Miʿilya is a Christian village in the heart of Western Galilee ten kilometers northeast of Acre. In the heart of the present village are the remains of a Crusader fortress with which students of the period are familiar. The ancient kernel of the village, however, is to be found on the northwestern side of the Frankish fortress, on the flat area where several Byzantine and pre- Crusader churches were discovered.

Miʿilya (Mhalia) or Castellum Regis is mentioned for the first time in a document which was issued in 1160. In this document, the management rights (custodia et drogomanagium) of the place and of several villages within its neighborhood were transferred to one Johannes of Haifa. “Balduinus … Latinorum rex … dono Iohanni de Caypha, filio Gambre, et heredibus suis in perpetuum custodiam et drogomanachgium omnium pertinenciarum cuiusdam castelli mei, quod Mhalia nuncupatur, tarn earum videlicet, que nunc habitantur, quam earum, que per dei graciam in futurum habitabuntur.”

The property transferred to Johannes' management was divided into two groups: one consisting of villages which were “inhabited at the time” and the other consisting of places which Baldwin III hoped, and possibly even expected, would be inhabited in the future. The king gives, in detail, the names of the villages which were inhabited at the time, but we do not know where the additional settlement was to take place.