[2] Tyre was surrounded by impressive walls, but its burghers provided the crusaders with food when they invaded Palestine in May 1099, because the townspeople wanted to avoid an armed conflict with these Christians who had departed from Europe to Jerusalem in 1096.
[4] Pisan, Genoese and Venetian fleets supported them to conquer most Fatimid ports on the Western coast of the Mediterranean Sea during the next decade.
[6][7] After the fall of Tripoli and Beirut, hundreds of the Muslim inhabitants of the two towns sought refuge in Tyre which remained a Fatimid enclave.
[10][11] The king was still imprisoned when a Venetian fleet of 120 ships reached the coast of the kingdom under the command of Doge Domenico Michiel.
[11] On behalf of the king, Warmund of Picquigny, the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, concluded a treaty with the Doge about the conquest of Tyre.
[12] The treaty, known as Pactum Warmundi, established the Venetians' right to seize one-third of Tyre and the nearby villages and to administer justice to all who lived in their district.
[14] His treaty with the Venetians obliged them to participate in the defense of the kingdom, thus transforming their possessions into a fief held from the monarch.
[23] Documents from the crusader period list more than 110 villages and hamlets in the lordship, but the actual number of settlements was a slightly higher.
[28] For Contarini died childless before 1158, the Venetian bailli demanded the return of his fief from his widow, Guida Gradenigo, but she resisted and bequeathed her husband's estates to the king to secure royal protection.
It was initially placed under the governance of Balian of Ibelin, Lord of Beirut, but in 1246 the Ibelin-backed regent, King Henry I of Cyprus, formally placed it in the custody of Philip of Montfort.
The agreement contained a clause whereby in the event of an escheat, the crown would pay the Montforts 150,000 Saracen bezants as an indemnity towards the costs of fortifying and defending Tyre for all the years of Philip's lordship.
[31] As an indication of their independence, Philip and John minted copper coins and made treaties with the Muslims.