Spanish Series: Part 2 - El Cid

Only the most awesome of the Spanish
were depicted with swords on horseback.

This will be a continuation on the Reconquista, the first volume of the Spanish Series. Here's the highlights; the powerful Islamic nations, branching from the Middle East all the way to the west coast of Africa are starting to make some headway in Europe through the Iberian Peninsula. It's like a game of risk; territories are taken, people are angry to the point of fighting, and it takes course over about eight hundred years; the only difference is the warring parties didn't start out as friends. Anyways, I digress; what you need to know is the Muslims were taking land in Spain, and the Christians were pissed and were going to fight like all heck to take it back. And that's where our friend Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar comes in - more commonly known as El Cid. 

The strange part about El Cid is he ends up being a champion of both the Muslims and the Christians, despite the fact that he fought for both sides at some point during the Reconquista. He's a national hero of Spain now, and he at one point fought for the Muslim takeover of the place. How the heck did this happen? It's like some backwards nation where you kill members of the government and all of a sudden become hailed as one of the greatest members of the country, living or dead. Oh, wait, that's exactly what happened with Louis Riel. Well, ignore the "backwards" part and put it in the "apparently common?" category. 

El Cid's sword: if life were a video game, it would
be a legendary item.

Anyways, his story: he was the commander of Castile (one of the mini-kingdoms that was in place before Spain became a country) under the rulership of Sancho II (possibly better than Sancho I, but who's to say?). This was all well and good for a time. He came to be known as somewhat of a military tactician, defeating a fair few armies in his day. Things were going well for him - but not for Sancho. Sancho was the oldest of three brothers vying for power - oldest is a good thing of course, as that means you typically have the most of it. Unfortunately, his brothers weren't that cool with this, and it caused a lot of infighting. El Cid fought on his behalf to defeat his brothers, most notably Alfonso, as well as some Muslim kingdoms in the meantime (this is where he earned the title "El Campeador" - the Champion - for the one on one defeat of a knight). This was all well and good, until something particularly bad happened.

Sancho died.

That meant that all the power goes to the next oldest brother - Alfonso - and with that all of the military might - which means El Cid. Talk about awkward; the guy was busy mounting forces to kill the guys he's now supposed to be working side by side with. Naturally, it became a little too tough to reconcile and El Cid was promptly exiled. So here's El Cid, this military commander who has pretty well pissed off everyone by killing Alfonso's men, the Moors, and... well that pretty much covers everyone you can upset. So he went to option two - the Moors! Fortunately for him, they took him in...

The other stature of El Cid (that I can find
on the internet). In this one, he is also
depicted as awesome.

...and he promptly started to crush the armies of Alfonso. Working with the Muslims, he earned the title "El Cid" which means "the Lord". So on one side he's the Lord, and the other, the Champion. It's like they're fighting over who can give the guy the cooler nickname. Historically, it seems like the Muslims won that battle. Anyways, he's busy defeating Alfonso who takes note of the fact that his armies are being decimated and decides maybe getting rid of El Cid was an error - it certainly was.

El Cid then returns, makes peace, and decides to create an army of his own full of both Muslims and Christians and takes over Valencia. He was still politically affiliated with Alfonso, but he was almost entirely independent. Unfortunately, he managed to find another enemy (this time the Berbers, the previously Muslim-allied inhabitants of North Africa) and he eventually died during the siege. 

Now, despite my extensive wikipedia-ing, I can't for the life of me figure out exactly why he's such a hero that he is. Yes, he was an absolute champ on the battlefield, but... for the most part he was pretty soldier of fortune-like. That's a characteristic that doesn't typically land you in the "big book of good guys" very often, so that leaves me, admittedly, a little confused. Perhaps I should watch the 1961 historical epic El Cid starring Charlton Heston. That, or not do any of that.

Famous Historical Figures Do the Darndest Things!

1. El Cid went all video-game style and decided to name his swords and horse - Tizona and Babieca, respectively. Babieca apparently has a tomb. Something about the fact that that horse will undoubtedly be remembered for centuries longer than my name bothers me somewhat. 
2. There is a legend of El Cid where his corpse, shortly after his death during the siege on Valencia, was placed on his horse with full battle regalia. This was meant to inspire the troops... somehow. Eventually, it was adapted into a film called Weekend at Bernie's.