The importance of the Cid as Spain's bulwark against the Moors of
the eleventh century is exceeded by his importance to his modern
countrymen as the epitome of the noble and vigorous qualities that
made Spain great. Menéndez y Pelayo has called him the symbol of
Spanish nationality in virtue of the fact that in him there were
united sobriety of intention and expression, simplicity at once
noble and familiar, ingenuous and easy courtesy, imagination
rather solid than brilliant, piety that was more active than
contemplative, genuine and soberly restrained affections, deep
conjugal devotion, a clear sense of justice, loyalty to his
sovereign tempered by the courage to protest against injustice to
himself, a strange and appealing confusion of the spirit of
chivalry and plebeian rudeness, innate probity rich in vigorous
and stern sincerity, and finally a vaguely sensible delicacy of
affection that is the inheritance of strong men and clean blood.
[1]
[1] Cf. Menéndez y Pelayo, Tratado de los romances viejos, I, 315.
This is the epic Cid who in the last quarter of the eleventh
century was banished by Alphonso VI of Castile, fought his way to
the Mediterranean, stormed Valencia, married his two daughters to
the Heirs of Carrión and defended his fair name in parliament and
in battle.
The poet either from ignorance or choice has disregarded the
historical significance of the campaigns of the Cid. He fails to
mention his defeat of the threatening horde of Almoravides at the
very moment when their victory over Alphonso's Castilians at
Zalaca had opened to them Spain's richest provinces, and turns the
crowning achievement of the great warrior's life into the
preliminary to a domestic event which he considered of greater
importance. We are grateful to him for his lack of accuracy, for
it illustrates how men thought about their heroes in that time.
The twelfth century Castilians would have admitted that in battle
the Cid was of less avail than their patron James, the son of
Zebedee, but they would have added that after all the saint was a
Galilean and not a Spaniard.
In order then to make the Cid not merely heroic but a national
hero he must become the possessor of attributes of greatness
beyond mere courage. The poet therefore, probably assuming that
his hearers were well aware of the Cid's prowess in arms, devoted
himself to a theme of more intimate appeal. The Cid, an exile from
Castile and flouted by his enemies at home, must vindicate
himself. The discomfiture of the Moor is not an end in itself but
the means of vindication and, be it said, of support. When he is
restored to favor, the marriage of his daughters to the Heirs of
Carrión under Alphonso's auspices is the royal acknowledgment. The
treachery of the heirs is the pretext for the Parliament of Toledo
where the Cid shall appear in all the glory of triumphant
vindication. The interest in the hecatombs of Moors and even in
the fall of Valencia is a secondary one. What really matters is
that the Cid's fair name be cleared of all stain of disloyalty and
the doña Elvira and doña Sol wed worthy husbands.
This unity of plan is consistently preserved by a rearrangement of
the true chronology of events and by the introduction of purely
traditional episodes. The shifting of historical values may be due
to the fact that when the poem was composed, about 1150, the power
of the Moor had really been broken by the conquests of Ferdinand
I, Alphonso VI, Alphonso VII and Alphonso VIII of Castile and
alphonso I, the Battler, of Aragon. The menace was no longer felt
with the keenness of an hundred years before, until the end of the
tenth century the Moors had dominated the Peninsula. The growth of
the Christian states from the heroic nucleus in northern Asturias
was confined to the territory bordering the Bay of Biscay,
Asturias, Santander, part of the province of Burgos, León, and
Galicia. In the East other centers of resistance had sprung up in
Navarre, Aragon and the County of Barcelona. At the beginning of
the eleventh century the tide turned. The progress of the
reconquest was due as much to the disruption of Moorish unity as
to the greater aggressiveness and closer coöperation of the
Christian kingdoms. The end of the Caliphate of Cordova was the
signal for the rise of a great number of mutually independent
Moorish states. Sixty years later there were no less than
twenty-three of them. By the middle of the following century the
enthusiasm that had followed the first successful blows struck
against the Moor had waned, and with it the vividness of their
historical significance and order.
Let us look at the Cid for a moment as he was seen by a Latin
chronicler who confesses that the purpose of his modest narrative
was merely to preserve the memory of the Cid of history.
When Ferdinand I of Castile died under the walls of Valencia in
1065 he divided his kingdom among his five children. To Sancho he
left Castile, to Alphonso León, to García Galicia, to doña Urraca
the city and lands of Zamora, and to doña Elvira Toro. Sancho,
like his father, soon set about uniting the scattered inheritance.
Ruy Diaz, a native of Bivar near Burgos, was his standard bearer
against Alphonso at the battle of Volpéjar, aided him in the
Galician campaign and was active at the siege of Zamora, where
Sancho was treacherously slain. Alphonso, the despoiled lord of
León, succeeded to the throne of Castile. Ruy Diaz, now called the
Campeador (Champion) in honor of his victory over a knight of
Navarre, was sent with a force of men to collect the annual taxes
from the tributary Moorish kings of Andalusia. Mudafar of Granada,
eager to throw off the yoke of Castile, marched against the
Campeador and the loyal Motamid of Seville, and was routed at the
battle of Cabra. García Ordoñez who was fighting in the ranks of
Mudafar was taken prisoner. It was here probably that the Cid
acquired that tuft of García's beard which he later produced with
such convincing effect at Toledo. The Cid returned to Castile
laden with booty and honors. The jealousy aroused by this exploit
and by an equally successful raid against the region about Toledo
caused the banishment of the Cid. From this time until his death
he was ceaselessly occupied in warfare against the Moors.
The way to Valencia was beset with more and greater difficulties
than those described in the poem. The events of the first years of
exile are closely associated with the moorish state of Zaragoza.
At the death of its sovereign Almoktadir bitter strife arose
between his two sons, Almutamin in Zaragoza and Alfagib in Denia.
The Cid and his followers cast their lot with the former, while
Alfagib sought in vain to maintain the balance by allying himself
with Sancho of Aragon and Berenguer of Barcelona. After a decisive
victory in which Berenguer was taken prisoner Almutamin returned
to Zaragoza with his champion, "honoring him above his own son,
his realm and all his possessions, so that he seemed almost the
lord of the kingdom." There the Cid continued to increase in
wealth and fame at the expense of Sancho of Aragon and Alfagib
until the death of Almutamin.
For a short time the Cid was restored to the good graces of
Alphonso, but a misunderstanding during some joint military
expedition brought a second decree of banishment. The Cid's
possessions were confiscated and his wife and children cast into
prison.
The Cid then went to the support of Alkaadir, king of Valencia. He
defeated the threatening Almoravides flushed with their victory
over the Castilians at Zalaca. Again he chastised Berenguer of
Barcelona. he hastened to answer a second summons from Alphonso,
this time to bear aid in operations in the region about Granada.
Suspecting that Alphonso intended treachery, he with drew from the
camp toward Valencia. With Zaragoza as his base he laid waste the
lands of Sancho and avenged himself upon Alphonso by ravaging
Calahorra and Nájera.
Finally in 1092 the overthrow of Alkaadir prompted him to
interfere definitely in the affairs of Valencia. He besieged the
city closely and captured it in 1094. There he ruled, independent,
until his death in 1099.
Even the Moorish chroniclers of the twelfth century pay their
tribute to the memory of the Cid by the virulence of their hatred.
Aben Bassam wrote: "The might of this tyrant was ever growing
until its weight was felt upon the highest peaks and in the
deepest valleys, and filled with terror both noble and commoner. I
have heard men say that when his eagerness was greatest and his
ambition highest he uttered these words, 'If one Rodrigo brought
ruin upon this Peninsula, another Rodrigo shall reconquer it!' A
saying that filled the hearts of the believers with fear and
caused them to think that what they anxiously dreaded would
speedily come to pass. This man, who was the lash and scourge of
his time, was, because of his love of glory, his steadfastness of
character and his heroic valor, one of the miracles of the Lord.
Victory ever followed Rodrigo's banner--may Allay curse him--he
triumphed over the princes of the unbelievers . . . and with a
handful of men confounded and dispersed their numerous armies.'
[2] One can hardly look for strict neutrality in the verdicts of
Moorish historians, but between the one extreme of fanaticism that
led Aben Bassam elsewhere to call the Cid a robber and a Galician
dog and the other that four centuries later urged his
canonization, the true believer can readily discern the figure of
a warrior who was neither saint nor bandit.
[2] Aben Bassam, Tesoro (1109), cf. Dozy, Recherches sur
l'histoire politique et littéraire d'Espagne pendant le Moyen Age.
Leyden, 1849.
The deeds of such a man naturally appealed to popular imagination,
and it is not wonderful that there were substantial accretions
that less than a hundred years later found their way into the
Epic. Within an astonishingly short time the purely traditional
elements of the marriage of the Cid's daughters and the Parliament
at Toledo became its central theme. It is probable that such a
vital change was not entirely due to conscious art in a poet whose
distinguishing characteristic is his very unconsciousness. From
his minute familiarity with the topography of the country about
Medina and Gormaz, his affection for St. Stephen's, his utter lack
of accuracy in his description of the siege of Valencia and from
the disproportionate prominence given to such really insignificant
episodes as the sieges of Castejón and Alcocer, Pidal has inferred
that the unknown poet was himself a native of this region and that
his story of the life of the Cid is the product of local
tradition. [3] Moreover there is abundant evidence to prove that
before the composition of the poem as it has come down to us, the
compelling figure of the Cid had inspired other chants of an
heroic if not epic nature.
[3] Cid, 1, 72-73.
From this vigorous plant patriotic fervor and sympathetic
imagination caused to spring a perennial growth of popular
legends. The "General Chronicle of Alphonso the Wise," begun in
1270, reflects the national affection for the very chattels of the
Cid. it relates that Babiéca passed the evening of his life in
ease and luxury and that his seed flourished in the land.
After this constantly increasing biographical material had been
developed and expanded through at least six chronicles and later
epic treatment it was taken up by the ballads with a wealth of new
episodes. Of these one of the most interesting is the Cid's duel
with the conde Lozano and his marriage to Ximena. The hounds of
Diego Lainez, the Cid's father, have seized a hare belonging to
the conde Lozano, who considers that he has been grievously
insulted thereby. Accordingly he retaliates with slurs that can
removed only ont he field of honor. Diego Lainez, too old to
fight, in order to discover which one of his three sons is worthy
of clearing the honor of the family, bites the finger of each one
successively. The two eldest utter only cries of pain, but Rodrigo
with great spirit threatens his father. He is chosen to fight the
conde Lozano and slays him. Ximena demands justice for her
father's death, and protection. Thereupon by order of King
Ferdinand the Cid and Ximena are married. Later we have Ximena's
complaints that her husband's activity in the field against the
Moors have tried her spirit sorely. There are many ballads that
treat of the arming and consecration of the Cid in newly conquered
Coimbra, of his victory over five Moorish kings who gave him the
name Cid (Master), and became his tributaries, of the testament of
Ferdinand in virtue of which the Cid is made the adviser of Sancho
and Urraca. The siege of Zamora and the death of Sancho are
fertile topics. At the accession of Alphonso the Cid forces him to
swear a solemn oath that he was not party to the murder of his
brother Sancho. Finally when the Cid is independent master of
Valencia, the Sultan of Persia, hearing of his exploits, sends him
rich presents and a magic balsam. This the Cid drinks when he is
at the point of death. It preserves his dead body with such
perfect semblance of life that, mounted on Babiéca, he turns the
victory of the Moor Bucar into utter rout.
Not the least curious is the legend of the Jew who having feared
the living Cid, desired to pluck his sacred beard as he lay in
state in St. Peter's at Cardena. "This is the body of the Cid,"
said he, "so praised of all, and men say that while he lived none
plucked his beard. I would fain seize it and take it in my hand,
for since he lies here dead he shall not prevent this." The Jew
stretched forth his hand, but ere he touched that beard the Cid
laid his hand upon his sword Tizóna and drew it forth from its
scabbard a handsbreadth. When the Jew beheld this he was struck
with mighty fear, and backward he fell in a swoon for terror. Now
this Jew was converted and ended his days in St. Peter's, a man of
God.
The uninitiated reader will doubtless miss in the Epic more than
one of his most fondly cherished episodes. If he prefer the Cid of
romance and fable, let him turn to the ballads and the Chronicle
of the Cid. If he would cling to the punctilious, gallant hidalgo
of the early seventeenth century, let him turn to the Cid of
Guillem de Castro, or to Corneille's paragon. Don Quixote wisely
said: "That there was a Cid there is no doubt, or Bernardo del
Carpio either; but that they did the deeds men say they did, there
is a doubt a-plenty." In the heroic heart of the Epic Cid one
finds the simple nobility that later centuries have obscured with
adornment.
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