History Redux: El Cid

Posted by Paula Stiles Jun 22, 2006

"El Poema de mio Cid" (The Poem of My Cid), better known as "El Cantar de mio Cid" (The Song of My Cid), is the story of Spain's national hero, Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar (c1040-1099). Composed orally in medieval Castillian (Spanish) by an anonymous author in the 12th century and written down in 1207, it's a rousing tale of a Spanish crusader named "El Cid" who scores an early victory against the infidel Muslims for the glory of his feudal lord, King Alfonso VI of Castille.

We first see El Cid going into exile. After conquering Valencia, he is pardoned. Then, his daughters marry two ambitious young lords. Though El Cid distrusts them, he allows the marriages out of loyalty to the King. But he cannot protect his daughters from the malice of their husbands. Only once the King intervenes and allows El Cid to defend his honor in combat can he defeat them and marry his daughters to more suitable men-the sons of the Kings Aragon and Navarre. It's a colorful tale and it's all true.

Well...sort of.

Rodrigo Diaz really was called "El Cid Campeador" (literally: "Lord Master of Military Arts") in his lifetime. He really was Castillian, was an able and celebrated soldier and he did conquer Valencia. But he was also a cunning and independent rival to his king, not the honorable sap of the poem. Alfonso, no obscure figure in Reconquest history himself, exiled Rodrigo not once but twice. Independent nobles, considered a bad thing a century later, were par for the course in the 11th century.

Nor were either Rodrigo or Alfonso xenophobes. Alfonso exiled Rodrigo the second time in 1081 for raiding Toledo, a Muslim taifa kingdom under Alfonso's protection. Rodrigo then turned around and sold his services to the Muslim ruler of Zaragoza for over a decade. Later, Alfonso recalled him to help fight the Almoravids. But Rodrigo soon embarked on a careful plan to weaken and take Valencia in 1094, which stayed in Christian hands until his death in 1099. Both men ruled in a complex situation where Christians and Muslims constantly allied and fought with each other.

Ironically, Rodrigo's true personality has emerged from the legend because religious tolerance is again a virtue. But as this week's article shows, tolerance was considered just good sense for a soldier in Rodrigo's day.