Cid Campeador, the name, or rather names, by which the most renowned Spanish warrior of the 11th century is best known. By his Moorish vassals he was called 'Sid-i' ('my lord'), which the Spaniards translated by Mio Cid, and a victory in his youth over a Navarrese champion in single combat gave him the title of Campeador. His real name was Rodrigo, or Ruy, Diaz (i.e. 'son of Diego'). He was a Castilian noble by birth, seventh in descent from Nuño Rasura, who was also ancestor of the royal line of Castile. He was born either at Burgos or at Bivar near it, about the year 1040. From 1065 to 1072 he was nominally alférez, or 'ancient,' but virtually commander of the forces to Sancho II. of Castile in the wars in which that king wrested the kingdoms of Leon and Galicia from his brothers. In 1072 Sancho was treacherously slain at the siege of Zamora, and as he left no heir the Castilians had to acknowledge Alfonso, the banished king of Leon. As a conciliatory measure Alfonso gave his cousin Ximena, daughter of the count of Oviedo, to the Cid in marriage, but afterwards, in 1081, when he found himself firmly seated on the throne, yielding to his own feelings of resentment, and incited by the Leonese nobles, he banished him from the kingdom. According to tradition he never forgave the Cid for having, as leader of the Castilians, compelled him to swear that he had no hand in the murder of his brother Sancho, but there is no need to look for any cause beyond the hereditary animosity between the Castilians and the Leonese, now intensified in the latter by recent defeat and humiliation, for which they held the Cid responsible. At the head of a large body of followers the Cid betook himself to Moadir of the Beni Hud, the so-called king of Saragossa, to whom, and to his son and grandson, he rendered important services against their enemies the king of Aragon and the count of Barcelona. In conjunction with Mostain, grandson of Moadir, he invaded Valencia in 1088, but afterwards carried on operations on his own account, and finally, after a long siege, made himself master of the city in June 1094. The Almoravides, then in possession of south and central Spain, twice sent large armies against him, but were each time routed with great loss. For five years he reigned like an independent sovereign over the fairest and richest territory in the Peninsula, but in July 1099 he died suddenly, of grief, the Arabic annals say, at the news that some of his men had been defeated. His widow held out for two years longer, and then retired, carrying with her the embalmed body of the Cid, which for ten years sat enthroned beside the high altar at San Pedro de Cardeña, near Burgos.
The Cid's career cannot be better summed up than in the words of a contemporary and an enemy, Ibn Bassam of Seville, who wrote only ten years after his death, and could cite the testimony of one who knew him and was an eye-witness of his deeds in Valencia. Of the Cid—whom he calls 'a Galician dog, one Roderic, sur-named the Canbitur, the scourge of the country'—he says: 'It was the Beni Hud who raised him out of obscurity, and they delivered over to him divers provinces of the Peninsula, so that he overran the plains like a conqueror, and planted his banner in the fairest cities. His power grew very great, nor was there any district that he did not ravage. Nevertheless this man, the scourge of his time, was, in his love of glory, strength of character, and heroic courage, one of the marvels of the Lord. Victory always followed his banner—God's curse be on him.' The character of the Cid was, however, a somewhat complex one. There can be no doubt of his cruelty, rapacity, and duplicity, for the statements of the Moorish authorities are substantially confirmed by the Spanish, the Cronicas, the Gesta Roderici Campidocti, and even the Poena itself. But it may be said for him that to strike terror was one of the necessities of his position, outnumbered as he was by a hundred to one; and had he not made plunder his prime object the army he led would soon have melted away. Unscrupulous condottiere as he was, fighting for paymaster or plunder, he was nevertheless a staunch patriot at heart. Ibn Bassam had it from one who heard him that he said: 'This peninsula was conquered under one Roderic, but another Roderic shall deliver it.' He was an imperfect hero; but he was a born leader of men, and it was only natural that a career like his should take a strong hold of the popular imagination, and in an age when minstrelsy flourished become a favourite theme with the jongleurs and trovadores. These, when facts began to run short, met the demand by drawing upon their invention, and treated the Cid precisely as they treated Charlemagne. As they invented the journey to Jerusalem, the expedition to Galicia, the Bridge of Mantible, and the Emir Balan for Charlemagne, so they devised an invasion of France for the Cid, made him defy the emperor Henry, bearded the pope, cut off the head of the count of Gormaz and marry his daughter; and to allow time for all, they put back his birth twenty years, and even extended the life of his charger Bavieca to sixty. They also married his daughters to the Infantes of Carrion, princes of the blood-royal of Leon. Historically, the Cid's daughters were married, one to a count of Barcelona, the other to a prince of Navarre, a union by which his blood passed into the royal line of Castile, and thence into the Bourbon, Hapsburg, and our own royal families. Alfonso X. adopted all the amplifications of the minstrels in the Cronica General, from which they found their way almost unquestioned into the history of Spain; and their inconsistencies and absurdities have in some instances led uncritical and somewhat indolent historians like Masdeu and Dr Dunham to treat the whole story of the Cid as a fable, and himself as no better than a creature of popular fancy.
Of the Cid literature it is impossible to give more than a summary here. By far the most important in every way of the works belonging to it is the Poem, written undoubtedly in the last half of the 12th century, and probably the oldest document in the Spanish language. It is more properly an epic than a chanson de geste, and unquestionably the most Homeric piece of medieval poetry in existence.
Editions of it have been given by Janer and Pidal in the Biblioteca de Autores Españoles (vol. lvii.), by Vollmöller, with introduction and notes, and by Damas Hinard, with a French prose translation. It has been translated into German by O. L. B. Wolff, and there is an English translation with introduction and notes by John Ormsby. The translated fragments by J. H. Frere do little justice to the dignity, sense, and spirit of the old Spanish poem. The Cronica Rómada, a very inferior work of a much later date, deals mainly with the apocryphal invasion of France. The prose Cronica del Cid (Burgos, 1512) is merely that part of the Cronica General which refers to the Cid, with some additions and corrections. Southey's admirable Chronicle of the Cid is a composite work made up of portions of the Cronica and of the Poem, skilfully interwoven so as to give the story of the Cid as the old storytellers told it. Risco's Castilla (1792) contains, besides a life of the Cid, the original Latin text of his marriage-settlement, dated 1074, the Santiago Genealogy, and the Gesta Roderici Campidoci; both written before 1238. Of more modern works the most notable are Malo de Molina's Rodrigo el Campeador (1857), Professor Dozy's Le Cid d'après de nouveaux Documents (1860), and H. Butler Clarke's The Cid Campeador (1897). The Cid ballads, so numerous in the old cancioneros and romanceros, were collected and printed in a romancero by themselves by Escobar in 1612. The fullest and best Romancero del Cid is that of Carolina Michaelis (1872), which contains no less than 205 ballads. Only a few, however, of the Cid ballads are of high excellence, or to be regarded as specimens of genuine traditional popular poetry. The greater number are comparatively modern, many are merely portions of the Chronicles put into verse, and not a few are artificial ballad imitations of the 16th and 17th centuries.