Toron Toron , now Tibnin or Tebnine in southern Lebanon , was a major Crusade r castle , built in the Lebanon mountains on the road from Tyre to Damascus . It was the centre of the Lordship of Toron , a seigneury within the Kingdom of Jerusalem , actually a rear - vassalage of the Principality of Galilee . The castle was built by Hugh of Falkenberg , second prince of Galilee , in 1105 AD to assist in capturing Tyre . After Hugh ' s death it was made an independent seigneury , given to Humphrey I before 1109 . After Humphrey I of Toron , the castle and lordship of Toron successively passed to his descendants Humphrey II and Humphrey IV . Banias , which had been given to Baldwin II by the Assassins in 1128 , was inherited by Toron in approximately 1148 when Humphrey II married the daughter of Renier Brus , lord of Banias and Assebebe . Humphrey II sold parts of Banias and Chastel Neuf to the Knights Hospitaller in 1157 . Banias was merged with Toron until it fell to Nur ad - Din Zangi on 18 November 1164 , and when it was recovered it became part of the Seigneury of Joscelin III of Edessa ( see below ) . Humphrey IV was also prince of Oultrejourdain . Toron remained in Crusader possession until 1187 when it fell to the forces of Saladin after the Battle of Hattin when Saladin all but destroyed the Crusader states . Ten years later , in November , 1197 , Toron was besieged by the German contingent of the Crusade of 1197 and would have fallen ; but the Muslim garrison by the Tribesman of El - Seid and Fawza held out until relief arrived from Egypt . In 1219 Sultan al - Mu ' azzam secretly had the defenses of Toron as well as those of Jerusalem and the castles of Safed and Banyas dismantled . This was done because the Sultan foresaw the necessity of exchanging them for the more crucial defenses at Damietta on the Nile Delta , which had been captured by the forces of the Fifth Crusade who were now threatening Cairo . Additionally , al - Mu ' azzam was not prepared to give strong defendable cities to the Crusaders if he could avoid it . Although the exchange proved unnecessary , the geographical position of the sites remained important for the Crusaders who were interested in recovering Jerusalem from Muslim control . Indeed , despite their destruction , Toron , Safed and Banyas were recovered through treaty in 1229 , just two years after al - Mu ' azzam ' s death on November 11 , 1227 , by Frederick II from Sultan al - Kamil . As Toron was sold in 1220 to the Teutonic Knights together with the territories called the " Seigneury de Joscelin " , it came to a dispute between them and Alice of Armenia , the niece of Humphrey IV and heiress of the lordship of Toron . Alice successfully claimed her rights before the High Court and Frederick II assigned the lordship to her . In 1239 , when the treaty ended , Toron fell back to the Ayyubids . Two years later , in 1241 , it was restored to the Crusaders due to a treaty between Richard of Cornwall and Sultan as - Salih from Egypt . In 1244 , the castles held out against the Khwarezmian army and accomplished their objective of disrupting the Muslim attack on Jerusalem . Nonetheless , Jerusalem eventually fell to the overwhelming number of the Khwarezmian and the primary mission of the castles became obsolete . However , Toron tenuously remained in Crusader hands and was periodically under siege by the Mamluks until the jihad of Baibars further isolated it . Following a brief siege , Baibars in a rare display of mercy allowed the small crusader contingent to evacuate in exchange for surrender which they accepted . The lords of Toron tended to be very influential in the kingdom ; Humphrey II was constable of Jerusalem . Humphrey IV was married to Isabella , King Amalric I ' s daughter ( Toron passed into the " royal domain " during their marriage but its title was returned to Humphrey IV after their divorce ) . It was also one of the few to have a straight hereditary succession in the male line , at least for a few generations . The lords of Toron were also connected to the Lordship of Oultrejourdain by the marriage of Humphrey III and the maternal inheritance of Humphrey IV . Toron was later merged with the royal domain of Tyre , which went to a branch of Antioch , then their heirs from Montfort . Lords of Toron . Toron had two vassals of its own , the Lordship of Chastel Neuf and the Lordship of Maron . Chastel Neuf was built by Hugh of Falkenberg around 1105 but was later given to the Hospitallers , until it fell to Nur ad - Din in 1167 . Maron was given in 1229 to the Teutonic Knights in exchange for their claims on Toron . The Castle . The castle of Toron occupies a steep hill , in fact a Bronze Age tell , north to the village of Tibnin , at a height of 725 m above sea level . It is oval in shape with its outline following the contours of the tell . It once had twelve rectangular towers with one of them - to the south - having been the donjon . The castle , razed in 1266 by the Mamluks was rebuilt 500 years later in the mid - 18th century by a local Shiite sheik during his struggle against the Ottoman rule . He used the ruins of the medieval walls as a basis for his rebuilding campaign and thus the castle today mainly appears as an Ottoman construction . References . Article and panorama images at 360 degrees