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.

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.

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