Fortún Garcés Cajal (died 1146) was a Navarro-Aragonese nobleman and únGarcéstatesman, perhaps "the greatest noble of Alfonso the Battler's reign". He was very wealthy in both land and money, and could raise two to three hundred knights for his retinue, funded both out of his treasury and enfeoffed on his lands.
In 1113 Fortún replaced Diego López I de Haro in the large and important tenancy of Nájera and Viguera. He held it until 1135. After the death of Alfonso the Battler in 1134, Fortún became a vassal of King Alfonso VII of Castile.
Lordships
Fortún was probably born around 1075. Nothing is known of his life before he appears at the court of Alfonso the Battler in 1110. In that year he witnessed Alfonso's arbitration of a dispute between the diocese of Pamplona and the abbey of Saint-Sernin at Toulouse over possession of the church of Artajona. Thereafter, Fortún's rise was rapid. As a servant of the crown, Fortún held several lordships (tenencias), compact territorial fiefs where a nobleman governed on behalf of the crown. These were not hereditary lordships, but were granted by the king, the lords (tenentes) holding them as long as the king wished. In 1113, Fortún replaced Diego López I de Haro in the large and important lordship of Nájera and Viguera. This territory was in the Kingdom of Castile, on the border with Aragon, and Fortún was able to hold it only because of Alfonso the Battler's marriage to Queen Urraca of Castile in 1109. Although the marriage was annulled in 1112, Alfonso had a base of support in the Castilian kingdom and substantial influence in the contested border region that had once belonged to Navarre. Fortún managed to hold onto Nájera until after Alfonso's death in 1134, when he accepted the overlordship of King Alfonso VII of Castile, who had succeeded his mother in 1126. The last record of Fortún's tenancy comes from 1135, and sometime before 1139 he had been replaced by his predecessor's son, Count Lope Díaz de Haro.
Fortún campaigned extensively alongside the king in the Reconquista ("reconquest") of the Muslim states of the Ebro valley. In 1121, as a reward, Alfonso granted Fortún the lordships of Tudela (conquered in 1119) and Daroca (conquered in 1120). In 1127, the lordship of Tudela was transferred to Count Rotrou III of Perche, a visiting Frenchman who had come to aid in the Reconquista.
The accession of Alfonso VII in 1126, weakened the position of Alfonso the Battler in the frontier district of the Bureba, where he had been able up until then to install his own appointees as lords. There is evidence that at a local level the king of Castile's man was recognised and active as tenant, but that when the king of Aragon was present, his choice of tenant was enforced. In 1129, the former was the Castilian Rodrigo Gómez and the latter was Fortún Cajal, as illustrated by two charters from Briviesca. One was drawn up by the chancery of Alfonso the Battler during the king's stay in Briviesca on 10 October 1129. It names Fortún as tenant of Briviesca. From November of the same year, a private charter from the abbey of San Salvador de Oña recognises the lordship of Rodrigo Gómez over Briviesca.
In 1130–31, Fortún's household took in two criatores, children who were raised and educated in the house of a higher nobleman.
At some point, Fortún was appointed lord of Ullé, near Jaca, in the heart of old Aragon. By 1133, he had delegated responsibility for his tenancies to two relatives, García Cajal and Lope Cajal. In 1133, this had received formal approval and confirmation from the king.
Counsellor of Ramiro II
After Alfonso the Battler died on 7 September 1134, Aragon and Navarre separated. The Navarrese chose as their king García Ramírez, lord of Monzón, while the Aragonese chose Alfonso's younger brother, Ramiro II. Part of the old kingdom of Navarre was including Nájera was seized by Alfonso VII of Castile. During Ramiro's short reign (1134–37), Fortún was his closest and most influential counsellor. In January 1135 he helped negotiate the Pact of Vadoluengo with Navarre, which gave Aragon suzerainty over Navarre and defined their border.