Who is el cid

El Cid willingly returned and was instrumental in the defeat at Sagrajas in He stayed in favor with Alfonso for only a brief time: in he was exiled again. Rodrigo gained his nickname "El Cid" at some point during his military career, perhaps after his battles at Saragossa. The name El Cid is a Spanish dialect version of the Arabic word "sidi," meaning "lord" or "sir. After being exiled from Alfonso's court for the second time, El Cid left the capital to became an independent commander in the eastern part of the Iberian peninsula.

He fought and extracted enormous amounts of tribute from the Muslim taifas, and, on June 15, , he captured the city of Valencia. He successfully fought off two Almoravid armies who attempted to dislodge him in and He established himself as an independent prince in the region based at Valencia.

The Almoravids recaptured Valencia three years later. There are four documents which were written about El Cid during his lifetime or shortly thereafter. Two are Islamic, and three are Christian; none are likely to be unprejudiced. The "Historia Roderici" was written in Latin by a Catholic cleric sometime before The poem "Carmen," written in Latin about , extols the battle between Rodrigo and the Count of Barcelona; and the "Poema del Cid," was written in Spanish about Later documents written long after El Cid's life are even more likely to be fabulous legends rather than biographical sketches.

Actively scan device characteristics for identification. Episode guide. Play trailer Action Drama History. See more at IMDbPro. Episodes Browse episodes. Top Top-rated. Trailer Teaser Temporada 2 [ES]. El Cid. Photos Top cast Edit. Jaime Lorente Ruy as Ruy. Despite this, he never frequented the court, perhaps because his family had fallen into disgrace at the beginning of the 11th century, by rising up against Fernando I.

The king made him a knight and Rodrigo rode alongside him in what would be his first combat, the battle of Graus near Huesca , in He also made each of them the protector of two Andalusi kingdoms, which were to pay them a peerage a tax in return for their protection. The balance of forces remained unstable and conflicts soon began to break out, which finally led to war.

View of Burgos. In Sancho II and Alfonso VI confronted each other in the battle of Llantada, on the banks of the river Pisuerga, where the former defeated the latter, although the battle was not decisive. Young Rodrigo who would at that time have been about 23 years old stood out as a brave knight during these confrontations and, according to an old tradition, documented at the end of the 12th century, he became second lieutenant or standard bearer of Sancho during those combats, although the documents written at that time contain no record of his holding that post.

Following the defeat of Alfonso which led him to be exiled in Toledo , Sancho II had reunified the territories ruled by his father. However, he was not able to enjoy this new situation for long. Sancho laid siege to Zamora with his army, during which Rodrigo also performed heroic deeds, but the king paid with his life, and was struck down during a bold plot devised by the knight from Zamora, Bellido Dolfos. The unexpected death of Sancho II paved the way for his brother, Alfonso, to claim the throne.

He quickly returned from Toledo to occupy his place. The 13th-century legend shows the famous image of a solemn Rodrigo who, speaking out for the distrustful vassals of Sancho, obliged Alfonso to swear he had nothing to do with the death of his brother Sancho in the church of Santa Gadea or Agatha in Burgos, which would have earned him the enmity of the new monarch.

On the contrary, no-one requested him to take that oath, and in addition the Battler, who was a regular member of court, had earned the trust of Alfonso VI, who appointed him judge in a series of quarrels with Asturias in This marriage was the kind of marriage that a nobleman of first rank would aspire to achieving, which just goes to show that the Battler was very well situated in court circles.

The traditional version is that the fact that Rodrigo had defeated one of his own was not well considered in high court circles, for which reason people began to speak ill of him to the king.

However, there is no proof that this caused any hostility against the Battler, among other things, because Alfonso VI was interested in supporting the king of Seville against the king of Badajoz, for political reasons, and so he was likely not at all pleased by the participation of his nobles in the attack by Granada.

Santo Domingo de Silos, Burgos. In all cases, similar political reasons led Rodrigo to fall into disgrace. During that difficult time, Alfonso VI maintained king Alqadir who was merely a puppet on the throne of Toledo, despite the opposition of many of his subjects. Rodrigo stood up to the invaders and routed them with his small army, driving them outside the frontier, which, in principle, was merely a routine operation.

However, under those circumstances the Castilian attack would serve as an excuse for the faction opposing Alqadir and Alfonso VI. In addition, the other chieftains began to ask themselves why they were paying taxes if it did not guarantee them protection. So he forced the Battler into exile. Gormaz, Soria. Be that as it may, the case is that Rodrigo decided to go to Saragossa and serve its king. Hollywood would base an epic movie on his feats, the El Cid , with Charlton Heston in the lead role.

At Valencia, Rodrigo added an important chapter to that story. Thanks to an ingenious surprise attack, he routed the Muslim forces, becoming the only Christian leader of the 11th century to defeat the mighty Almoravid army in open battle.

It was a victory that inspired Christian Europe, emphatic proof that the long-dominant Muslim armies could be beaten. His task: protect Zaragoza against encroaching neighbors, whether Muslim or Christian. Alfonso VI, meanwhile, set out to reunite all Iberia under his Christian rule.

Alfonso, envisioning himself as the predestined leader of a Christian reconquest of Iberia, declared himself emperor of all Spain in and increased his tribute demands. In turn, taifa princes petitioned bin Tashufin, the great Berber leader in Africa, for help. Bin Tashufin initially resisted their entreaties; he considered the taifa princes irreligious and indolent.

But in , Alfonso conquered Toledo, the largest city in Muslim Spain and a center of Islamic scholarship, and made it his capital. On July 30, , bin Tashufin crossed the Strait of Gibraltar and landed at the port city of Algeciras with 4, Berber and African cavalry and infantry. A few days later, he appeared at a large Seville mosque and summoned the Muslims of al-Andalus to jihad.

In October, he set off to rendezvous with Andalusian troops at Badajoz, in western Iberia. On October 23 the armies met at Sagrajas, a few miles east of Badajoz. Alfonso, himself wounded, narrowly escaped with of his knights. The next morning, the heads of the Christian fallen were lopped off, loaded onto carts, and taken to cities throughout al-Andalus to prove the Almoravid victory.

Bin Tashufin was unable to follow up on this triumph; uprisings in Morocco and other trouble forced his return to Africa. Nevertheless, Sagrajas weakened Alfonso, and taifa rulers entered into alliances with bin Tashufin. The king wanted to regain control of Valencia, the important commercial and cultural center in the east. Alfonso believed the people of Valencia and the small taifas in eastern Iberia might welcome a new ruler.

About half were Mozarabs, Christians who favored Arabic speech, dress, and customs. The Andalusian Muslims, meanwhile, split into pro- and anti-Almoravid factions. As part of his reconciliation with Alfonso, Rodrigo won the right to keep lands he seized from Muslim rule.

Within six years of Sagrajas, he had established a protectorate over much of the coast. The climax of his campaign came in May , when he occupied Valencia after an month siege, evicted the governing pro-Almoravid faction, and assumed the reins of power. In August , a huge Almoravid army crossed the Gibraltar Strait.