In the Crusader period (12-13 centuries) here was the center of Royal Cathena Quarter, the probable site of the Court of Khan which judged on the matters of maritime security and commerce.
The Acre Port came under the Rashidun Caliphate from 638, the Umayyad Caliphate and the Abbasid Caliphate until its capture by King Baldwin I of Jerusalem in 1104 in the First Crusade. The Crusaders made the Acre their chief port in Palestine. It was re-taken by Saladin in 1187, besieged by Guy of Lusignan in 1189 at the Siege of Acre, and again captured by Richard I of England in 1191. It then became the capital of the remnant of the Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1192. In 1229 it was placed under the control of the Knights Hospitaller. The Crusaders called the city “Acre” or “Saint-Jean d’Acre” since they mistakenly identified it with the Philistine city of Ekron, in northern Philistia, now southern Israel. It was the final stronghold of the Crusader state, and fell to the Mameluks of the Ayyubid Sultanate in a bloody siege in 1291.
