He was born in Plancy-l'Abbaye, Champagne and came to the east in the 1160s, where he served King Amalric I, to whom he was distantly related. Amalric made him seneschal of Jerusalem, and in 1167 he participated in Amalric's expedition to Egypt. He encouraged Amalric to make a treaty with Egypt rather than capturing it by force and submitting it to plunder; after Amalric returned home, Egypt quickly fell under the control of Nur ad-Din Zangi and his commander Shirkuh. This event would eventually lead to the union of Egypt and Syria under Saladin, an inauspicious outcome for the crusader kingdom.
In 1170 a fortress was built at Gaza by the Knights Templar, to defend against attacks from Egypt. Miles would not allow the unarmed inhabitants of the city to take shelter inside and many of them were killed when the city was attacked. In 1173 he married Stephanie of Milly, daughter of Philip of Milly and widow of Humphrey III of Toron. Through his marriage to Stephanie, he became lord of the castle of Montréal and Lord of Oultrejordain. The inheritance of Montréal was, however, to prove controversial: Stephanie had gained it on the death of her young niece, Beatrice Brisebarre. Beatrice's father, Walter III Brisebarre, had previously been forced to exchange his lordship of Beirut for a money fief; he was compensated for his sister-in-law's inheritance of Montréal with the much-inferior fief of Blanchegarde. The resentment of the Brisebarres may have been a significant factor in Miles's eventual murder.
In 1174 Amalric died, and Miles acted as an unofficial regent for his son and successor Baldwin IV, who, although stricken with leprosy, was crowned king in his own right. The chronicler William of Tyre did not like him, calling him "a brawler and a slanderer, ever active in stirring up trouble", and Miles insulted the other barons of the kingdom, especially those who were native easterners, by refusing to consult them on any matter. Count Raymond III of Tripoli came to Jerusalem and claimed the regency as Baldwin's nearest male relative. Raymond was supported by the other powerful native barons, including the king's stepfather Reginald of Sidon, Humphrey II of Toron (grandfather of Miles' stepson), and the brothers Baldwin of Ibelin and Balian of Ibelin.
In October 1174, Miles was assassinated in Acre. The Regni Iherosolymitani Brevis Historia in the Annals of Genoa blamed the killing on Walter III Brisebarre, former lord of Beirut, and his brother Guy. As noted above, Walter had been married to Helena of Milly, older sister of Miles's wife Stephanie, and it may be that the murder was a result of the private family feud over the fief of Montréal. It is also possible, as William of Tyre hinted, that the Brisebarre brothers, already aggrieved, had been further incited by Miles's political opponents. There is no direct evidence that Raymond was involved, but he was certainly the chief beneficiary. William of Tyre also reported that the assassination occurred because Miles was so fiercely loyal to Baldwin IV: he had refused to grant away crown lands.
Bernard Hamilton, "Miles of Plancy and the fief of Beirut", in Benjamin Z. Kedar (ed.), The Horns of Hattin (Jerusalem, 1992), pp.136–46.
Bernard Hamilton, The Leper King and His Heirs (Cambridge, 2000)
Related Research Articles
The Kingdom of Jerusalem, also known as the Latin Kingdom, was a Crusader state that was established in the Levant immediately after the First Crusade. It lasted for almost two hundred years, from the accession of Godfrey of Bouillon in 1099 until the fall of Acre in 1291. Its history is divided into two periods with a brief interruption in its existence, beginning with its collapse after the siege of Jerusalem in 1187 and its restoration after the Third Crusade in 1192.
Baldwin IV of Jerusalem (1161–1185), known as the Leper King, was the king of Jerusalem, from 1174 until his death in 1185. He was admired by his contemporaries and later historians for his willpower and dedication to the Latin Kingdom in the face of debilitating leprosy. Choosing competent advisers, Baldwin ruled a thriving crusader state and succeeded in protecting it from the Muslim ruler Saladin.
Raymond III was count of Tripoli from 1152 to 1187. He was a minor when Nizari Assassins murdered his father, Raymond II of Tripoli. Baldwin III of Jerusalem, who was staying in Tripoli, made Raymond's mother, Hodierna of Jerusalem, regent. Raymond spent the following years at the royal court in Jerusalem. He reached the age of majority in 1155, after which he participated in a series of military campaigns against Nur ad-Din, the Zengid ruler of Damascus. In 1161 he hired pirates to pillage the Byzantine coastline and islands to take vengeance on Byzantine emperor Manuel I Komnenos, who had refused to marry his sister Melisende. He was captured in the Battle of Harim by Nur ad-Din's troops on 10 August 1164, and imprisoned in Aleppo for almost ten years. During his captivity, Amalric I of Jerusalem administered the county of Tripoli on his behalf.
Sibylla was the queen of Jerusalem from 1186 to 1190. She reigned alongside her husband Guy of Lusignan, to whom she was unwaveringly attached despite his unpopularity among the barons of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.
Isabella I was reigning Queen of Jerusalem from 1190 to her death in 1205. She was the daughter of Amalric I of Jerusalem and his second wife Maria Comnena, a Byzantine princess. Her half-brother, Baldwin IV of Jerusalem, engaged her to Humphrey IV of Toron. Her mother's second husband, Balian of Ibelin, and his stepfather, Raynald of Châtillon, were influential members of the two baronial parties. The marriage of Isabella and Humphrey was celebrated in Kerak Castle in autumn 1183. Saladin, the Ayyubid sultan of Egypt and Syria, laid siege to the fortress during the wedding, but Baldwin IV forced him to lift the siege.
Joscelin III was the titular count of Edessa, who during his lifetime managed to amass enough land to establish a lordship in the Kingdom of Jerusalem.
Humphrey IV of Toron was a leading baron in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. He inherited the Lordship of Toron from his grandfather, Humphrey II, in 1179. He was also heir to the Lordship of Oultrejourdan through his mother, Stephanie of Milly. In 1180, he renounced Toron on his engagement to Isabella, the half-sister of Baldwin IV of Jerusalem. The king, who had suffered from leprosy, allegedly wanted to prevent Humphrey from uniting two large fiefs. Humphrey married Isabella in Kerak Castle in autumn 1183. Saladin, the Ayyubbid sultan of Egypt and Syria, laid siege to Kerak during the wedding, but Baldwin IV and Raymond III of Tripoli relieved the fortress.
The Kingdom of Jerusalem, one of the Crusader states that was created in 1099, was divided into a number of smaller seigneuries. According to the 13th-century jurist John of Ibelin, the four highest crown vassals in the kingdom proper were the count of Jaffa and Ascalon, the prince of Galilee, the lord of Sidon, and the lord of Oultrejordain.
Humphrey II of Toron was lord of Toron and constable of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. He was the son of Humphrey I of Toron.
There were six major officers of the kingdom of Jerusalem: the constable, the marshal, the seneschal, the chamberlain, the butler and the chancellor. At certain times there were also bailiffs, viscounts and castellans.
Agnes of Courtenay was a Frankish noblewoman who held considerable influence in the Kingdom of Jerusalem during the reign of her son, King Baldwin IV. Though she was never queen, she has been described as the most powerful woman in the kingdom's history after Queen Melisende.
Stephanie of Milly was the lady of Oultrejordain in 1169–1197 and an influential figure in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. She was also known as Stephanie de Milly, Etienette de Milly, and Etiennette de Milly. She married three times; firstly to Humphrey III of Toron, secondly to Miles of Plancy; her third and last husband was Raynald of Chatillon.
The Lordship of Oultrejordain or Oultrejourdain was the name used during the Crusades for an extensive and partly undefined region to the east of the Jordan River, an area known in ancient times as Edom and Moab. It was also referred to as Transjordan.
Philip of Milly, also known as Philip of Nablus, was a baron in the Kingdom of Jerusalem and the seventh Grand Master of the Knights Templar. He briefly employed the troubadour Peire Bremon lo Tort in the Holy Land.
Baldwin of Ibelin, also known as Baldwin II of Ramla, was an important noble of the Kingdom of Jerusalem in the 12th century and was lord of Ramla from 1169-1186. He was the second son of Barisan of Ibelin, and was the younger brother of Hugh of Ibelin and older brother of Balian of Ibelin. He first appears in the historical record as a witness to charters in 1148.
Balian of Ibelin, also known as Barisan the Younger, was a crusader noble of the Kingdom of Jerusalem in the 12th century. He was lord of Ibelin from 1170 to 1193. As the leader of the defense of the city during the siege of Jerusalem in 1187, he surrendered Jerusalem to Saladin on 2 October 1187.
The principality of Galilee was one of the four major seigneuries of the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, according to 13th-century commentator John of Ibelin, grandson of Balian. The direct holdings of the principality centred around Tiberias, in Galilee proper, but with all its vassals, the lordship covered all Galilee and southern Phoenicia. The independent Lordship of Sidon was located between Galilee's holdings. The principality also had its own vassals: the Lordships of Beirut, Nazareth, and Haifa.
Reginald Grenier was lord of Sidon and an important noble in the late-12th century Kingdom of Jerusalem.
Maria Komnene, Latinized Comnena, was the queen of Jerusalem from 1167 until 1174 as the second wife of King Amalric. She occupied a central position in the Kingdom of Jerusalem for twenty years, earning a reputation for intrigue and ruthlessness.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
