the lordship, also being dispossessed and reinstated.^[19] Mayer thus names the last Brisebarre lord Walter II rather than Walter III.^[20] This interpretation is embraced by Alan V. Murray.^[21]

Andronikos Komnenos, who briefly held the lordship in 1167^[22]

From 1167 until 1187 Beirut was held by the king. Muslims held it from 1187 to 1197. It was back in Frankish possession from 1197 to 1291. The proprietary lords and ladies in this period were:^[23]

John I of Ibelin, c. 1205–1236
Balian of Ibelin, 1236–1247
John II of Ibelin, 1247–1264
Isabella of Ibelin, 1264–1282
Humphrey of Montfort, 1282–1284
Eschiva of Ibelin, 1282–1291

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Isabella of Ibelin (1252–1282) was lady of Beirut from 1264 until her death in 1282, and also held the title of Queen of Cyprus. She was the daughter of John II of Beirut, lord of Beirut, and of Alice de la Roche sur Ognon.

Alice de la Roche was a Latin noblewoman who ruled the Lordship of Beirut in the Kingdom of Jerusalem as regent and was a claimant to the Duchy of Athens. She was a daughter of Duke Guy I de la Roche. Alice was regent of Beirut for her daughter, Lady Isabella, while Isabella was the queen consort of Cyprus.

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Walter III Brisebarre was a 12th-century Frankish nobleman who ruled successively as the lord of Beirut, lord of Transjordan, and lord of Blanchegarde in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Walter inherited Beirut from his father, Guy Brisebarre, in 1157 and Transjordan from his father-in-law, Philip of Milly, in 1166. King Amalric forced Walter to cede Beirut to the crown to prevent a merger of two great fiefs. After the deaths of his wife Helena and their daughter, Beatrice, between 1167 and 1174, Transjordan passed to Helena's sister, Stephanie, and Stephanie's husband Miles of Plancy. Miles ruled the kingdom in 1174 in the name of the minor King Baldwin IV. He was murdered in October 1174 by assassins whom a later source names as the "lords of Beirut". Walter ended his career as the lord of Blanchegarde, a minor fief, but retained some influence at court until he died, probably in the early 1180s.

Helena of Milly was a Frankish noblewoman who was the lady of Transjordan in the Kingdom of Jerusalem from 1166 to her death around 1167.

References

↑ Mayer 1990, pp. 862.
1 2 Hamilton 1992, p. 141.
↑ Tibble 1989, p. 15.
↑ Tibble 1989, p. 17.
↑ Nickerson 1949, p. 148.
↑ Tibble 1989, p. 25.
1 2 3 Tibble 1989, p. 95.
↑ Tibble 1989, p. 90.
↑ Tibble 1989, pp. 25–27.
↑ Tibble 1989, pp. 27–28.
↑ Tibble 1989, p. 78.
↑ Tibble 1989, p. 79.
↑ Tibble 1989, pp. 79–80.
↑ Setton, Wolff & Hazard 1969, p. 754.
↑ Mayer 1990, pp. 860, 868.
↑ Mayer 1990, p. 868.
1 2 Mayer 1990, p. 860.
↑ Nickerson 1949, pp. 141–185.
↑ Mayer 1990, pp. 860–870.
↑ Mayer 1990, p. 869.
↑ Murray 2015, p. 288.
↑ Tibble 1989, p. 49.
↑ Setton, Wolff & Hazard 1969, p. 820.

Bibliography

Hamilton, Bernard (1992). "Miles of Plancy and the fief of Beirut". The Horns of Ḥaṭṭīn. Proceedings of the Second Conference of the Society for the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East. Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi. ISBN 978-965-217-085-9 . Retrieved 2025-01-02.
Mayer, Hans Eberhard (1990). "The Wheel of Fortune: Seignorial Vicissitudes under Kings Fulk and Baldwin III of Jerusalem". Speculum. 65 (4). University of Chicago Press: 860–877. doi:10.2307/2863565. ISSN 0038-7134. JSTOR 2863565.
Murray, Alan V. (2015). "The prosopography and onomastics of the Franks in the kingdom of Jerusalem, 1099-1187". The Franks in Outremer: Studies in the Latin Principalities of Palestine and Syria, 1099–1187. Variorum Collected Studies Serie. Farnham and Burlington: Ashgate. ISBN 978-1-47246-885-7.
Nickerson, Mary E. (1949). "The Seigneury of Beirut in the Twelfth Century and the Brisebarre Family of Beirut-Blanchegarde". Byzantion. 19: 141–185. JSTOR 44168651 . Retrieved 10 January 2025.
Setton, Kenneth M.; Wolff, Robert L.; Hazard, H.W. (1969). A History of the Crusades. University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 978-0-299-04844-0 . Retrieved 11 January 2025.
Tibble, Steven (1989). Monarchy and Lordships in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, 1099-1291. Clarendon Press. ISBN 978-0-19-822731-1 . Retrieved 10 January 2025.

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[FOOTNOTEMayer1990862-1] Mayer 1990, pp. 862.

[FOOTNOTEHamilton1992141-2] 1 2 Hamilton 1992, p. 141.

[FOOTNOTETibble198915-3] Tibble 1989, p. 15.

[FOOTNOTETibble198917-4] Tibble 1989, p. 17.

[FOOTNOTENickerson1949148-5] Nickerson 1949, p. 148.

[FOOTNOTETibble198925-6] Tibble 1989, p. 25.

[FOOTNOTETibble198995-7] 1 2 3 Tibble 1989, p. 95.

[FOOTNOTETibble198990-8] Tibble 1989, p. 90.

[FOOTNOTETibble198925–27-9] Tibble 1989, pp. 25–27.

[FOOTNOTETibble198927–28-10] Tibble 1989, pp. 27–28.

[FOOTNOTETibble198978-11] Tibble 1989, p. 78.

[FOOTNOTETibble198979-12] Tibble 1989, p. 79.

[FOOTNOTETibble198979–80-13] Tibble 1989, pp. 79–80.

[FOOTNOTESettonWolffHazard1969754-14] Setton, Wolff & Hazard 1969, p. 754.

[FOOTNOTEMayer1990860,_868-15] Mayer 1990, pp. 860, 868.

[FOOTNOTEMayer1990868-16] Mayer 1990, p. 868.

[FOOTNOTEMayer1990860-17] 1 2 Mayer 1990, p. 860.

[FOOTNOTENickerson1949141–185-18] Nickerson 1949, pp. 141–185.

[FOOTNOTEMayer1990860–870-19] Mayer 1990, pp. 860–870.

[FOOTNOTEMayer1990869-20] Mayer 1990, p. 869.

[FOOTNOTEMurray2015288-21] Murray 2015, p. 288.

[FOOTNOTETibble198949-22] Tibble 1989, p. 49.

[FOOTNOTESettonWolffHazard1969820-23] Setton, Wolff & Hazard 1969, p. 820.

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