Fortún Garcés Cajal
Fortún Garcés Cajal[a] (died 1146) was a Navarro-Aragonese nobleman and statesman, perhaps "the greatest noble of Alfonso the Battler's reign".
[5] In that year he witnessed Alfonso's arbitration of a dispute between the diocese of Pamplona and the abbey of Saint-Sernin at Toulouse over possession of the church of Artajona.
Although the marriage was annulled in 1112, Alfonso had a base of support in the Castilian kingdom and substantial influence in the contested border region that had once belonged to Navarre.
From November of the same year, a private charter from the abbey of San Salvador de Oña recognises the lordship of Rodrigo Gómez over Briviesca.
He managed to maintain his control of Nájera, where in May 1135 Alfonso VII made a large gift to him in the presence of the leading regional nobility.
In order to raise the cash for his ransom, he had to sell numerous properties in both Aragon and Navarre to the wealthy monastery of San Salvador de Leire.
The lands previously granted to the monastery of Nájera were exempted from sale by order of King Ramiro, but in fact the estates at Aibar and Alcatén were taken over by Leire at this time.
[13] In 1133, Fortún and his wife Toda (or Tota) made a donation the Cluniac monastery of Santa María de Nájera and its prior, Peter.
Fortún and Toda maintained lifetime rights (vitalicia) over the properties, and probably intended that they should form the basis of a new Cluniac dependency after his death.
The donation—a manor house (palacio) and heritable estate in the Burgo Nuevo of Sangüesa—were supposed to be the kernel of a new monastery that would make intercession with God on behalf of Fortún, his wife and late son and the kings Peter I (1094–1104) and Alfonso.
Together these lands formed the church and temporal endowment (abadengo) of a new Cluniac foundation, San Adrián de Sangüesa.
Although Fortún's original intention in 1133 had been to establish the first Cluniac house in Aragon, boundary changes in the interim had turned his foundation into the first Navarrese priory.
In that year, through the "intervention and authority" (interuentus et auctoritas) of Bishop Lope, Fortún repeated his donation of 1141 in the presence of Abbots John of San Juan de la Peña (Aragon), Peter of Leire (Navarre) and Peter of Santa María de Irache (Navarre).
[17] Fortún and Toda owned land throughout the Ebro valley and in the Navarrese interior and their property transactions have left an extensive written record.
[3] In 1127, Fortún received seven properties from the king in Almorata, Borja, Pedrola and Tarazona in Aragon, Fontellas in Navarre and in Zaragoza.
These properties, which were allodial, were deliberately spread out so as to prevent the concentration of economic power, or the creation of de facto lordships.
The nobility sometimes moved to concentrate their holdings through sales and purchases, but they oftentimes desired widespread estates so as to extend their influence into more zones.
[3] In 1127, Fortún and his wife purchased land including a mill, gardens, fields, woods, vineyards and water rights at Tudela from two mudéjares, Zaida and her son Bolageg abin Frauchat for three hundred solidi and one mare.
They built a mill, probably for grinding grain, at Murillo de Limas beside the bridge over the Ebro in the Christian quarter of Tudela.
[3] Around 1120 at Gronium, a ford of the Ebro two kilometres from Munilla, Fortún founded a bridge with a hospital and a church dedicated to Saint John.
[23] Fortún Íñiguez had governed Grañón under the authority of his uncle from 1120 to 1131, while Belorado too had belonged to Cajal between 1120 and 1133, when he was represented there by Esteban Gassion.
