Origin of Ulibarri

When proceeding with the study of this surname, of notorious nobility and antiquity and widespread throughout the three Basque provinces, we have verified that some authors call it Ulibarri, others Ullibarri and others Uribarri. The same is observed in files, certifications and other documents. Can it be deduced from the foregoing that they are only variants of the same lineage? We consider the affirmative answer correct with regard to the modalities of "Ulibarri" and "Ullibarri". It seems to us, on the other hand, wrong with regard to that of "Uribarri".

The surname appears as derived from the name of a town, place or neighborhood in which those thus surnamed had their origin, seat or house, and this makes it difficult to clarify their origin with the three indicated denominations. The following reasons justify this difficulty:

In the gazetteers that we have before us, there is no town or place in the Basque Country with the name “Ulibarri”. It is only in Navarra, where there is a neighborhood called that and belonging to the Lana Town Hall and Estella judicial district, a neighborhood from which the probability is pointed out that the primitive ancestors of the Ulibari spread throughout the Basque Country originated, although such a supposition The fact that among the old families of the surname Ulibarri there is none considered as clearly Navarrese vanishes it. On the other hand (and with solid foundations), the lineage we have been discussing is considered to be from Álava, producing strangeness that in ancient and modern genealogical works, printed or handwritten, and also in authorized documents, families named Ulibarri appear as originating from a place of the same name that does not seem to exist in the province of Álava.

There are, on the other hand, in Álava seven places called “Ullibarri”, all belonging to the judicial district of Vitoria, two of them located in the jurisdiction of the City Council of said capital. And another seven called "Uribarri" are in Guipúzcoa, Álava and Vizcaya. Their denominations, together with that of "Ulibarri", form the three variants that we see applied to the same Basque surname, a circumstance that makes it interesting to reproduce some of what has been written about what gave rise to the denomination of the lineage and the foundation of some of its houses and branches. Limiting ourselves now to what refers to Ulibarri and Ullibarri, we leave what concerns Uribarri to do so in other pages, since there are differences in this modality that make it independent from the previous ones.

Lope García de Salazar, in book 21 of his “Bienandanzas e Fortunas” offers us the following curious version, which we faithfully reproduce: “The land of Alava and Guipúzcoa, formerly belonged to the Kingdom of Navarre, and were all brotherhoods, and they all gathered together once a year, on the first day of the month of May, to celebrate their Brotherhoods and bring large wax candles of two or three quintals to the churches that used to do so, and they would carry them on litters because they could not hold them. another way, they make their masses and offerings of those candles and make their meals with many food for everyone. The devil, who always works among the people who were common and lived in countries, to put harm among them because they ceased in the service of God, and failing to achieve it, did it in this way: that date that candle once and go together To carry it, they tied the litters, and those who tied them first wanted to carry them high on their shoulders that said in their Basque “Gamboa”, which means on top. And the others who joined later wanted to lift them on foot somano and they said from Basque "onas", which means on foot, and this stubbornness grew so much, some saying gamboa, that they lift them up, the others onas, that They were defeated on foot, who had to fight and many people died, from one to the other, and the main ones who started this fight, were from a village called Cabo Vitoria, which they called Ulbarri, and after this they called it Ubibarri Gamboa. The other principales who went to this fight were from a village they called Murúa in Guipúzcoa, and after this they named it Murúa de Oñas, and this is how these lineages of Oñas and Gamboa were raised, and they last until today. And later, as time went by, the houses of Guevara de los Gambinos and Mendoza de los Oñas were the heads and the largest of them.”

It seems to us without a doubt that the village of Ulbari, mentioned by Lope García de Salazar and later called Ubibarri Gamboa, is the same one that was later called, and is still called, Ullibarri Gamboa, belonging to the Ubarrundia City Council and judicial district of Vitoria, and that of its first name of Ulbari, laterconverted into Ubibarri and later into Ullibarri, that of this lineage was derived, for being, without a doubt, originating from it, being added, finally, that of Gamboa, due to its affinities and links with the house of Gamboa and its faction, who had the Guevaras as their head and older relatives.

Here is some data in support of that assertion: In the years 1175, Doña María Sánchez de Salcedo (daughter of Sancho García de Salcedo, fourth Lord of Salcedo, and Doña María Iñiguez de Piédrola), was Lady of Ullibarri Gamboa. that she was married to Pedro Vélez de Guevara, whose eldest son was Sancho Pérez de Guevara or Gamboa, Lord of Ullibarri Gamboa and Dicastillo from 1229 to 1243, and husband of Doña Andrea Díaz de Mena (granddaughter of the second Lord of Ayala), and second-born son Martín Pérez de Guevara, according to testimonies of Francisco de Mendieta in the "Fourth part of the annals of Vizcaya"; Esteban de Garibay in the "Greatness of Spain"; Lope García de Salazar in the "Chronicle of the Seven Houses of Vizcaya and Castilla" and Fray Pedro de Murga in his "Tree and genealogical descent of the Houses of Ayala and Murga".

The founding branches of the remaining places called Ullibarri, in Álava, must also have come from the repeated village of Ulbari (we do not believe it is too risky to suppose), to which it is equally probable that they gave their lineage their name at the time of raising in them their new ancestral homes, of whose primitive owners no memory will be kept due to the distant times in which they lived. As the surname became more widespread, over the years, new plots began to appear in other Basque towns, but not called Ulibarri, nor Ullibarri, among the best known being that of the town of Villarreal de Álava, of which it is stated that it was a subsidiary that of Ullibarri de Gamboa and headquarters of those located in the Alava places of Beotegui, Madaria and Aguiñaga, of the Ayala City Council and Amurrio judicial district; in the one of Landa, of the City council of Ubarrundia and judicial district of Vitoria; in the Valle Real de Léniz and towns of Oñate and Vergara, in Guipúzcoa; in the church of Ceánuri and the town of Ochandiano, in the judicial district of Durango, and in the place of Arrázua, in the judicial district of Guernica, in Vizcaya. All these solar houses are named "Ulibarri" in modern works by Basque authors. And also in a lawsuit on nobility against the council and prosecutor of His Majesty of Vitoria, initiated by the descendants of the house of the Alava place of Landa.