Banu Qasi
The lords who ruled the northern frontier during the Umayyad Caliphate, like the Banu Qasi, were generally independent of caliphal authority, as evidenced by the heritability of their power. The original power base of Banu Qasi may have been the triangle formed by Ejea, Olite, and Tudela north of the Ebro. Later in the ninth century their power was in Calahorra, Arnedo, and Viguera. The Banu Qasi territory may have been the basis for the late tenth-century kingdom of Viguera, whose territorial extension is poorly known, but which included Leza and probably the Cameros. It remained semi-independent relative to Navarre, just as it had relative to Córdoba in the previous century. The description of Fortún's lands in the "carta de arras" of king García (1040) gives him an unusually high number of "tenencias" (five, compared to the usual one or two) and, more unusual still, they were all contiguous, extensive regions rather than isolated strongholds or castles. It appears then that the land controlled by the Banu Qasi in the ninth century, the kingdom of Viguera in the tenth, and Fortún Ochoiz in the eleventh had the same extension. The "señorío" of the Cameros in the twelfth century may be a fourth historical appearance of this semi-independent network of regional fiefs.