Fortún of Pamplona

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Fortún Garcés (d.aft.925), called the One-Eyed or the Monk, was the king of Pamplona from 880 to 905.

He was the eldest son of King García I Íñiguez, himself the son of king Íñigo Íñiguez Arista, the founder of the kingdom. His mother may have been Urraca of Aragón. Fortún may have had one or more kinsmen as co-kings during his reign: García II Jiménez, Íñigo II Garcés, and possibly Sancho I Garcés, all members of the Jiménez dynasty. Fortún was to be the last king of the Arista dynasty.

Prince Fortún was taken prisoner by the Moors in 860 during the invasion of Emir Mohammed I of Córdoba and kept for the next 20 years. While Fortún was a prisoner in Córdoba, his father died in 870. The kingdom was governed by García Jiménez. Fortún was released in 880, and upon his return to Pamplona, was apparently recognized as king.

The regent and co-king García II was killed at Ayhar in 882 in a battle against the Emir of Córdoba, and from then onwards, Fortún was apparently the sole (or chief) king of Pamplona.

An alliance of the Banu Qasi under Lope ibn Mohammed, King Alfonso III of Asturias, and the count of Pallars brought about a coup in 905. After a reign of twenty-two years, Fortún decided to become a monk at Leyra, the oldest convent in Navarre, to which no less than seventy-two other convents were subject. His kinsman, Sancho Garcés, son of García Jiménez, was the chosen to succeed him.

Fortún had several surviving children: his four sons Íñigo, Aznar, Blasco, and Lope, as well as a daughter, Oneca Fortúnez, who in 847 married firstly Abdallah ibn Mohammed, Emir of Córdoba, and secondly her cousin Aznar Sánchez of Larraun, becoming the mother of the future queen Toda Aznárez, second wife of Sancho Garcés.

Preceded by García II

King of Pamplona 882–905

Succeeded by Sancho I