Íñigo López

Who is Íñigo López?

Íñigo López was the first Lord of Biscay. Although the date is not known precisely, Íñigo's government of Biscay began between 1040 and 1043 at the latest. It was certainly by appointment of the king, García Sánchez III of Navarre, and not a hereditary right. At some point he received the rank of count and the style "by the grace of God".

Íñigo's origins are obscure, but he may have been a son of Lope Velázquez de Ayala, a lord in Álava, Cantabria and nearby parts of Biscay. He married Toda Ortiz, probably a daughter of Fortún Sánchez, the godfather of García Sánchez. His father-in-law and García Sánchez both died in the Battle of Atapuerca in 1054 and Íñigo may have succeeded the former as tenente in Nájera. Documents place his rule in Nájera between 1063 and 1075, often through a vicar. Besides Biscay and Nájera, Íñigo also ruled Durango.

In 1051, when García Sánchez granted fueros to Biscay, he officially associated Íñigo with him in the decree, as the head of the local aristocracy, recognising the rights and privileges of the monasteries. Íñigo is further associated with monastic renovation by his making or confirming the donations of the churches of San Juan de Gaztelugatxe, Santa María de Mundaca, and Bermeo to San Juan de la Peña, and of Axpe de Busturia and San Martín de Yurreta to San Millán de la Cogolla. In 1076, after the assassination of Sancho Garcés IV and the division of Navarre by the armies of his cousins, Sancho I of Aragon and Alfonso VI of León and Castile, Íñigo accepted the overlordship of the Leonese-Castilian monarch. In the surviving text of the fuero given to Nájera that year Íñigo's eldest son, Lope, appears swearing fealty to Alfonso, but he is not recorded in documents as count in Biscay until 1079. These dates being the termini ad et post quem of his death. He is last recorded in a donation he made to San Millán on behalf of his late wife. In the donation he names as their children, beside Lope: García, Galindo, Mencía, and Sancho, who died young.