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The site of Ibelin had been occupied since ancient times; the Romans called it Iamnia. The crusader castle was built in 1141 between Jaffa and Ascalon, near Montgisard and Ramla. At that time Ascalon was still controlled by Fatimid Egypt, and Egyptian armies marched out every year from Ascalon to attack the crusader kingdom. Ibelin was constructed in order to contain these attacks to a smaller area. The original castle, built by King Fulk of Jerusalem, had four towers.
[edit]First and second family generations
Balian of Ibelin, carrying King Baldwin V
The Ibelin family rose from relatively humble origins to become one of the most important noble families in the Crusader states of Jerusalem and Cyprus. The family claimed to be descended from the Le Puiset viscounts of Chartres, but this appears to be a later fabrication. They were more probably from Pisa Italy, the name 'Barisan' being found in Tuscany and Liguria related to Azzopardi family. Its first known member Barisan was apparently a knight in service of the Count of Jaffa and in the 1110s became constable of Jaffa. As reward for his capable and loyal service, around 1122 he married Helvis, heiress of the nearby lordship of Ramla.
Barisan was given the castle of Ibelin in 1141 by King Fulk as a reward for his loyalty during the revolt of his then master Hugh II of Le Puiset, Count of Jaffa, in 1134. Ibelin was part of County of Jaffa, which was annexed to the royal domain after Hugh's unsuccessful revolt. Barisan's marriage with Helvis produced Hugh, Baldwin, Barisan, Ermengarde, and Stephanie. The younger Barisan came to be known as Balian. Along with Ibelin, the family then held Ramla (inherited from Helvis), and the youngest son Balian received the lordship of Nablus when he married Maria Comnena, the Dowager Queen. Balian was the last to hold these territories as they all fell to Saladin in 1187.
The family underwent a remarkable rise in status in only two generations. In the circumstances of the crusader kingdom, this rapid rise, noblesse nouvelle, was not as difficult as it would have been in Europe. In Crusader Palestine, individuals and whole families tended to die much sooner and replacements, sang nouveau, were needed.
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In Pisa Ebriaci family is known also "da Parlascio, [filii] Ebriaco".
The translation of "filii Ebriaco" is: the son of the Hebrew.
The Pagano Ebriaci da Vecchiano (Venulei) family from Pisa were a very important family, linked to the history of the judicatures of Sardinia, the recapture of Balearic Islands and Calabria at the beginning of the eleventh century, the preparation of the First Crusade and the application of the "laws of the Admiralty" in the frank fiefs in the Holy Land.
Some authors indicate Ibelin family as a descendent from Tibaud (Ebriaci) de Pagan from Normandy, certificated from the census (Doomesday Book) of 1086. Lupello (de Pagan) “Ebriaci castra dominus", participated in the building of the Benedictine Abbey of Saint-Pere at Chartres in 930. Ugo I de Biblio (Jebail, current J'baïl) (1110-1136) was "filius Guillelmi Ebriaci (son of Guglielmo Ebriaci, called by Spinola family "Testadimaglio”, Mallet-head), Biblii quondam domini" .
Emilio Cristiani, "Nobiltà e Popolo nel Comune di Pisa: Dalle Origini del Podestariato alla Signoria dei Donoratico," (Naples, 1962) refers to a member of the Ebriaci family as an "Hebriacus de Hebriacis";
Maria Luisa Ceccarelli-Lemut, Pisan Consular Families in the Communal Age: The Anfossi and the Ebriaci . in the Eleventh toThirteenth Centuries, in Thomas W. Blomquist and Maureen F. Mazzaoui(eds), "The Other Tuscany: Essays in the History of Lucca, Pisa and Siena during the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries," (Kalamazoo: 1994) describes the Ebriaci family as merchants "involved in ventures in Constantinople and the orient." Then the author asks if the founders of the Ebriaci family were Middle Eastern Jews who converted to Christianity and became members of the Pisan aristocracy--in the same way that the Jewish Pierleoni family was absorbed into the Roman nobility.
The Venuleii family from Pisa is well known in academic studies throughout the Mediterranean area (from Spain to the Middle East) for their bricks (fistula acquaria) commerce: members of the family, patrons of the colony of Pisa, were consuls twice of the Western Roman Empire, governor of Caledonia (Britain), pro-consul in Constantinople and commander of the First Legion “Italica”, who built a part of Hadrian's Wall around 135 AD and was stationed on the border of the Danube until the end of the Western Roman Empire.
Elvers, Karl-Ludwig (Bochum). "Venuleius." Brill’s New Pauly. Antiquity volumes edited by: Hubert Cancik and , Helmuth Schneider. Brill Online, 2014