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- He was a Castilian military and political leader in medieval Spain. Born of the Spanish nobility, El Cid was educated in the royal Castilian court and became an important general and administrator, fighting against the Moors in the early Reconquista. Later exiled by King Alfonso VI, El Cid left service in Castile and worked as a mercenary-general for other rulers, both Moor and Christian. Late in life, El Cid captured the Mediterranean coastal city of Valencia, ruling it until his death in 1099. "El Cid Campeador" is a compound of two separate sobriquets. The "El Cid" is derived from the word al-sidi in the Andalusi Arabic dialect (from the Arabic sayyid"sir" or "lord", a title of respect) while the title el campeador (the champion) was granted by his Christian admirers. These titles reflected the great esteem El Cid had among both Moors and Christians, as well as his fighting ability; Henry Edwards Watts wrote that el campeador "[m]eans in Spanish something more special than "champion" ... A campeador was a man who had fought and beaten the select fighting-man of the opposite side in the presence of the two armies." "El Cid" was pronounced /el tsið/ (IPA) in medieval Castilian, but /el ?ið/ in modern standard Spanish (the c like the th in "thin" and the d like the th in "then".) The exact date of the El Cid's birth is unknown. Based on his participation in 1063 at the Battle of Graus, however, most historians believe that El Cid was born between 1043 and 1045, in Vivar (Bivar), a small town about six miles north of Burgos, the capital of Castile. Historical records show that El Cid's father was Diego Laínez, who was part minor nobility (infanzones) of Castile. Diego Laínez was a courtier, bureaucrat, and cavalryman who had fought in several battles. Despite the fact in later years the peasants would consider him one of their own, El Cid's mother's family was aristocratic. However, his relatives were not major court officials: documents show that El Cid's paternal grandfather, Lain Nuñez, only confirmed five documents of Ferdinand I's; his maternal grandfather, Rodrigo Alvarez, certified only two of Sancho II's; the Cid's own father confirmed only one. This seems to indicate that El Cid's family was not comprised of major court officials. One well-known legend about the Cid describes how he acquired his famous war-horse, the white stallion Babieca. According to this story, Rodrigo's godfather, Pedro El Grande, was a monk at a Carthusian monastery. Pedro's coming-of-age gift to El Cid was his pick of a horse from an Andalusian herd. El Cid picked a horse that his godfather thought was a weak, poor choice causing the monk to exclaim "Babieca!" (stupid!) Hence, it became the name of El Cid's horse. Today, Babieca appears in multiple works about the Cid. El Cid was educated in the Castilian royal court, serving the prince and future king Sancho II, the son of King Ferdinand I ("the Great"). When Ferdinand died in 1065, he had continued his father's goal of enlarging his territory, conquering the Christian and the Moorish cities of Zamora and Badajoz. On July 10, 1099, the Cid passed away in his home. Though his wife Jimena would continue to rule for two more years, an Almoravid siege forced Jimena to seek help from Alfonso. They could not hold the city but both managed to escape. Alfonso ordered the city burned to prevent it from falling into the hands of the Moors. Valencia was captured by Masdali on May 5, 1109 and would not become a Christian city again for over 125 years. Jimena fled to Burgos with the Cid's body. Originally buried in Castile in the monastery of San Pedro de Cardeña, his body now lies at the center of the impressive cathedral of Burgos. (From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
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1040 - 1099 (~ 59 years)