The brotherhood of Álava. Regarding the Álava brotherhood, following Martínez Díez closely, the following can be established: that the towns of Álava participated before 1332 in the first brotherhoods of the Kingdom of Castile, that is, those of 1282 and 1295. In the first, formed in Burgos on 27 May of that year, three councils from Álava were represented: Salinillas de Buradón, Vitoria and Salvatierra. In the one of 1295, on 6 July, they joined forces with 54 other towns in the kingdom: Salinillas, Salinas, Salvatierra, Vitoria, Treviño, La Puebla de Arganzón, Santa Cruz de Campezo, Labastida, Peñacerrada, Antoñana and Portilla de Corres.
In addition to these general brotherhoods of the kingdom, the councils of Álava will form part of other local brotherhoods. Thus, on 28 January 1293, Salvatierra will join Bulate, Aranars, Larrahona and Las Amezcoas in a brotherhood of good neighbourliness; in 1296, Vitoria will join the Brotherhood of the Towns of the Marina de Castilla; and in the same year, on 6 August, Vitoria, Labastida, Salinillas, Portilla de Corres, Salinas de Añana, La Puebla de Arganzón, Peñacerrada, Salvatierra, Antoñana and Santa Cruz de Campezo with Miranda and six towns in La Rioja, namely: Grañón, Logroño, Nájera, Santo Domingo, Haro, Briones and Abalos.
In the great general brotherhood of all the kingdoms of the Crown of Castile, founded in Burgos on 2 July 1315, among 96 towns of Castile, León, Galicia, Toledo and Extremadura, six councils from Álava were among the signatories: Vitoria, Salinas de Añana, Portilla and Berantevilla, Salvatierra de Castilla and Peñacerrada.
The Brotherhood of Álava was definitively established in 1457, but it was preceded by several failed attempts. The first of these was on the initiative of Vitoria, Treviño and Salvatierra, which, united in brotherhood, attempted to incorporate a large part of the towns and lands of Álava into it. Later, in 1443 and the following years, several popular and partisan brotherhoods clashed in Álava with some nobles among themselves. In 1449, a large brotherhood was formed, bringing together Gipuzkoa, Bizkaia, Encartaciones, Santander, the north of Burgos, La Rioja with Vitoria and the 14 local brotherhoods of Álava.
In 1457, at the instigation of Henry IV, the Brotherhood of Álava was born, bringing together the city, towns, lands and places of Álava. The new Brotherhood presented the king with a set of ordinances, a faithful reflection of those of 1417, with the sole omission of two chapters, which obtained royal approval in 1458. Its functions were almost exclusively of a criminal and procedural nature.
In 1463, Henry IV ordered the revision and reform of the ordinances of 1458 by a commission of four lawyers, but it was carried out by only one of them, Pedro Alonso de Valdivielso. The latter, meeting in Ribavellosa with the Brotherhood's Councils, proceeded, by virtue of royal delegation, to issue a new brotherhood notebook consisting of six chapters. According to this ‘New Notebook’ of 1463, membership of the Brotherhood was compulsory and none of its members could leave it. Its purpose was to maintain public order and criminal repression. To achieve this, it was granted special jurisdiction over a series of crimes known as ‘brotherhood cases’; in disputes involving at least one community or village, where both parties did not belong to the same local brotherhood or jurisdiction, the Brotherhood could also act as judge at the of one of the parties. On the other hand, it is edly and insistently forbidden to interfere in matters that are not cases of the Brotherhood. However, this prohibition will remain a dead letter and, from 1463 onwards, the history of the Brotherhood of Álava will be nothing more than the continuous expansion of its original powers by concession or with the express or tacit agreement of its monarchs.
Although the Brotherhood of 1463 only mentions Vitoria and five towns (three of which are now part of Burgos: Miranda, Pancorbo and Villalba de Losa, one in La Rioja, Saja, and the fifth, Salvatierra), it is possible that at that time the Brotherhood also included Salinas de Añana, which was incorporated with its villages in 1460, Monreal de Murguía in the Brotherhood of Zuya; Alegría and Elburgo in the Brotherhood of Iruraiz; San Vicente and Contrasta in the Brotherhood of Arana; Corres in that of Arraya with Laminoria; Arceniega and Villarreal in the Brotherhoods of their own name. In total, including Vitoria, 11 of the 23 towns of Álava. In 1463, Antoñana and Santa Cruz de Campezo, Lagran, Peñacerrada and Labastida, Salinillas de Buradón and Berantevilla were not included. These seven would join the Brotherhood 1463 and 1502, when they would break away from Álava: Miranda, Pancorbo, Villalba de Losa, Losas de Susos and Saja. Bernedo joined the Brotherhood of Álava in 1490, Labraza in 1501 and Laguardia 1500 and 1506. Finally, Treviño and Puebla de Arganzón never belonged to the Brotherhood of Álava since its foundation in 1457.
The Brotherhood had two police stations, one corresponding to the 21 medieval towns, all walled; the other to the ‘scattered lands’, the rest of the unwallied province. The brotherhoods of towns and ‘scattered lands’ were distributed in 1515 into six teams or groups to take turns in certain provincial offices. In 1537, another redistribution took place. At that time, the brotherhood was complete with all the current brotherhoods plus Orozco, which would definitively secede in 1568. The distribution of the 54 brotherhoods among the six groups followed a double criterion: their geographical position and their royal or seigneurial character, except for the group of Vitoria, which had a clearly residual character.
In 1840, the Vitoria quadrilla underwent a subdivision; on the one hand, the Brotherhood of Vitoria remained as the only one in its quadrilla. On the other hand, the remaining 17 brotherhoods formed a new quadrilla, the 7th, under the name of Añana. Also in the 19th century, three new brotherhoods emerged: Labastida, Elciego and Lanciego, while those of Lacha and Barria were abolished, bringing the total number of brotherhoods to 55.
In 1476, the Holy Brotherhood was founded and the Alava Brotherhood joined it, headed by a Judge-Tutor, who was also the General Deputy of the Brotherhood.
However, José Luis Orella takes a different view on all of the above. He first refers to the Brotherhood of Alava brotherhoods, saying that 1332 and 1463, the flat land of Alava, made up of 14 brotherhoods, had its own independent jurisdiction, which was the successor to the former deputies of the Brotherhood of Arriaga. He then refers to the brotherhoods of the towns of Álava: that of 1417 extended to the towns of Vitoria, Treviño and Salvatierra and did not prosper, and that of 1458, in which the king forced the villages and land of Álava to rejoin the Brotherhood of Towns, which also did not prosper. Finally, for Orella, the Brotherhood of 1463 is the first equal Brotherhood of towns and flat lands.