“Since his lordship ordered the destruction of his castles, there is no Navarrese who has raised his head.” Words such that these—immortalized in a letter preserved in the General Archive of Simancas—were addressed by the military man Cristóbal Villalba to Cardinal Cisneros, after the regent of Castile ordered the annihilation of any fortified structure in the Kingdom of Navarra, a few years after its conquest (1512). Today, five centuries later, the content of the letter continues to be a slab for archaeologists, historians and residents who want to recover the memory of half-buried and forgotten ruins in strategic points of the current provincial community. More than 250 testimonies and a hundred ruined fortresses. Like that of Leguin, where the weeds cloud the brilliance of an anniversary that is unattainable for many of the military buildings on the peninsula.
Last July 23 marked 1,100 years since the Cordoban emir Abderramán III passed through the area: first documentary reference, first destruction of a castle used to being reborn after each disaster. Except today, when the battle being fought to enhance its value is, practically, a lost contest.
Among the Navarrese who today try to “raise their heads” after the latest conquest is the Pamplona historian Mikel Zuza. He has reasons. His family comes from ancient times (perhaps descended from those who witnessed with horror the attack of the Emir of Córdoba) from the Izagaondoa valley, in one of whose mountains (786 meters high) are the last stones of the Leguin castle. In fact, his father was the last of the family who was born in what is today considered “ground zero” of depopulation in Navarra, before moving to the capital.
“My father always instilled in us a love for the artistic heritage of the area, which is very rich, with Romanesque and Gothic churches, or medieval fountains,” Zuza acknowledges. Curious that, for lack of souls, the towns surrounding the Izaga rock (1,300 meters) still preserve a legacy that speaks of a glittering past that is no longer today. “There are towns, like Mendinueta, that have been depopulated and lost churches from the 12th century,” laments the historian.
As for Leguin, the biography of this fortress, which currently blends in with a leafy undergrowth, registers a disturbing pattern. Every time he tried to recover, new destruction came. That of the year 924, promoted by the incipient caliph Abd al-Rahman III, sought to truncate the route between Sangüesa and the capital of the kingdom. The attack, recorded in Muslim chronicles, became, without intending to, the first documentary source of the existence of Leguin, which according to Zuza, could have been built a century earlier, in the 9th century. But it won’t be the last time he appears on paper.
Once rebuilt, Leguin will be besieged (between 1174 and 1176) by King Alfonso VIII of Castile, given the central location of the fortification. And, then, it will be the subject of dispute between the supporters of the Prince of Viana (Beaumonteses) and those of his father Juan II (Agrammonteses), in the context of the Navarrese civil war. As if that were not enough, there were other unexpected attacks, these without swords involved: lightning hit the fortress squarely and damaged its stones once again, this time in the 14th century. Finally, King Ferdinand the Catholic entered Navarre (1512) and razed towers and castles. Leguin was one of the first to fall. Since then, it remains destroyed. But it could have been worse. The unfavorable orography of the area has prevented the old castle from being transformed into a quarry for neighboring houses, an unfortunate situation in other enclaves in the community.
A shared (and unknown) history
But why should we act in Leguin centuries after its total destruction? What could (or should) be done? “The history contained in these stones belongs to all of us Navarrese,” defends Mikel Zuza, author of several books on Navarrese royalty. Far from a hypothetical reconstruction, Zuza defends “that the castle and its history be known.” Complicated battle, perhaps lost beforehand. One of the greatest burdens for acting on Spanish fortresses—an important part of the more than 10,000 fortifications inventoried in the country have this problem—comes from their private ownership. Often, either the owners are not known, or the stones have been inherited by different generations who do not even know (or care about) what they own. Leguin is in the first group: the Marquises of Jaureguizar, the Pérez de Rada, have not spoken a word after years of neighborhood demands.
Mikel Zuza’s, in any case, is more than a personal battle, a fight shared with the residents of the Izagaondoa valley. “In recent years, there have been movements to recover the areas of the destroyed castles,” says Zuza. Navarra has more than a hundred of these small fortresses, frequently (and almost miraculously) placed on the rocks. “Of course the Izagaondoa City Council has tried to do things, but if the owner does not want to and the Government of Navarra does not pressure him…”, the historian leaves in the air. Zuza refers to her particular case: “When I belonged to the Navarrese Council of Culture in 2019, we presented the request for the Leguin castle to be declared an Asset of Cultural Interest; Cultural associations such as the Valle de Izagaondoa group insisted on 2021, but three years have passed and they have not even responded,” he says. A failed statement, partly useless, but of indisputable symbolism.
“To highlight something of which little evidence remains and to make people aware of the role that these castles played in a small kingdom, highly disputed in the Middle Ages, independent until the 16th century, and the symbolism that this entails is a kind of fight against giant windmills.” Archaeologist Iñaki Sagredo knows this first-hand, a deep connoisseur of the history of Navarra who has embodied the recovery of several of these tiny fortifications, located in the most unexpected and inaccessible places. “We have performed in very small rock castles, like those of Garaño or Unzué, which have great difficulty when it comes to valuing them,” describes Sagredo. “On the Unzué rock, near Leguin, we had to carry water and sandbags by hand for a kilometer,” exemplifies the researcher, who details the conditions in which the tasks have been carried out: “We have spent years recovering castles, but no one can imagine what movies we have experienced, working almost in secret.”
““Total destruction”
“Navarra’s heritage is very destroyed.” The archaeologist Iñaki Sagredo speaks of “total destruction” of the hundred fortifications that once defended the extinct kingdom, some, he indicates, “very important, such as that of Tudela (second town in Navarra) or especially symbolic, such as that of Amaiur.” Therefore, we asked the researcher what elements of that battered legacy could be visited today. It refers us to buildings such as the Javier castle, the Olite palace or the walled enclosure of Artajona. The rest “are ruins, foundations, they are not spectacular castles,” he adds, in reference to the aforementioned structures that have been recovered, such as those of Garaño, Unzué or Aixita. They are not large citadels, but they are absolutely surprising places. “We have no stones, nor administrative or political help,” he laments.
Neither stones nor support, but an unusual documentation about the past of Navarre, the result of the efforts of chroniclers from different civilizations. That is to say, the original appearance of many castles is not known, but even the smallest detail of how they were managed is known: “We can even know how much the nails from which the bacon was hung cost,” reveals Sagredo. Knowledge that allows us to guide the recovery processes of ancient ruins and that, together with digitalization, facilitate the enhancement of the damaged fortresses. The diamond in the rough that this documentation represents has not been sufficient, to date, to obtain resources from the Government of Navarra and deepen the knowledge of this legacy of medieval chronology. The archaeologist clarifies that, compared to the Middle Ages, any project on the different prehistoric periods or subsequent Romanization has better press in the aid granted by the community.
Within the management of ruins, there is one more derivative: depopulation. The historian Mikel Zuza maintains that there is an “empty Navarre” and points to the opportunity presented by remains that, like those of Leguin, treasure a millenary past. “In the middle of the ancient desert, valuing heritage means that these people are alive,” he says. Precisely in Leguin, Zuza proposes the conditioning of the area and, especially, the access, which is currently extremely complicated. Subsequently, the site requires archaeological intervention to reposition the historical enclave on the map.
At this point, the researcher from Pamplona directly points out the success story of Irulegui, a sister fortress located just 10 kilometers from Leguin, where an archaeological piece from the Iron Age was found—the now famous “hand of Irulegui”—whose inscription has revolutionized the study of the origins of Basque. “We do not intend to recover the building, but rather its memory; In Irulegui it was difficult to imagine what was underneath and now you can see a castle,” reasons Zuza, who envisions a promising investigation among the stark stones of the old fortification: “In Leguin, the structures are still there.”
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