The recorded data and legal documents of those early centuries show that they moved under monastic/royal patronage over an extensive territory in the transalpine region of Cantabria - with the Royal privilege of being freed from the payment of duties for Pasturing or Passage (local or feudal levies). The territory overlapped many of the internal counties of Cantabria. Those counties that became the main focus of their radiation were not contested by previously settled municipalities, as they covered land previously preserved for Royal Hunting grounds. These lands had been valued for their wilderness, which was described in the chronicles, and was rich in bears and other wild fauna.