Tenancies · Kingdom of Navarre · as at first light, 1 January 1200

Martín Chipia

A trusted royal castellan moved from the Pyrenean frontier to Vitoria just as the Castilians closed in.

On 1 January 1200 he has held the hill town for about seven months against Alfonso VIII, first beating off assaults and then enduring a blockade that cut off food and water. He sent a knight of his garrison with the bishop of Pamplona to ask the king's leave to surrender, and is waiting for the answer.

Who he is

Name
Martín Chipia
Title
Tenente of Vitoria for Sancho VII
Since
May 1199, when Pedro García de Arróniz replaced him at San Juan de Pie de Puerto and he took charge of Vitoria (naiz, after Fortún)
Born
Not known
Family
Not known; a Navarrese knight in the king's service.
Confidence
medium

Already 'senior of the land of Cisa per manum regis' (lord of Cize by the king's hand) in 1189 (Spanish Wikipedia, 'Baja Navarra'). Led the defence of Vitoria through the siege. Fortún (1986) judges that his conduct satisfied the king, who kept him in favour and gave him other Navarrese places to hold for about ten years afterward. Vitoria honoured him with a plaque in 2016; Vitoria's municipal archive has no record of him.

Overlord

Sancho VII of Navarre

What it holds

  • The walled hill town of Vitoria and its garrison (besieged)

How it was acquired

Royal appointment, May 1199.

Allies and rivals

Bishop García Fernández of Pamplona (his envoy); Alfonso VIII and the Castilian besiegers.

How things stand that morning

Besieged in Vitoria under a truce, awaiting the king's leave to surrender.

Wealth

None of his own known; he holds the king's castle and its revenues.

Military

The garrison of Vitoria and the townsmen; number not known.

Threats

  • Starvation of the town
  • A Castilian storm if the truce fails

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

  1. January 1200Surrenders Vitoria on the king's order and leads the garrison out.Depends on: The king's leave reaching him. Stopped by: Relief or a refusal.
  2. 1200-1210Holds other Navarrese tenencias in reward (Fortún); which ones is not pinned.Depends on: The king's return and favour. Stopped by: Disgrace.

Places of note

  • Vitoria (Nova Victoria) on the hill of Gasteiz: Besieged town he holds.

Where the sources disagree

  • Auñamendi's older Sancho VII article names the governor of Vitoria as Alfonso Fernández de Guendulain; modern accounts name Martín Chipia.

Evidence: Named by Fortún and by Spanish Wikipedia; his move from Cize to Vitoria in May 1199 is from a newspaper summary of Fortún.

On the map: A small disc for the besieged town only.

Primary sources for Navarre

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

  • Annals of Toledo and other short Iberian annals (12th and 13th centuries; Anales Toledanos I to 1219). Florez's volume 23 gathers the short annals of the peninsula. Read online
  • Latin Chronicle of the Kings of Castile, Anonymous, probably Juan of Osma, chancellor of Castile (about 1223 to 1239). The chancellor's chronicle of Alfonso VIII's reign, detailed from the 1190s. Read online
  • Chronicle of Roger of Howden, Roger of Howden (about 1192 to 1201). The fullest single narrative for the year. Read online
  • The Wondrous Account of the History of al-Andalus and the Maghreb, Ibn Idhari al-Marrakushi (about 1312, at Marrakesh). The Almohad section is the fullest year-by-year narrative of the caliphate around 1200: the last campaigns and the death of Abu Yusuf Yaqub al-Mansur in January 1199, the accession of his son Muhammad al-Nasir, the renewed war of the Banu Ghaniya in Ifriqiya under Yahya ibn Ishaq and his ally Qaraqush, the Almohad losses of Mahdia and Tunis a few years later, and al-Nasir's reconquest of Ifriqiya in 1205 to 1206 followed by the appointment of Abd al-Wahid ibn Abi Hafs as governor. Read online
  • History of the Affairs of Spain, Rodrigo Jimenez de Rada (completed 1243). The archbishop's history of the peninsula, written forty years on by a Navarrese who served Castile. Read online
  • The Book of Census of the Roman Church, Cencius Camerarius (Cencio Savelli, later Pope Honorius III) (1192, with later additions). The papal rent roll: every church, monastery, town and kingdom that owed a census to Rome in 1192, diocese by diocese, with the sums, followed by lists of papal lands and castles, the ceremonial Ordo and copies of charters. Read online
  • The Registers of Pope Innocent III for 1199 to 1201, Innocent III and the papal chancery (22 February 1199 to 21 February 1201). The pope's outgoing letters for the year, in his chancery's own copy, touching nearly every realm in the atlas. Read online
  • The Great Book of Fiefs, Various; compiled by Ramon de Caldes for Alfonso II of Aragon (compiled 1192 to 1194). The register of the count-king's feudal rights, finished a few years before 1200 and in use at Peter II's court: some 900 charters of homage, convention, oath, sale and marriage arranged by county and lineage, covering Catalonia, Roussillon, Cerdanya, Pallars, Urgell, the Carcassonne and Beziers lands of the Trencavels, Provence and Aragon.

3 more in the sources library for France and Iberia.

Sources and studies

  1. Spanish Wikipedia, 'Asedio de Vitoria'
  2. naiz, 'Sancho VII, rey de Navarra'
  3. Spanish Wikipedia, 'Baja Navarra'
  4. Gasteiz Hoy, homage to Martín Ttipia (2016)

Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.