Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, known as El Cid Campeador, is the most famous figure of the Reconquista. His nickname joins two worlds: Cid comes from the Arabic sayyid, "lord", while Campeador means "champion", a warrior victorious in the field. His real story is extraordinary enough, but legend turned it into a national myth.
The history
Rodrigo was born around 1043 at Vivar, near Burgos, into a family of minor Castilian nobility. He grew up at the court of King Sancho II, becoming his commander. When Sancho died in 1072 he entered the service of his brother and successor Alfonso VI and married Jimena Díaz, a relative of the king. But relations with Alfonso were difficult, and in 1081 the king sent him into exile.
Like many knights of the time, El Cid then offered his services to a Muslim ruler: for some years he fought for the taifa king of Zaragoza, winning even against Christian armies. Partly reconciled with Alfonso, he then led a personal campaign in the east of the peninsula and in 1094, after a long siege, conquered Valencia, which he ruled as an almost independent lord, holding off the Almoravids. He died in Valencia in 1099. Jimena defended the city for another three years; when she abandoned it in 1102 she took her husband's body with her, burying it in the monastery of San Pedro de Cardeña.
The legend
As early as the twelfth century his deeds were told in the Latin Historia Roderici, and around 1200 the Cantar de mio Cid was composed, the most important epic poem in Castilian, preserved in a single manuscript at the National Library in Madrid. The poem tells of exile, the recovery of honour and the marriages of his daughters, with a measured hero, loyal even to the king who unjustly exiled him (see Spanish literature).
In later centuries the legend gained new episodes: the oath forced on Alfonso VI in the church of Santa Gadea in Burgos, the horse Babieca, the swords Tizona and Colada, and the battle won by El Cid after his death, tied to his horse to frighten the enemy. This invented story reached a wide audience through Guillén de Castro's play, Corneille's tragedy Le Cid (1637) and Anthony Mann's film El Cid (1961), with Charlton Heston and Sophia Loren.
Places of El Cid
Since 1921 the remains of El Cid and Jimena have rested beneath the crossing of Burgos cathedral. The city has a large equestrian statue of El Cid and the Arch of Santa María; the Burgos Museum displays a sword identified as Tizona. The Camino del Cid is a tourist route of over 1,400 kilometres following the places of the poem, from Burgos to Alicante, through Soria, Guadalajara, Teruel, Zaragoza and Valencia.