His birthplace is the Etxeparia farmhouse in Bussunarits-Sarrasquette,[3] and he spent the majority of his life in the valleys of Cize, working as rector in Saint-Michel at the church of Saint-Michel-le-Vieux and vicar in Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port.

[3] Etxepare lived through a period of war and upheaval from 1512 onward with the Castilian conquest of Upper Navarre.

In one of his poems, Mossen Bernat echaparere cantuya, he confesses to having spent time in prison in Béarn, although the reasons for his detainment are not very clear.

During the 1960s for example the Basque musician Xabier Lete produced a musical score to accompany the Kontrapas.

More recently, a newly developed speech recognition software tool has been named Sautrela after the final poem in Etxepare's book and a Basque literature series in Basque Television is also named Sautrela.