El Cid

The title of this article is ambiguous. Further meanings are listed under El Cid (disambiguation) .

Detail of the equestrian statue of the Castilian knight El Cid in Balboa Park (San Diego) by Anna Hyatt Huntington

El Cid [ θið ], actually Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar (* around 1045 to 1050 possibly in Vivar / Bivar ; † July 10, 1099 in Valencia ) was a Castilian knight and mercenary leader from the time of the Reconquista , who became a Spanish national hero in modern times advanced. His nickname El Cid is from the Arabic as-sayyid  /السَّيّد / 'The Lord' or in vernacular sīdī  /سيدي / Derived from 'my lord'.

Life

Origin and name

The alleged sword "Colada" of Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, called "El Cid"

Rodrigo (short form Ruy ) was born as the son of the Castilian nobleman ( Infanzón ) Diego Laínez and Teresa Rodríguez. Neither the year nor the place of birth are documented. The assumptions of historians about the year of birth vary between 1041 and 1057, the most likely hypothesis today is his birth between 1045 and 1050. The name Rodrigo Díaz means "Rodrigo, son of Diego", which corresponded to the convention in the Kingdom of Castile at that time as Last name to use the patronymic derived from the father's first name . The addition "de Vivar" and thus the link to the village Vivar del Cid near Burgos , traditionally known as the place of birth, appears for the first time around 1200 in the Cantar de Mio Cid . Vivar's place of birth is not documented in contemporary documents.

The nickname Campeador (or Latin Campidoctor ) was used by Rodrigo - documented - during his lifetime. This is a title derived from campio (lat. Kämpe, duel fighter), which refers to the victorious existence of duels as a representative of a warlord or a party to the dispute. In German, this epithet is usually translated as "the fighter", you could also say "Recke" or literally "the champion ". The designation Rodrigos as my cid ("Meo Çidi"), on the other hand, appears for the first time in a poem 50 years after his death. It is derived from Arabic and means something like "my lord". It is a form of address given by military leaders or gentlemen, which has also been documented in other ways, and which could well have been used at the time when Rodrigo Díaz was operating as a mercenary leader in the Spanish Levant or ruling Valencia; But there is no contemporary evidence of this.

Ascent

Rodrigo's father had earned merit as a soldier in the war against Navarre , and his father Laín Núñez appears as a witness in documents of King Ferdinand the Great of Castile and León . According to legend, his paternal line goes back to Laín Calvo, one of the legendary “judges” of Castile. His maternal grandfather, Rodrigo Álvarez, was also a supporter of Ferdinand and managed several castles in the border area on behalf of the king. After the death of his father (around the year 1058) Rodrigo came to the court of King Ferdinand as a half-orphan and was brought up there together with his son Sancho .

After the king's death in 1065 and the division of the empire among his three sons, he remained in the entourage of Sanchos, who became King of Castile as Sancho II and sought to rule over the other two sub-kingdoms Galicia and León . Rodrigo held the office of a royal standard bearer ( Alférez Real or Armiger Regis ) and achieved his first military successes as a troop leader in this function. Already during his time at the Castilian court he was nicknamed el Campeador .

During the siege of Zamora , Sancho was murdered in 1072. When his brother and rival Alfonso VI. reunited the kingdoms of León and Castile, Rodrigo Díaz is said to have taken him as Alférez, according to legend, on an oath of purification allegedly required by the Castilian estates ( Cortes ) , with which Alfonso affirmed that he had nothing to do with the death of his brother. However, the historicity of this oath is today strongly doubted or disputed by the majority of authors. In any case, like many other followers of Sancho, Rodrigo remained in the service of the new king, but had to give up the post of standard-bearer. A short time later it was clothed by a Castilian knight named García Ordóñez who had advanced to become Count of Nájera , who in the legend plays a role as the courtly adversary of Rodrigo (which probably corresponds to the reality). Around 1075 Rodrigo Díaz married Jimena Díaz , referred to in early sources as "relatives of the king", but whose actual origin is unclear. According to the traditional view, she is considered the daughter of a (unproven) Count Diego of Oviedo , and there is also evidence that she actually came from a noble Asturian family. For the knight, this marriage, which was apparently arranged by the king, was in any case associated with a social advancement, which is particularly evident in the couple's documented large land holdings. Rodrigo also appeared on several occasions as a member of royal arbitration tribunals that resolved disputes among nobles .

Exile and conquests

After unauthorized campaigns of conquest and involvement in a regional conflict that was not wanted by King Alfonso, which had arisen in 1079 between the Moorish minor kingdoms of Seville and Granada in the south of the peninsula and in the course of which Rodrigo Díaz succeeded in the Battle of Cabra , his on the other side To humiliatingly capture fighting competitor García Ordóñez, Rodrigo fell out of favor with the king and was banished from his native Castile . He found asylum a short time later at the court of the Moorish prince al-Mu'tamin of Saragossa . Formally in his service, he created a standing mercenary force with which he operated in neighboring territories against Christian opponents, among other things , whereby his fighters mainly financed themselves from the booty they obtained. In addition to his skills as a military leader, this new type of organization also contributed to the success of the "gang", whose leader can be imagined at this stage as a kind of " robber baron " or " warlord ". With its steadily growing flock, the Cid gradually built up its own position of power in the Levant .

Statue of the Cid in Burgos

After the heavy defeat of the Castilians against the army of the Berber Almoravids called into the country by the Moorish princes under Yusuf ibn Tashfin in the battle of Zallaqa , there was a temporary rapprochement between the Cid and Alfonso VI from 1086 . Around this time, Rodrigo gradually took over the protectorate of the Moorish principality of Valencia, which was formally allied with Castile, which he saved from the conquest by the Catalans under Count Berengar Raimund II and from 1089/90 as a bulwark against the again advancing Moorish-Almoravid Sought to expand strength. After the from the Toledo Taifendynastie the Dhun-Nuniden originating Prince Yahya II. Al-Qadir 1,092 killed in the course of a city revolt and the city was temporarily occupied by Almoravid troops of the Cid took it on 15 June 1094 and suggested the relief army of Almoravids a short time later in the battle of Cuarte. Supported by the anti-Almoravid party among the Moorish townspeople and the smaller group of Mozarabs , he then took power in Valencia and ruled the kingdom until his death on July 10, 1099 as chief judge and lord ( Señor ). At first he succeeded in successfully defending against the advancing Almoravids, which he defeated again in January 1097 with the help of King Peter I of Aragon in the Battle of Bairén. Just a few years after Rodrigo's death, however, the city was finally conquered for the Almoravid Empire.

Dominion in Valencia

Rodrigo's rule in Valencia is consistently described in the sources as a strict regiment. There are reports of informers' economy , torture and cruel punishments of hostile citizens. Moorish-Arabic chroniclers and poets unanimously lamented the loss of Valencia as a terrible catastrophe for the residents (although their descriptions certainly also contain propagandistic exaggerations). Of course, the majority of the (mostly Muslim ) residents experienced this period as an occupation . All were forbidden to carry weapons; Opponents of the regime were expelled from the city and had to settle outside the walls in the suburb of Alcúdia, while wealthy partisans of the Cid were allowed to keep their possessions and inner-city houses. One must keep in mind the precarious situation of the new master of this city, the surrounding area was constantly occupied or threatened by enemy forces and which was therefore practically permanently in a kind of "state of siege ". Apparently, in this situation, the Cid tried at least temporarily to bridge religious differences in order to win the population over. As a representative for the city government, he made use of the members of the Jewish community. At the same time he apparently tried to attract Christian settlers into the country, as he founded churches in surrounding places where there had been no Mozarabic Christians until then .

The conversion of the main mosque of Valencia into a Christian cathedral followed the example that King Alfons had given a few years earlier after the conquest of Toledo (1085): There was an initially " tolerant " policy that consciously respected the rights of the Muslim population groups In 1087, with the appointment of the French Archbishop Bernard from the Cluniac order , who was considered a religious “ hardliner ”, a radical U-turn was made. Disregarding earlier promises of the king, the new archbishop in Toledo pursued a combative and uncompromising line towards the non-Christian residents, which also included the conversion of important mosques into churches. Also in Valencia, whose last known Mozarabic had died (ie local) bishop in 1087, became the Cluniazensermönch Jérôme de Périgord to 1098 a Frenchman and confidant Bernards the episcopate , the richest and church politics the matter of Toledo and the Cluniac reform movement represented, which also was in the interests of the financially dependent king on Cluny. All of this must be seen in the context of the upheavals in church politics at that time (in addition to the crusade movement, for example, the successful efforts of Pope Urban II , himself a French and Cluniac, to replace the Mozarabic rite with the Roman one in Spain ). To what extent the Cid was involved and whether these changes served his interests or took place against his will is difficult to say and is controversial.

Apparently with the intention of consolidating alliances , the Cid married his daughters to influential nobles from neighboring kingdoms during this period: A daughter, Cristina, married Ramiro Sánchez de Navarra († 1116), who as lord of Monzón (near Huesca ) was an important one Holds position of power in the Kingdom of Aragon (Cristinas and Ramiros son García was elected King of Navarre in 1134 ). Another daughter of the Cid, María († before 1105), married Count Raimund Berengar III in 1098 . of Barcelona (1082–1131). Later, these events were spelled out in the famous heroic epic ( El Cantar ) into a fabulous story, according to which the daughters of Cid named in the legend "Elvira" and "Sol" allegedly had their first marriage with the Count of Carrión, the brothers Diego and, who were characterized as cowards Fernando Gómez, by whom they were mistreated and cast out and on whom the father took bloody but just revenge . This legend, which has no historical basis, is associated with the name of the city of Carrión de los Condes .

Death and effect

The legendary sword " Tizona " of Campeador El Cid

There is also a legend about the death of the Cid: fatally wounded in an ambush , he made his followers on their deathbed promise to attack the enemy again. According to his wishes, the carefully made-up corpse was tied in full armor to the horse before the battle. His loyal stallion Babieca (according to legend, a prototype of the white Andalusian horse ) carried the dead into the fray with sword in hand. Motivated in this way, his people achieved a brilliant victory over the Berbers, who were frightened by the apparition of the dead.

Little is known about the actual circumstances of his death - El Cid probably died in bed, possibly as a result of an arrow wound.

When Valencia was about to be taken by the Almoravids in 1102 , Alfonso VI , who was called to help . only evacuate the widow and the body of the Cid together with his troops from the city, which he had to surrender to the fire. The goal of stopping the advance of the Berber conquerors in the east of the Pyrenees Peninsula had thus failed. A decisive reason was probably the fact that the Cid no longer had any male descendants after his only son Diego Rodríguez (about whom practically nothing is known) had died in 1097 in the Battle of Consuegra near Toledo.

The cid was buried in his Castilian homeland in the monastery of San Pedro de Cardeña near Burgos; today the tomb is in the Gothic cathedral of Burgos . According to tradition, the Tizona sword he used , which was exhibited for many years in the Army Museum in Madrid , was acquired by the city of Burgos in May 2007 and can now also be viewed in the city's cathedral along with other relics related to the national hero.

Marriage and offspring

Rodrigo Díaz "el Campeador" married Jimena Díaz (* ≈1045, † ≈1116) between July 12, 1074 and May 12, 1076 . She is in the Historia Roderici as a younger relative ( neptis ) of King Alfonso VI. designated by Castile. After Margarita Torres Sevilla she came from the house of the Counts of Céa and was a daughter of Diego Fernández Count in Asturias († July 24, 1046) and his wife Cristina Fernández.

Children:

• Cristina Rodríguez (* ≈1075), ⚭ ≈1099 Ramiro Sánchez Infant of Navarre, Lord of Monzón (* 1064/1075, † 1115/1116). This was a son of the Infante Sancho Garcés lord of Uncastillo and Sangüesa , who in turn was an illegitimate son of García III. Sánchez was King of Navarre (1035-1054). Children:
  • García Ramírez "el Restaurador" King of Navarre (1134–1150)
  • Alfonso Ramírez Infant of Navarre († 1164), Lord of Castroviejo
  • Elvira Ramírez Infanta of Navarre († n. 1163 in Jerusalem), ⚭ 1. (n. 1115) Ladrón Velas lord of Álava; ⚭ 2. (v. 1137) Rodrigo Gómez de Manzanedo
  • Sancho Ramírez “de la Piscina”, Lord of Peñacerrada, Arellano and Puelles
• Diego Rodríguez (* ≈1076, † 1097), fell in the Battle of Consuegra
• María Rodríguez (* ≈1077, † v. 1105) ⚭ ≈1099 as the first wife of Raimund Berengar III. Count of Barcelona (* 1082, † 1131). Daughter:
  • Jimena of Barcelona (* 1105/06); ⚭ 1. (October 1, 1107) Bernardo III. Conde de Besalú († 1111); ⚭ 2nd (≈1117) Roger III. Comte de Foix (* v. 1108, † 1147/48); Offspring: only from their second marriage

Myth and reception

Page from El Cantar de Mio Cid from the Spanish National Library

Early on, El Cid became a literary figure as the main character in the legend that bears his name. The Historia Roderici , which was probably written as early as the beginning of the 12th century, tells of the deeds of the Cid in a rather sober language in Latin . There is a single manuscript of the famous old Spanish epic El Cantar de Mio Cid , recently dated very precisely to the year 1235, which is kept in the National Library in Madrid . According to the prevailing opinion today and confirmed by Spanish researchers in 2006, it is a copy of the original of the epic written down by a certain Pere Abat in 1207. Some researchers suspected the oral or written origins of this poetry as early as the first half of the 12th century; however, this opinion is very controversial and is rarely held today. In the work, the cid is glorified as the ideal figure of Spanish chivalry and (unhistorically) portrayed as an advocate or pioneer of the crusade idea. That is why the fact that the cid was in the service of Moorish princes for a long time is generously overlooked, because it is said to appear as a defender of Christianity and as a victor over the Moors. The heroic epic ( Chanson de geste ) is one of the great works of Spanish medieval literature and in terms of quantity makes up more than half of the traditional Spanish heroic epic.

From the later Middle Ages, the literary material of the Cantar became the subject of a large number of retold chivalric novels , chronicler reports and retellings. Over time there were always new variations and styles of history. Even a kind of early “ copyright dispute ” developed from it when the tragic comedy Le Cid by Pierre Corneille, performed in 1636 and very successful in France, sparked a literary feud ( Querelle du Cid ). However, the early hero song itself was practically forgotten, it was only published in 1779 and then rediscovered by the romanticism that glorified the Middle Ages . The verse epic “Der Cid” written by Johann Gottfried Herder, which was one of his last works and was particularly popular in the 19th century, also contributed to this in German-speaking countries.

Authors and composers ( Le Cid by Jules Massenet 1885 and Rodrigue et Chimène by Claude Debussy 1893) have been occupied with the subject matter and the figure of the cid until very recently. Sun also published Herder 1805 a ballad about the Spanish knight ( The Cid. After the Spanish romances sung by JG Herder ). A (long unrecognized) masterful travesty of Herder's Cid can be found in Arno Schmidt's novel KAFF also Mare Crisium from 1960.

In Spain in 1929 the highly regarded historical standard work La España del Cid (German Das Spanien des Cid , Munich 1936–1937) by the philologist and historian Ramón Menéndez Pidal (1869–1968) was published, who made lasting contributions to the preservation and research of the long Manuscript of the Cantar in his possession , which he preserved from being sold abroad. Menéndez Pidal had made research into the cid his life's work. Regardless of his meticulous study and his careful, detailed and scientific way of working, he painted a rather transfigured picture of the hero and tended to develop theories or look for evidence that the historicity of the (today largely regarded as legendary) descriptions in the Cantar underpin. With his work, which is also to be critically appreciated in the context of recent Spanish history since 1898 and with which he explicitly wanted to make a contribution to the formation of a Spanish national identity, he made a decisive contribution to the elevation of the figure to the " national hero " and to the survival of the idea by El Cid as a knightly hero comparable to King Arthur or Richard the Lionheart "without fear and blame".

filming

The historical film El Cid, made by Anthony Mann in 1961 and starring Charlton Heston and Sophia Loren , is very well known . The most important historical advisor was Menéndez Pidal, who was then over ninety years old. The music was composed by the Hollywood veteran Miklós Rózsa , who specializes in monumental films .

In April 2005 the Spanish cartoon El Cid - The Legend (2003, original title: El Cid: La Leyenda ) was released in German cinemas. The epilogue of this cartoon very aptly reflects the key message of the legend that, starting from the Cantar , continues to shape the image of the Cid through Menéndez Pidal and Heston: “El Cid never fought for personal wealth or fame, he fought for the forgiveness of his king and for his honor. ”Obviously, however, this has little to do with historical reality.

Computer games

• In the expansion The Conquerors of the strategy game Age of Empires II you play through six missions of different stages of your life in a campaign about El Cid.
• In the mobile game Rise of Kingdoms he is an unlockable commander.

Epitaph

The (Menéndez Pidal wrote) grave inscription for El Cid and his wife in the cathedral of Burgos is:

"Aquí yacen Rodrigo Díaz, el Campeador, muerto en Valencia en 1099, y su esposa Jimena, hija del conde Diego de Oviedo, de regia estirpe.
A todos alcanza la honra del que en buena hora nació "

“Here rest Rodrigo Díaz, the Campeador, who died in Valencia in 1099, and his wife Jimena, daughter of Count Diego of Oviedo, from the royal family. All attained the honor of him who was born in the right hour. "

The second sentence of the inscription is a linguistically slightly modernized quote from the end of the cantar . The statement is in the context of the relationship between the Cid and the Christian ruling families of the Iberian Peninsula , established by the marriage of his daughters and highlighted in the Cantar : His fame radiates on them all , he does them all to honor , they all boast of him. Menéndez Pidal then to a certain extent reinterprets this statement and relates it to “all Spaniards” or “all visitors” to the burial place. The designation of the Cid as “the one who was born at the right hour” (to be understood in the sense of “under a lucky star ”, “as a child of happiness ” or the like) is one of the heroes that occurs frequently in the epic happy compliment.

literature

• El Cantar del Mio Cid. Max Hueber Verlag, Munich 1998. ISBN 3-19-004113-X .
• The Cid - the old Spanish heroic epic , translated from Spanish by Fred Eggarter, Stuttgart, Reclam, ISBN 978-3-15-000759-4 .
• R. Dozy: History of the Moors in Spain. Until the conquest of Andalusia (711–1110). Leipzig 1874 (2 volumes).
• Richard Fletcher: El Cid. Life and legend of the Spanish national hero. Berlin 1999. ISBN 3-88679-312-5 . ( Helpful review here ).
• Lexikon des Mittelalters , Vol. 2, Col. 2078-2082; Munich 2002 (TB edition). ISBN 3-423-59057-2 .
• Ramón Menéndez Pidal: The Cid and His Spain. Translated [into English] by Harold Sunderland. London 1971, ISBN 0-7146-1508-0 . The two-volume German edition of the work under the title “Das Spanien des Cid” dates from 1936/37 .
• Karoline Michaëlis : Explanations of Herder's "Cid" . In: The Cid, sung about from Spanish romances, with an introduction about Herder and his importance for German literature , Library of German National Literature of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, Leipzig 1868, pp. 127–141.
• Don Manuel Malo de Molina: Rodrigo el Campeador ; Madrid 1857.
• Dolores Oliver Pérez: El Cantar de Mío Cid: génesis y autoría árabe ; Almería 2008, ISBN 978-84-934026-7-9 .
• Timoteo Riaño Rodríguez, among others: El Cantar de Mio Cid , Vol. 1: El Manuscrito del Cantar (The handwriting of the Cantar). Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, Alicante 2003.
• This: Vol. 2: Fecha y autor del Cantar de Mio Cid (dating and authorship of the Cantar de Mio Cid). Ibid., 2006.
• Frank Baer: The bridge of Alcántara . Munich 1988. ISBN 3-442-72087-7 . ( historical novel ) .

Web links

Commons : El Cid  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about El Cid in the catalog of the German National Library
• Article about the "Cantar de Mio Cid" from Kindler's new literary dictionary : [1]
• English translation of the "Cantar de Mio Cid" online: [2]
• The "Cantar de Mio Cid" online (Spanish): [3]
  (Photographic reproduction of the original manuscript and several transcriptions, images and scientific papers)
• The "Cantar de Mio Cid" online and interactive (Spanish and English): [4]
  (created at the University of Texas and currently probably the most appealing Cid project on the Internet: You can have the entire text read out to you and in pictures of the original manuscript, Subtitles or in the English translation and read comments or look at illustrations)
• Tourist travel description on the trail of the cid legend through Spain: [5] (article by Manuel Meyer on spiegel.de )
• JG Herder: The Cid ; Fraktur reprint in the Arno Schmidt reference library of the GASL, with a historical introduction from 1805 (PDF; 4.08 MB)

Remarks

1. ↑ See homepage of Vivar del Cid ; the village has around 140 inhabitants today.
2. ↑ According to legendary tradition, at the death of Alfonso II of Asturias (842) , the Castilians elected two judges who were to regulate their affairs independently of the Asturian court, which for a long time was considered to be the birth of the independence of Castile.
3. ↑ cf. Fletcher 1999, Riaño 2006 (see lit.)
4. ↑ Retold by Lucy Berman in: Famous Horses. Your stories and legends. Hamburg, 1972. p. 45.
5. ↑ Torres Sevilla-Quiñones de León, Margarita Cecilia: Linajes Nobiliarios en León y Castilla (Siglos IX -XIII). Junta de Castilla y León, Consejería de Educación y Cultura. Salamanca, 1999. ISBN 84-7846-781-5 .
6. ↑ Ricardo del Arco y Garay: Dos Infantes de Navarra, señores en Monzón. In: Príncipe de Viana. 10: 249-74. 1949.
7. ↑ European Family Tables, New Series, Volume II, Verlag von JAStargardt, 1984; Plate 56.
8. ↑ Note for philologists : The word Mio in the work title is an atonal possessive pronoun that no longer exists in modern Spanish (use structurally similar to Portuguese meu , Italian mio and French mon ) and is written without (unlike the modern Spanish word mío ) Acute .
9. ^ Research by Riaño Rodríguez and Gutiérrez Aja , 2003 .
10. ↑ Dies., 2006 (PDF; 387 kB).
11. ↑ Johann Gottfried Herder: The Cid . 1st edition. tape 667 . Insel-Bücherei, 1984, ISBN 3-921846-44-7 , p. 172 .
12. ↑ "Even if I am concerned with researching our national past", Menéndez Pidal said in an interview in 1916, "nothing interests me as much as our present and our future" (quoted from Fletcher 1999). Fletcher says: “As a patriot whose homeland was going through troubled times, he presented his compatriots with a national hero whom they could enjoy and whose virtues they should emulate. For Menéndez Pidal there was no separation between history and myth. The cid of history was as flawless in character and actions as the cid of saga. "
13. ↑ More details here ( Memento from April 21, 2006 in the Internet Archive ), review here ( Memento of the original from September 29, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . 
14. ↑ So says the blurb of R. Fletcher's non-fiction book El Cid (1999): “Embedded in 500 years of Spanish history, the author describes meticulously how and why a Castilian knight from the 11th century turned into the hero he never did was . "(emphasis added by the author)
15. ↑ For example: "The warrior, warrior".
16. ↑ Verse 3725: “A todos alcança ondra | por el q ~ en buen ora naçio ”.