We owe much of what we know about the Cid to the investigations of Ramon Menendez Pidal. It does not matter that the purpose (or the conclusion) was to find an archetype of the Castilian soul, a symbol of sobriety and heroism, a referent of the proto-Spanish people. Thanks to Christian historiography in Latin or in the incipient vernacular language, diplomas, and documents of the time, a biography can be drawn that is far from epic fantasy, but that fits well with myth. Using the glasses from 2013 to trace the figure of the Cid will surely lead us to errors. That he fought for and against Moors and Christians was a very common practice at the time, and that it has been used as a metaphor for classicism and national unity does not diminish the importance of his deeds. In a time when his own needed heroes there he was
The life and warlike exploits of Rodrigo Diaz are not the stories that are told in the “Poema del Mio Cid”, but they are quite similar. He was born around the year 1040 into a family of infanzones (the lowest part of the nobility at that time) in Vivar, a village north of Burgos.
Warrior ardor. Educated at court with Prince Sancho, it is thought that his first contact with blood was at the Battle of Graus, in May 1063. In their debut, the Castilian troops had the Moors as allies against the common enemy, the Aragonese. Rodrigo’s won. Sancho was proclaimed king of Castile in 1065 and one of his first decisions was to appoint Diaz as general in chief of his army. In this role he participated in the fratricidal wars of his monarch against Alfonso (Leon), Garcia (Galicia) and Urraca (Zamora). There is no record of any embassy as an emissary to Doña Urraca, no persecution against Vellido Dolfos, or swearing by Santa Gadea. These facts belong to the poetic legend.
With Sancho killed in combat at the entrance to Zamora, Alfonso is crowned King of Castile and Leon. Like all those who bet on the losing horse, the Cid was cornered in a palace where the Ansurez family imposed their designs. Alfonso, however, was aware of the military conditions of that brave man from Vivar. To reconcile, he proposes marriage to his cousin, Jimena, the granddaughter of Alfonso V de Leon. The wedding is celebrated in Burgos, in 1074, where the deposit card is kept. There are ten centuries to go before the tailcoat collector is born and someone had to do that job. In 1079 the Cid was charged with the collection of the pariahs, a tax that the Moorish leader of Seville named Mutamid had to pay every year. On the way to his objective, he is attacked by the Moors of Granada, allied on this occasion with the men of Count Garcia Ordonez. El Cid defeats them in Cabra and keeps the count prisoner for three days, who on his return to court complains to the king. At the same time, the rumor that El Cid had remained between the nails with part of the tribute, a commission in the style of that everlasting Spain, whose practices sink their origin in the mists of time, gained momentum.
The campaign against the Cid is taking hold and his warrior ardor ended up antagonizing the monarch. In 1081 he launched an attack against the Moorish kingdom of Toledo, in a truce with Alfonso, seized 7,000 captives, and collected a great booty. There is no way back. Alfonso has no choice but to banish Rodrigo and deprive him of all his possessions. It gives you nine days to leave the kingdom. In the new adventure, he is accompanied by vassals, relatives, and a handful of hustlers. El Cid rides into exile. He directs his steps towards Barcelona and then to Zaragoza, where the Moors welcome him with a certain sympathy. Exile forces him to seek alliances with the natural enemy, to whom he offers his military knowledge. In an age when loyalties depended on a specific interest, it was not uncommon for a Christian knight to serve Muslim princes. From 1082 to 1089 he served as head of the army of the King of Zaragoza.
In this position, he put down an uprising and fought against the Catalan and Aragonese Christians. In one of these actions, in 1082, he captured the Count of Barcelona. Avoid, however, confronting Alfonso. That same year the Castilian king suffered an assassination attempt in Rueda. El Cid offered his help and the king reciprocated with the renewal of the decree of exile. The arrival of the Almoravids to the Peninsula forces Alfonso to rethink his relationship with El Cid, whom he exiled in 1087 and returned his lands. But he still did not have a place at court, so he returned to Zaragoza in 1088, although from that moment he set his goal on the conquest of the kingdom of Valencia. The Castilian monarch assigned him the possession of all the lands that he could conquer in the Levante area, but an error in his attempt to help the king’s troops near the Murcian town of Aledo, in June 1089, with the result of a resounding defeat motivates a second exile.
Valencia and the Almoravids
This new royal rejection spurs him on in his endeavor to conquer Valencia, from whose king Alcádir he demanded a tribute. When the Almoravids assassinated Alcadir, El Cid’s protege, he ordered the siege of the city with an army of 8,000 men, all of the volunteers. That, someone, was able to recruit such a large number of people offers an image of their convening power. In June 1094 the Christian troops occupied the city. A new era then begins in the area. El Cid defended the city from Almoravid’s pressure and even extended its dominions. In the battle of Consuegra (1097) he lost his son Diego. Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar died in 1099. From that moment the legend was born. Their military contribution to the Reconquest was to have acted as a brake on the Almoravid pressure in eastern Spain and demonstrated that although fierce they were not invincible. In 1101 his widow Jimena and the faithful had to leave the city before the Muslim push. The remains of the warrior were then taken to Cardena.
Military strategy
The Campeador was not just a fearless warrior. He was a great troop leader, capable of dynamic and unnerving maneuvers on the battlefield. He knows perfectly all the military strategies of the time: take by surprise, ruse to abandon the siege, ambush game combined with a frontal attack, double cavalry charge. According to experts, their tactic is half Moorish, half Christian. Use the algara or cavalry raid in a quick attack, also known as a razia or area. His attacks reveal a prodigy of physical resistance and ease of maneuvering. Calculation and improvisation in equal parts: a genius of the military.
His military miscegenation is normal since he has learned to fight alongside the Moors of Zaragoza and Seville. They say that during meals he had stories of the great Arab warriors read and that he instructed his horses to beat the drum. This is how the always great Mingote saw the death of Menendez Pidal. The “Poem of Mio Cid” reflects a flesh and blood hero: warrior, faithful vassal, husband, and father. Ramón Menéndez Pidal explains it this way El Cid reflects the noblest qualities of the people who made him his hero love for family, which encourages the execution of even the highest and most absorbing companies; unwavering fidelity; magnanimous and haughty generosity even towards the King; the intensity of the sentiment and the loyal sobriety of the expression.
Of the national poems of universal literature, it is the one that relates events closest to the date of its creation. He is a heroic, but never fantastic character who is supported by historical veracity and geographical and topographical accuracy. He is a vital Christian gentleman in his time who is remembered by history thanks to literature. El Cid and Hollywood Like so many other myths, the figure of the Cid crossed continents. Hollywood did not hesitate to sink its teeth into it in the age of historical feature films. The film was shot in Spain in 1961 with the production of Samuel Bronston and the direction of Anthony Mann. Charlton Heston played Rodrigo and his fiancee Dona Jimena was Sofia Loren. It is a film with urban legends such as that in a certain scene the Cid is seen wearing a wristwatch or that at another moment the Muslim warriors are seen wearing sports shoes or even the footprints of a car are noticed on the sand. In addition to the dimes and directs, the anecdote worthy of review is that Heston himself met in Madrid with Ramon Menendez Pidal to get to know the character in depth and be able to get into his skin.
