It is July 1093, a force of Spanish troops
lay siege to Valencia in eastern Spain, attacking the Muslim forces who hold the city,
The fighting lasts for a year, in which time a relief force from North Africa conclusively
defeated, Finally, on the 15th of June 1094, the Christians
capture the city of Valencia* from its Muslim occupants,
Their leader rides into the city, victorious at last,
His name Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar The man known to history as ‘El Cid’ The man known to history as El Cid was reputedly
born sometime around 1045, in the village of Vivar near Burgos, in northern Spain, although
he was born as Rodrigo Díaz, the name El Cid was one he acquired, as a result of the
tangled mythology which characterised his later life. His father was Diego Laínez, a minor member
of the nobility of the kingdom of Castile, the Spanish kingdom centred on northern and
central Spain in the late middle ages, he may have been a younger son of Flaín Munoz,
a count of León around the year 1000, and it is also possible that Diego fought on the
side of the King of Castile, Ferdinand I, against the Kingdom of Navarre in north-east
Spain in 1054, if this was the case, he might well have been rewarded with land around Vivar,
for his service during the war, in which case Rodrigo would probably have been born elsewhere,
and later became associated with Vivar as he grew into his late childhood and early
teenage years in the region. Rodrigo’s mother was Teresa Rodríguez Álvarez
de Amaya, she was a descendant of a member of the higher aristocracy of northern Spain,
and as such the young Rodrigo was born into a relatively prominent, noble and landed family
within the kingdom of Castile, despite later suggestions that he came from humble beginnings. The Spain that the future El Cid was born
into, was highly polarised, as the Roman Empire had collapsed in the fifth century AD, a Germanic
tribe known as the Visigoths, meaning ‘Western Goths’, had occupied the bulk of the Roman
provinces of Hispania on the Iberian Peninsula, here they established the Visigothic Kingdom,
the most culturally and politically sophisticated of the supposedly ‘barbarian’ kingdoms
to have succeeded the Romans as the rulers of Western Europe. But despite their sophistication, the Visigoths
were to have their kingdom destroyed in the early eighth century, a campaign which began
in the mid-seventh century, as the Arab followers of the prophet Mohammad, had burst out of
the Arabian Peninsula, conquering much of the known world east into Persia, north into
Turkey, and west across North Africa, through Egypt and the other states of the Maghreb. By the early eighth century, they were in
Morocco, then in 711 AD, they crossed the Straits of Gibraltar with their Berber allies
from North Africa, and within months, soundly defeated the Visigoths at the Battle of Guadalete,
as a consequence most of the Iberian Peninsula quickly fell under the control of the Moors,
as the Christians of Europe termed the Muslims who conquered Spain and North Africa. However, pockets of Christian power remained
in Spain, particularly in the north where Pelagius, a former Visigothic general, established
the kingdom of Asturias in the 720s, and inflicted the first military defeat on the Moors, at
the Battle of Covadonga in 722 AD, in the north of the country near the Cantabrian Mountains,
thus, within just years of the Muslim conquest of Spain, the Christian Reconquista, as the
long reconquest of the country has become known, was underway, it would take nearly
800 years to accomplish fully, and few individuals were as central to the Reconquista as El Cid. In the centuries that followed, the Iberian
Peninsula was transformed into a patchwork of different political entities, Asturias
became the first of the major Christian kingdoms and principalities to emerge, but others followed,
as the Christian power base in the north and northwest of the Iberian Peninsula was consolidated,
notably the County of Portugal, the Kingdom of Navarre, the County of León, the Kingdom
of Aragon, the County of Barcelona and the Kingdom of Castile. These burgeoning kingdoms found themselves
in constant conflict with the Moors, who ruled a cohesive kingdom or emirate, spanning the
south and central parts of Iberia, or Al-Andalus as they termed it. This emirate or caliphate was ruled from the
city of Cordoba in the south, where the impressive Mosque of Cordoba still stands, as an imposing
testament to the Spanish empire of the Moors and its cultural sophistication. As this consolidation of Christian power occurred
in the north, Medieval Spain became a region with two distinct cultures, while the south
was dominated by the Arabs and produced some of the greatest thinkers of Arab civilization,
the north and northwest was controlled by an advancing number of Christian states, who
erected cathedrals built in the new Romanesque architectural form, as they pushed the Muslim
powers further southwards. Yet this was also a hybrid society, and many
Christians found themselves living under Muslim rule and vice-versa at various points, these
people became known as Mozarabs and Muwallads, thus, two cultures with their own political
entities, emerged in Iberia between 700 and 1000 AD, one Latin and Christian, the other
Arab and Muslim, consequently a traveller through the Iberian Peninsula in the tenth
century, would have passed from a Latin or Spanish speaking north, to an Arab speaking
south, with different religions being practiced and different social, political and economic
systems predominating. However, as El Cid was born, the world of
Christian and Muslim Spain was changing rapidly, between 1009 and 1031 a ruinous civil war
within the emirate of Cordoba had created enormous instability in the Moorish parts
of Spain and had weakened the Muslims militarily, more seriously the emirate began to fragment
from a cohesive, unified kingdom that had offered strong opposition to the Christian
kingdoms of the north into a number of smaller principalities known as taifas. There were over a dozen of these taifas by
the time El Cid was born, in the mid-eleventh century, ruling small portions of the former
Muslim emirate, the most significant were those of Zaragoza in the east of Spain, that
of Toledo which ruled a large territory of arid land in Spain’s central Meseta region
to the south of the Kingdom of Castile, the taifa of Badajoz encompassing much of what
is now Portugal and the taifas of Granada, Malaga and Cordoba in the south. This disunity and fragmentation amongst the
Muslims of Spain, occurred at a time when Christian Europe was entering a period of
resurgence, as new Crusades against heretical peoples in northern and eastern Europe and
even against the Muslims of the Holy Land, were being planned and initiated. El Cid’s life from a very early date was
characterised by the brand of military service that was expected of a Spanish knight during
this most volatile period of the Reconquista, he was raised at the Castilian court, as part
of the entourage of the Castilian prince, Sancho, the eldest son of the King of León
and Count of Castile, Ferdinand I. The young Rodrigo was allegedly present at
the Battle of Graus near Huesca in 1063, when a Castilian army defeated a force sent by
the King of Aragon, Ramiro I, it is unclear exactly how old El Cid was at this time and
whether he played any part in the fighting or was simply present as a page or retainer
of some kind, however, he was knighted around this time and it is likely that he was in
his late teens or early adult years. The battle would also have exposed the young
Rodrigo, to the complexities of Spanish politics, Ferdinand had led Castile to war against Aragon
on this occasion, in defence of the Moorish prince of the taifa of Zaragoza to the east
of Castile, a vassal of Castile at the time, here was early experience for the young knight,
that diplomatic relations in Spain were not decided solely according to religion, and
the rulers of the many principalities and taifas of the peninsula, might often ally
with the opposing religion against people of their own religion if it was politically
advantageous, indeed, it was a maxim El Cid was to live his life by. When Ferdinand I died in 1065, his kingdoms
did not pass undivided to his eldest son, Sancho, but were divided amongst his male
children, thus, Sancho became king of Castile, another brother received the kingdom of León
and a third, Garcia, received the kingdom of Galicia in the northwest of Spain, thus,
where Ferdinand had succeeded in unifying a large block of northern and western Spain
under his rule, these lands were now divided out amongst his sons, Christian power was
further weakened throughout the region in the years ahead, as conflicts began to develop
between the three sons, particularly between Sancho of Castile and Alfonso of León. Rodrigo benefited from having been raised
a childhood companion of the young Sancho, when the latter became King of Castile in
1065. Tradition has it, that he raised his friend
to the position of armiger regis or royal standard-bearer and made him one of his senior
military commanders, however, it is unclear if this is true, there are no official documents
of the time to corroborate this and it would have been an extraordinarily lofty promotion
for a man who was still only twenty years of age at the very most at that time. If he did receive these honours, they were
attained as war was looming between Castile and León, and within months of the division
of Ferdinand’s kingdoms, tensions had arisen between Sancho and Alfonso, these culminated
in 1068 in the Battle of Llantada near the River Pisuerga in northern Spain, at which
the Castilian forces defeated Alfonso’s Aragonese army. Further years of war followed, before a decisive
strike was made by Castile at the Battle of Golpejera on the River Carrión in central
Spain, this battle commenced at dawn on a January morning in 1072 and was initially
going in favour of Alfonso and his Aragonese army, as the Castilians were driven from the
field, however, the following morning, having been rallied by El Cid, Sancho and his forces
went on the attack again. In the resulting encounter Alfonso’s armies
were soundly defeated, the king himself was captured and eventually exiled to the court
of the Muslim ruler of the taifa of Toledo, al Mam’un, and Sancho now took over his
kingdoms, once again uniting the kingdoms of Castile and León, and also Galicia and
Portugal, which he prized from his other brother Garcia shortly afterwards. It is from this time that Rodrigo seems to
have become known amongst Spanish Christians as El Campeador, meaning the Conqueror or
the Battler, a name which he would use for the remainder of his life, hence we find El
Cid signing a document which has survived with his autograph signature as ‘Rodrigo
El Campeador’ in 1098, towards the end of his life. Yet as successful as Sancho’s policy of
reunification had been by 1072, he faced considerable opposition to his rule amongst various elements
within the lay and ecclesiastical lordships of León, he also faced the hostility of his
sister, Urraca, who later in 1072, began plotting with certain contingents of the nobility and
military at Zamora, a rebellion consequently emerged from this part of León and when Sancho
headed there to besiege the city in the autumn of 1072, he was murdered outside the walls
on the 7th of October, by a Zamoran knight, Bellido Dolfos. The exiled Alfonso now moved swiftly to take
advantage of these developments, already by December 1072, he had returned to Castile
from his exile in Toledo and quickly had himself made King of Castile and León. In January Alfonso VI, as he now was, had
his brother, Garcia, put in prison, where he would remain until his death in 1090, ensuring
there was no contender roaming free for opposition to his rule to coalesce around. Legend has it that El Cid forced Alfonso to
swear an oath in the Church of St Agatha in Burgos at this time, that he had not been
complicit in the revolt at Zamora and Sancho’s murder, whatever the truth of this, it is
very possible that this never happened, it is certainly clear that the changed circumstances
were difficult to negotiate for El Campeador, just months earlier he was the rising military
commander of the armies of Sancho, who had united the Kingdoms of Castile, León and
Galicia, now he had to find a new place at the court of Alfonso, the man he had helped
defeat and force into exile, less than a year earlier. Nevertheless, it is relatively clear that
El Cid was able to quickly ingratiate himself with the new monarch, in the years ahead,
he became one of the leading military commanders of Alfonso’s expanding kingdoms and there
is evidence which indicates that by 1075, the king trusted him sufficiently to appoint
him as a judge, presiding over some disputes which had arisen in Asturias in the far northwest
of Spain. More significantly when Rodrigo married around
this time, his wife was none other than Jimena Díaz, a Leónese noblewoman and a third cousin
of the king, the king would not have sanctioned the marriage of a near kinswoman to El Cid
at this time, had the knight not have been of high standing in Alfonso’s estimation. All of this occurred at a time when Alfonso’s
power was ever growing, in 1076 the kingdom of Navarre, which covered the Basque country
in northeast Spain, was carved up between a number of powers, with the Kingdom of Aragon
receiving a portion and Alfonso annexing the Rioja region. He now ruled an extensive kingdom stretching
all the way from the Atlantic coast in what is now northern Portugal and northwest Spain,
east through northern and central Spain as far as the Pyrenees in the northeast of the
peninsula, moreover, he had obtained the vassalage of a number of the neighbouring Muslim taifas
including that of Zaragoza to the east, Toledo to the south of Castile in central Spain and
even Seville and Granada in the far south, each of these paid tribute to Alfonso, emphasising
the breadth of his power in Spain by the end of the 1070s. It was owing to developments amongst one of
these taifas, that El Cid’s fall from royal favour began, in 1079 El Campeador was sent
to Seville as the king’s representative to collect the taxes and vassalage dues, known
as parias, which were owed from the king there, during this mission, he became entangled in
a conflict between the taifa of Seville and the taifa of Granada, when the latter attacked
Seville, seemingly with the acquiescence of a Castilian nobleman, Garcia Ordonez, who
had been sent to Granada at the same time as El Cid had gone to Seville on a similar
mission to collect the parias owed by the taifa there. El Cid, seemingly unaware of Ordonez’s complicity
in Granada’s assault on Seville, now campaigned with the Moors of Seville and helped them
stave off the Granadan incursion at the Battle of Cabra, at this Ordonez was captured and
the whole episode seems to have inflamed a faction of the Castilian nobility, who were
now embittered towards El Cid. The traditional account of these events suggests
that this led directly to Rodrigo’s banishment from Alfonso’s court, but there is little
reason to think that this is what happened, in reality, he was still there and in command
of parts of the Castilian army a year later, moreover, Alfonso could hardly have rebuked
him for simply defending his ally, the King of Seville, rather it was Garcia Ordonez whose
actions had been inflammatory. Nevertheless conspiracies against El Cid now
seem to have been underway and when El Campeador repulsed an invasion into Castile by a brigade
of troops operating out of Toledo in 1080, during a civil war within that taifa, the
incident appears to have been exploited by his enemies at the Castilian court to undermine
him. The incident seemingly occurred, as complex
power shifts were occurring at Alfonso’s court, over high levels of taxation and other
issues, as a consequence, the king elected to use one of his senior nobles and commanders
as a scapegoat, to placate a faction of unruly nobles, early in 1081, using the Toledo incident
as a pretext, El Cid was banished from the Castilian realms. El Cid’s exile from the court of Alfonso
VI in 1081, ushered in the most dynamic, interesting and remarkable period of his life, it is also
that for which we have the most evidence available, the details of his early life and career in
the 1060s and 1070s often being based on much later accounts, which are often little more
than fables and which regularly offer conflicting versions of events. However, we possess one extensive historical
account which provides invaluable information on his life after 1081, written by a very
near contemporary of El Cid’s, the Historia Roderici or History of Rodrigo, also titled
the Gesta Roderici Campi Docti meaning the Deeds of Rodrigo El Campeador, this was compiled
in Latin in about 1120, twenty years after the death of El Cid, and although it contains
little information on his early life, it is an invaluable account of his life following
his exile in 1081 up to his death in 1099. El Campeador now went in search of a new home,
he first offered his services as a general to the Christian Count of Barcelona and perhaps
also King Sancho of the Kingdom of Aragon, but having been refused by these Christian
lords, he turned to the Muslim ruler of the taifa of Zaragoza, Al-Muqtadir, who was succeeded
shortly after El Cid’s arrival there by his son, Almutumán. His decision to do so was surely a simple
process of elimination, Alfonso had united the bulk of the Spanish principalities under
his rule and with the exception of Barcelona and Aragon, El Campeador really had few options,
other than to enter the service of one of the many Muslim rulers of Al-Andalus, similarly
it was not unusual for Christian nobles to seek refuge at the courts of the Muslim taifas
during the eleventh century, a fact which emphasises the hybridity of the society of
Christians and Muslims in Iberia during the Reconquista, indeed Alfonso himself, prior
to attaining the Castilian crown, had spent time in exile at the Muslim court of Toledo. Moreover, eleventh-century Spain was a land
of intricate diplomacy and El Cid would have been highly familiar with the authorities
in Zaragoza before his arrival there in 1081, indeed the Historia Roderici contains considerable
instances of various Muslim taifas and Christian principalities employing messengers and diplomats
to petition others for aid in military ventures and negotiations over war and peace, in a
way which emphasises the interconnectedness of these many small kingdoms, El Cid, as somebody
who straddled the Christian and Muslim world of central Spain so effectively, must have
been a skilled and shrewd diplomat. It is from this period that El Campeador’s
more infamous name originates, El Cid is doubtlessly derived from the Arab title of Sídi, meaning
‘My lord’, consequently the famous name of El Cid was born during Rodrigo Díaz’s
service under the Muslim lords of Al-Andalus. El Cid spent several years in the service
of the Muslim taifa of Zaragoza, during which he gained a reputation for his victories in
defending Almutumán’s kingdom of Zaragoza, not just against encroachments by the Kingdom
of Aragon to the north and the Count of Barcelona to the east, but also an internal power struggle
against the Muslim ruler’s brother, Almundir, who had established a breakaway kingdom at
Lérida roughly midway between Zaragoza and Barcelona. A number of noteworthy victories at the time,
added to El Cid’s renown throughout Iberia, in 1082 he won a significant victory against
the rival prince of Lérida’s troops at Almenar just to the northwest of Lérida,
roughly equidistant between Zaragoza and Barcelona, he also captured the Count of Barcelona, Berenguer
Ramon II, who had allied with the taifa of Lérida, it is unclear exactly what happened
with the Count following the battle, but eventually he was returned to Barcelona, most likely
after paying a substantial ransom for his release. The Battle of Almenar also led to the production
of the first of many works lionising El Cid’s reputation as a military commander, so many
of which have shaped the mythology about Rodrigo Díaz over the centuries, the Carmen Campi
Doctoris, meaning The Song of the Campeador or The Song of the Conqueror is an anonymous
Latin poem composed in the months after the battle, here, in the opening stanzas, there
was a clear effort to depict El Cid as the equal of the great warriors of Greek and Roman
mythology: “We can tell about the deeds of the warriors,
Paris and Pyrrhus, and also Aeneas That many poets in their honour have written. But what joy have the pagan stories
if they lose their value due to their antiquity? Then let’s sing about Prince Rodrigo
About these new battles” Further descriptions depict El Cid riding
into battle with a gold and silver helmet and a shield featuring an image of a golden
dragon, the myth of El Cid was already well under way even during Rodrigo Díaz’s own
lifetime. Two years later in 1084, El Cid led Almutamán’s
forces against Almundir and King Sancho of Aragon at the Battle of Morella near Tortosa,
the conflict here occurred after an offensive foray by Rodrigo to try and seize the castle
of Morella, in preparation for doing so, he occupied the castle of Olocau del Rey to the
north of Morella, in response Almundir and King Sancho elected to attack El Cid at Olocau,
the engagement occurred in mid-August 1084, it ended in victory again for El Cid and several
of the senior members of the Aragonese nobility were captured, further weakening Almundir’s
position and no doubt leading to further ransoms which paid for Almutamán’s continuing financing
of El Cid’s armies out of Zaragoza. These internal conflicts, however, over lands
in Catalonia, Aragon and Zaragoza were ultimately small regional squabbles when compared with
what was to occur in the second half of the 1080s, back in Castile and León Alfonso VI
had gone on the offensive following El Cid’s banishment in 1081, now in 1085 he conquered
the city of Toledo, reducing the major Muslim taifa of central Spain to Christian rule. This was a seismic shift in the balance of
power between Christians and Muslims in Spain, Toledo was located in the geographical centre
of the Iberian Peninsula and its seizure indicated that the Christian powers, after three-hundred
years of Muslim rule in Spain, were now pushing the Moors down towards the south of the country,
however, the capture of the town did not go without a serious response, and it came from
the Almoravids in North Africa. The Almoravid movement most likely had its
origins in what is now modern-day Senegal where a Muslim missionary, Ibn Yasin, established
it in the late 1030s, a zealous and militaristic branch of Islam, it aspired to religious purity
and jihad or holy war, to extend the Muslim religion into new countries and defend it
where it was under attack, by the 1070s the movement had established control over the
entire Western Sahara region and north into Morocco, where the city of Marrakech was founded
as the new capital of the movement. By the end of the 1070s one of the Almoravids’
leaders, Yusuf Ibn Tashufin had extended their authority north as far as Tangiers and east
into parts of modern-day Algeria around the Atlas Mountains, here was an ascendant and
aggressive Muslim power extending its control over a vast swathe of northwest Africa on
the doorstep of Spain, or Al-Andalus as the Almoravids viewed it. It was not long after Yusuf conquered parts
of the southern Mediterranean in Morocco, that he began receiving emissaries from the
Muslim taifas of Al-Andalus imploring this new warlord of the Maghreb to cross the Straits
of Gibraltar to aid the Muslim cause in Spain, while he was consolidating his control of
Morocco, he had declined these invites, but the fall of Toledo in 1085 swiftly changed
his mind, now in the summer of 1086 he landed with a sizeable army of Berber and African
troops at Algeciras in the Bay of Gibraltar. Yusuf quickly established a large alliance
of the princes of the Muslim taifas of southern Spain, including those of Malaga, Seville
and Granada, there was little love lost between these new found allies, as a zealous religious
warrior Yusuf viewed the taifa princes as indolent layabouts who had violated the Quran
through their lifestyles and failures to engage in holy war against the Christians of the
north, to the princes, Yusuf was little more than a provincial barbarian, but one whose
armies they needed if they were to survive Alfonso’s onslaughts. Those armies were indeed needed, having conquered
Toledo in 1085, Alfonso had turned his attention east in 1086 towards Zaragoza, thus when news
reached the King of Castile and León of the arrival of the Almoravid warlord to Spain,
he was campaigning against the taifa of Zaragoza by whom El Cid was employed. Alfonso now quickly abandoned his military
operations at Zaragoza and formed an alliance with King Sancho of Aragon, to try to withstand
the invasion of the African Berbers, they marched southwest and eventually met with
Yusuf’s combined Berber and Moorish armies at Sagrajas just to the north of Badajoz,
near the modern-day border of Spain and Portugal. The Battle of Sagrajas on the 23rd of October
1086 ended in total defeat for the Christian armies, tens of thousands of men were said
to have fought in the conflict, though this was more likely to have been just in the thousands,
several thousand Castilian and Aragonese troops were said to have been lost and Alfonso only
barely escaped with his life, moreover, much of the Castilian and Leónese nobility and
knightly class were killed, central and northern Spain now lay exposed to an Almoravid advance. And yet nothing catastrophic occurred, an
outbreak of unrest in North Africa quickly drew Yusuf back to Morocco, but it was not
his last engagement in Al-Andalus, therefore the most immediate consequence of the loss
of the Battle of Sagrajas was Alfonso’s decision to reconcile with his former commander,
El Campeador, or as the Moors knew him, El Cid, by the summer of 1087 Rodrigo had returned
to the Castilian court, where he spent the next few months overseeing various military
commands, strengthening the defences of Burgos and the surrounding region, and preparing
for a renewed offensive into eastern Spain. It was here in the region east to Zaragoza,
Barcelona and in particular slightly further to the south towards the long-held Muslim
stronghold of Valencia, that the last ten years of El Cid’s life would be associated
with, by 1088 Rodrigo had convinced Alfonso to allocate further military resources to
the region, now that the Almoravid threat had temporarily abated, thus, in the spring
of 1088 El Cid led a large Castilian army east towards Valencia, ostensibly to reduce
the region in Alfonso’s name, but there is little doubt that by now El Cid had ambitions
to rule of his own. These ambitions certainly explain his actions
in the east in the months that followed, having encountered the Count of Barcelona in the
region, he dislodged him and sent him back north to Catalonia, El Cid then began extracting
parias or taxes and vassalage dues from the Muslim ruler of the region around Valencia
on the Mediterranean seaboard, but instead of sending these back to Alfonso in Castile,
El Cid retained these considerable sums of money himself. These were hardly the actions of a servant
who was loyal to the King of Castile, but it is also possible that an agreement had
been reached between himself and Alfonso, that if he could reduce the region around
Valencia, Rodrigo could effectively rule it himself, the advantage for Alfonso being that
it would create an allied buffer state, while he himself prepared for the inevitable second
onslaught by Yusuf and the Almoravids from the south. Concern over the Almoravids was wise, as in
1089 Yusuf and his Berber armies returned to Spain in substantial numbers, however,
this time Yusuf’s frustrations with the taifa princes of Malaga, Seville, Granada
and the other principalities of the south, particularly the willingness with which they
had re-established diplomatic relations with Alfonso in the aftermath of the battle of
Sagrajas, would lead Yusuf to begin conquering and assimilating the taifas of Al-Andalus
into the wider Almoravid Empire of North Africa, thus, from the late 1080s, strong centralised
rule was being restored to the Muslim controlled parts of Spain and by the early 1090s, Yusuf
would be looking to advance northeast into eastern Spain, to seize the rich Mediterranean
ports there such as Valencia. It was these movements which led to the first
clashes between El Cid and the Almoravids and inadvertently also Rodrigo’s second
dismissal from the employ of King Alfonso of Castile, in 1089, just months after the
renewed Almoravid onslaught of Al-Andalus, the Castle of Aledo near the Mediterranean
coast in the province of Murcia was besieged by the Almoravids, this was a relatively wayward
possession of Alfonso’s near El Cid’s area of command in eastern Spain, accordingly
as he made his way to relieve the attack himself, Alfonso also sent word to El Campeador to
join him to assist in the campaign. However, in the ensuing days, El Cid failed
to meet with Alfonso, it is unclear if this was a deliberate act of disobedience, or if
the Conquerer simply could not locate Alfonso’s forces in the Murcian countryside, but the
result was the second and final split between the King and his mighty subject, in 1089 El
Cid was exiled yet again from Castile, moreover, his properties back home around Burgos were
confiscated and taken into crown ownership through attainder, a punishment usually reserved
for crimes which were deemed treasonous. From this point onwards in 1089, El Cid became
entirely his own man, he would not seek to enter the service of another ruler as he had
done following his first expulsion from Castile in 1081, instead, with the military forces
he had built up in eastern Spain in the late 1080s and with his reputation as a brilliant
military leader he would operate as an independent figure and seek to carve out his own dominion
in eastern Spain. In 1089 he already had a strong base to work
from, he had forces in eastern Spain and continued to collect the parias he had been extracting
from several of the local Muslim rulers in return for not attacking them, including Alqadir,
the ruler of the city of Valencia itself, a rich port city with extensive trade revenue,
he also forged an alliance with Almundir the Muslim prince of Lérida, with whom he had
fought so extensively when in the service of Zaragoza in the 1080s. He spent the next few months consolidating
his position and building up his military capabilities, then in the spring of 1090,
we suddenly find him invading the territory of his erstwhile ally in Lérida, against
both Almundir and the neighbouring County of Barcelona. A decisive clash occurred at Tébar near Morello
in May 1090 at which El Cid achieved his second resounding victory over a combined army of
the forces of Lérida and Barcelona, incredibly Count Ramon of Barcelona was also captured
again by El Cid’s victorious forces, as he had been at the Battle of Almenar in 1082,
the condition of his release was that his nephew, also Ramon, married El Cid’s daughter
Maria, in this way Rodrigo Díaz secured a marriage alliance with the Christian Count
of Barcelona, whose lands bordered those of Valencia to the south. Thus, in 1092, using his control of much of
southern Catalonia around Tortosa, southern Aragon around Lérida and the countryside
around Valencia as his base, El Cid assembled a combined army of Christian and Moorish troops
with the intention of finally seizing Valencia, with this in mind, he rebuilt the castle of
Pena Cadiella in the mountains of Benicadell, where he established his base of operations,
he also succeeded at this time in negotiating an alliance with his old allies in the taifa
of Zaragoza. It is unclear why El Cid suddenly decided
at this time to fully conquer Valencia, a city which for years he had been content to
accept large payments from the rulers of, in return for him not attacking, though it
seems likely that this new policy of conquest may have been due to the growing power of
the Almoravids to the south, vassal states like the city of Valencia would no longer
do, in the face of the newly aggressive invader. By the autumn he had secured most of the surrounding
area and finally began closing in on Valencia, as a first step he laid siege to the castle
of Cebolla next to the town in November 1092, then, following its capture in 1093, Rodrigo
finally laid siege to Valencia itself in July of 1093. The siege would last nearly an entire year
with siege-works on the beachhead to try to break down the considerable defences of medieval
Valencia, an attempt by the Almoravids to relieve the siege in December 1093 failed
miserably, one of the first conclusive defeats the invaders from North Africa suffered against
a Christian army, as a consequence on the 15th of June 1094, the chief magistrate of
Valencia, Ibn Jahhaf, surrendered the city, and El Cid rode into Valencia as its conqueror. In the aftermath of the siege, El Cid now
ruled a considerable Christian principality encompassing Valencia and much of the surrounding
countryside and coastline, nominally he claimed to rule in Alfonso VI’s name, but this was
effectively an independent kingdom, and his banishment from Castile five years earlier,
made a mockery of the idea that he was still the king’s subject. Its governance under El Cid reflected his
career as someone who had operated in the world of Christian Spain and Muslim Al-Andalus,
he did restore Christianity in the city, for instance, Ibn Jahhaf, the former magistrate
was burned alive shortly after El Cid occupied the city, and the central city mosque was
converted into a Christian church. Additionally Christian colonists were brought
in to Valencia to reduce the dominance of the city by Muslims, however, freedom of worship
for both confessions was maintained and both Christians and Muslims served in his government,
while Valencia’s considerable Jewish population was also afforded a greater degree of toleration
than was typical of almost anywhere else in Late Medieval Europe. Yet while the conquest of Valencia was a remarkable
achievement for a man who had started out as a mid-ranking noble at the Castilian court,
El Cid’s territories were far from secure with the acquisition of the city in 1094,
the Almoravids had concentrated their attacks on central Spain from the early 1090s onwards
and the reconquest of Toledo was their primary objective, but their secondary aim was further
expansion along the Mediterranean coast and the absorption of the remaining taifas there,
north towards Lérida and Zaragoza, the northernmost states of Muslim control. El Cid’s capture of Valencia had now profoundly
compromised this and in October 1094, just months after El Cid’s entry into the city,
a detachment of Berbers was sent north under general Abu Abdalá, the resulting battle
at Quart de Poblet, a few kilometres from Valencia, was a further victory for El Cid. In the years that followed further military
success followed, in 1095 Rodrigo captured the Muslim-held castle of Serra, a highly
positioned fortification north of Valencia with very great defensive capabilities, then
in 1097, in alliance with Peter I of Aragon, El Cid defeated another significant army of
Almoravids, sent north under the command of Mohammad ben Tashufin at the Battle of Bairén,
approximately forty kilometres south of Valencia, and the following year, he finally succeeded
in capturing the stronghold of Murviedro, a prize El Campeador had long sought after. Much of El Cid’s reputation originates from
these latter actions against the Almoravids and their allies in eastern Spain, just as
much as his earlier military accomplishments and seizure of Valencia. Between their first arrival in Al-Andalus
in 1086 and the mid-1090s, the Almoravids had successively won victory after victory
against the Christian forces of Castile and the other Spanish kingdoms, only El Cid could
seem to defeat them, as he did when successive Almoravid expeditions were sent northeast
from southern Spain against him, as occurred in 1093, 1094 and 1097, all with victory as
the end result for Rodrigo and his followers. Murviedro was to be his last conquest, he
died at Valencia in the summer of 1099, seemingly of natural causes, an entirely plausible scenario,
being by then, into his fifties and entering old age by the standard of the times, thus,
the great El Cid, El Campeador, died a relatively peaceful death in the city he had allegedly
conquered for the Christian cause, but which in reality he had taken from anyone who would
block his ambition, Christian and Muslim alike. Within months of his death Rodrigo’s life’s
work was being reversed, further Almoravid attacks were quickly undertaken against Valencia
and in 1102 the Cid’s wife, Jimena, was forced to abandon the city and return to Castile,
by 1110 most of the territories in eastern Spain which El Campeador had brought back
into the Christian fold, were re-occupied by the Moors. Consequently El Cid’s most significant success
in his lifetime, the conquest of Valencia and its reclamation from its Muslim occupants
was quite an ephemeral success and it reverted back into Moorish control for over 130 years
until the king of Aragon, James I, reconquered it definitively for the Christian cause in
1238. The wider Reconquista would continue as an
intense conflict during the twelfth century between the Christian states of northern Spain
and the Almoravids, followed by their successor, the Almohad Caliphate which again emerged
as a more aggressive successor state of North Africa in the 1140s. Eventually the tide was turned in the thirteenth
century, as an increasingly more militarily powerful Christian north, backed by technological
advances which a declining Arab world could not match, inexorably rolled back the Muslim
presence in the south of Spain, until finally in 1492 the Christian Monarchs of Castile
and Aragon, Isabella I of Aragon and Ferdinand II of Castile, succeeded in conquering the
final Moorish settlements in Granada in the south of the country. In the years that followed his death a striking
mythology was created around the life of Rodrigo Díaz, his body was disinterred from its grave
in Valencia by his wife Jimena in 1101, shortly before the fall of the city to the Almoravid
advance, and she took it northwest back to Burgos near El Cid’s hometown of Vivar,
here the body was reburied at the monastery of San Pedro de Cardena near Burgos before
being reinterred again later and placed in a tomb at Burgos Cathedral where it lies today. Approximately fifty years after El Cid’s
death work commenced by some unknown author, or multiple authors, on El Poema de mio Cid,
or The Song of my Cid, this was a lengthy epic poem telling the story of El Cid’s
life and exploits, it has come to be regarded as a national epic of Spain and was responsible
to a considerable degree, for the immortalisation of El Cid as a Spanish national hero. The story of El Cid has subsequently been
picked up and embellished, particularly at the height of the Spanish Empire in the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries, and even by Hollywood in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries,
as a result, the myth of El Cid as the chivalric hero of the Spanish Reconquista who pushed
back the Muslim occupants of the country has become engrained in the popular imagining
of Medieval Spain. But the reality is more complex, Rodrigo Díaz
de Vivar was a strange and fascinating character, there is no doubting his military prowess,
he appears to have never lost a major military engagement, for a man who spent his entire
adult life engaged in warfare, commanding in some of the most significant conflicts
fought in eleventh-century Spain, this alone was a remarkable fact. Moreover it was not just the sheer scale of
his victories but the consequence of them, the battles he commanded at during the 1070s,
1080s and 1090s were some of the most significant fought in early medieval Spain, furthermore
his conquest of Valencia was a singular achievement, while perhaps his most significant military
accomplishment, was in repulsing numerous Almoravid advances towards Valencia in the
mid-1090s, at a time when the armies of Christian Spain elsewhere in Iberia, were being soundly
defeated by these invaders from North Africa. But his political career and allegiances were
far more multi-dimensional than the myth of El Cid allows for, between the 1070s and his
death in 1099 he frequently switched sides in the tangled politics of eleventh-century
Spain, beginning his career as a senior military commander under the kings of Castile, then
putting his martial abilities to work for the Muslim kingdoms to the east and finally
forging his own path as the conqueror and ruler of Valencia at the end of his life,
thus, he lived a life on the borders of the Spanish kingdoms, intricately navigating the
torturous politics of the Christian and Muslim kingdoms, at once ‘El Cid’ and ‘El Campeador’. What do you think of El Cid? Was he a hero of the Spanish Reconquista or
a self-interested opportunist who sided with whichever side he could benefit most from,
in the tortured politics of eleventh-century Spain? Please let us know in the comment section,
and in the meantime, thank you very much for watching.
