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

Olite

A walled royal town in the middle of Navarre, between Pamplona and Tudela, given the fuero of the Franks of Estella by García Ramírez (1147, by the usual dating; not re-checked here).

Wine and grain country; the kings already lodge here, though the great palace is later.

Who holds it

Name
The king; tenente not pinned
Title
Royal town
Confidence
low

Lord in 1200

Sancho VII (royal town; tenente not pinned).

Overlord

Sancho VII of Navarre

How things stand that morning

Navarrese and safe.

Wealth

Wine and grain.

Military

Walls.

Fuero

Fuero of Estella from García Ramírez, 1147 (usual dating).

Communities

Franks and Navarrese; Jews (not pinned for 1200).

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: Fuero date from general knowledge, not re-checked in this pass.

On the map: Modern municipality as the town's term.

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, 'Olite'

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