Lope Díaz I De Haro

Lope Díaz I de Haro (''c''. 1105 – 6 May 1170) was the fourth Lord of Biscay (from at least 1162). He was an important magnate in Castile during the reign of the Emperor Alfonso VII and in the kingdom of his son and grandson. Between 1147 and 1168 he is recorded as governing Old Castile on behalf of the crown.Barton, 263.

Political career

Lope was the eldest son of Diego López I and María Sánchez. On his father's death in 1124, Alfonso the Battler seized the Basque ''señoríos'' and the Rioja, annexing them to the Kingdom of Navarre. By 17 June 1125 the Battler was in the castle of Haro. Diego was succeeded by the Navarrese magnate Ladrón Íñiguez. Lope was, at the time, probably a youth of about twenty years of age. He is recorded in the '' Chronica Adefonsi imperatoris'' (I, §7) among the eleven Castilian noblemen who swore fealty Alfonso VII upon his succession in 1126.

Lope was appointed a count by 1 February 1135. By the next year (1136) he had been given the government of Nájera, which was to be the centre of his power until his death. By 1138 he was holding Álava and by 1140 Haro, the castle from which his father took the family name. In that year, however, he rebelled and was dispossessed. He seems to have been reconciled to the emperor and reinstated by 1143. In 1146 he was with the imperial court in September and again in November. There is no record of Lope's participation in the conquest of Almería (1147), but it is not unlikely.

In 1149 the emperor made Nájera the capital of a subkingdom for his eldest son, Sancho “the Desired”, but by August 1154 Lope had received ''de facto'' control of it again, although he had to wait until August 1155 to be formally re-installed as lord of Nájera. At some point Lope entrusted the government of Nájera to a certain vassal of his, Lucas López, whom he had knighted himself. After the death of Alfonso VII, Lope served Sancho as '' alférez'' between November 1157 and July 1158, although in December 1157 that post was briefly held by Pedro Fernández. on 29 November 1157 he issued a '' fuero'' to the town of Fañuela.

In 1162 Sancho's son and successor, Alfonso VIII, granted Lope the Trasmiera, the Rioja, and Biscay to govern as ''tenencias''. In that year he used the high-sounding title Count of Nájera and Biscay (''comes naiarensis atque bizchayensis'') for the first time.

Religious patronage

Lope founded two religious houses on his lands. In 1162 he established the Praemonstratensians in San Juan de la Peña, Begoña, Arratia and Guernica. The founding charter was drawn up by a scribe named John, a chaplain of Santa María la Real de Nájera, and the original survives. Lope subscribed the document with his own hand and embellished his signature with a large cross, the rough features of which suggest the count's lack of familiarity with the pen. It leaves open the question of how literate Lope may have been. In 1169 Lope founded a Cistercian convent at Hayuela (Fayola) in the Rioja. In 1170 it was re-founded at nearby Cañas.

In 1168 Lope gave his brother Sancho his property in the monastery of San Cipriano and in Villamezquina.

Marriage, death and heirs

Sometime before 1162 Lope married a lady named Aldonza (Endolza, Endulcia). Her patronymic is not recorded in primary document and her parentage has been much discussed. The earliest authority to name her father was Pedro de Barcelos in the fourteenth century, who called her Aldonza Ruiz de Castro, a daughter of Rodrigo Fernández de Castro and Elo Álvarez, although she is not mentioned among Rodrigo's children in the '' De rebus Hispaniae''. A century later Lope García de Salazar called his wife Mencía, a daughter of Arias. Luis de Salazar y Castro

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