El Cid Campeador

Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, a Castilian knight, son of Diego Laínez and descendant of the semi-legendary Laín Calvo, was orphaned young and raised alongside the infante Sancho, son of King Ferdinand I of Castile and León. On taking the throne, Sancho named him royal standard-bearer (1065). Around 1066, his victory in single combat against the Navarrese knight Jimeno Garcés — to settle the ownership of border castles disputed between Castile and Navarre — earned him the byname Campeador.

As leader of the royal troops, Rodrigo took part in the war between Sancho II of Castile and his brother Alfonso VI of León, defeated at Llantada (1068) and Golpejera (1072). But when Sancho II died in 1072 beneath the walls of Zamora, Alfonso VI became sovereign of Castile and León. Far from resenting him, the new king honoured the Campeador by granting him the hand of his niece, doña Jimena, in July 1074.

In 1081, an unauthorized expedition into the lands of Toledo, which endangered Alfonso VI’s negotiations to obtain the city, brought about his exile from Castile and the confiscation of his estates. With his mesnada, the Campeador offered his services to the counts of Barcelona; rebuffed, he aided al-Muqtadir, king of Zaragoza, against his brother al-Mundir. In his service he won at Almenar (1082) and near Morella (1084). It was then that he received the byname Cid, from the Arabic sīd, “lord.”

In 1086, Alfonso VI’s defeat by the Almoravids at Sagrajas fostered his reconciliation with Rodrigo, who received substantial domains. In agreement with the king, the Cid set out for the Levant, where between 1087 and 1089 he made tributaries of the Muslim kings of Albarracín and Alpuente and protected Valencia, ruled by his ally al-Qadir.

In 1089, a fresh breach with Alfonso VI brought his final exile, accused of treason. Rodrigo returned to the Levant, protected al-Qadir, and again defeated Berenguer Ramón II at Tévar (1090). His protégé dead, he acted for himself: in July 1093 he laid siege to Valencia, and on 15 June 1094 he entered it, organizing a Christian taifa.

The Cid died on 10 July 1099. His widow doña Jimena, aided by Count Ramón Berenguer III of Barcelona — husband of her daughter María in 1098 — defended Valencia until 1101, when it fell to the Almoravids. From the Cid’s two daughters, Elvira and María, descend the two lines which, through the kings of Navarre, the counts of Barcelona and the dukes of Híjar, converge upon the Pignatelli and the Gallone, down to Léon.