But before he can leave Cardena, he is joined by a retinue of over a hundred knights prepared to follow him into exile. He can offer them nothing now, he tells them, but that will all change in the future. Jimena’s very long prayer is a cleverly placed reminder that the Cid is, above all, a Christian lord. There is no mention in the entire Poema of his ever having been in the service of a Muslim amir or of fighting alongside one. Her prayer ends:

  ‘Thou art the King of Kings and of the whole world Father. I adore thee and believe with all my will and I pray to St Peter that he may aid my prayer that God may keep from harm my Cid the Campeador.’27

  Rodrigo’s journey is described in minute detail, camping at Espinoza de Can, riding past the ‘goodly city’ of San Estaban, crossing the river Duero at the Figuerala. Clearly, whoever the author of the Poema was, this was home territory for him. And all the time men flock to his banner. In the Sierra Miedes, the angel Gabriel appears to Rodrigo, promising him ‘as long as you live that which is yours will prosper.’28

  Military action soon follows and in this first cantar of the Poema, Alvar Fañez Minaya emerges not only as the Cid’s right hand, often dripping with enemy blood up to his elbow, but as a kind of staff officer given to dazzling tactical ideas which he suggests to the Cid:

  ‘With one hundred of our company,

  after we have surprised and taken Castejon,

  do you remain there and be our fixed base.

  Give me two hundred to go on a raid.

  With God and good fortune, we shall take rich spoils.’29

  Interestingly, although Rodrigo and Fañez are planning an ambush, the author sees nothing sneaky or unheroic about that. The realities of mountain warfare were clearly known to him. At the gates of Castejon, the Cid thunders into action:

  ‘My Cid Ruy Diaz rode in at the gate;

  in his hand he carried a naked sword.

  Fifteen Moors he killed who came in his way,

  took Castejon and its gold and silver.’30

  Fañez, raiding along the river Guadalajara with his two hundred, is equally successful. Rodrigo names some of his men – Muno Gustioz ‘who was his vassal’ and Felix Munoz, the Cid’s nephew; Alvar Alvarez, Alvar Salvadorez, Galindo Garcia, ‘excellent knight of Aragon’ – but it is not possible to be certain whether these characters really existed or are simply fictional creations.

  Fañez emerges as a true hero and a steadfast friend. The mercenary theme of money that runs through the Poema makes it clear that the leaders of raids took one-fifth of the prize money as their own, for personal use. It was this loot that made the Cid and his lady seriously rich during their lifetime. But Fañez turns down his cut, saying:

  ‘I thank you from my heart, famous Campeador,

  for this fifth part which you offer me;

  it would please Alfonso the Castilian.

  I give it up and return it to you.

  I make a vow to God who is in heaven;

  Until I have satisfied myself on my good horse

  with joining battle in the field with the Moors,

  with handling the lance and taking up the sword,

  with the blood running to above my elbow,

  before Ruy Diaz, the famous warrior,

  I shall not take from you one wretched farthing.’31

  Rodrigo may not be portrayed as fighting with the Moors in the Poema, but, rather like his relationship with the Jewish moneylenders, he is quite prepared to do business with them. He sells his share of the spoils to the Moors for 3,000 silver marks, and then he’s on the move. Again, we are in country familiar to the author – from Castejon, the Cid rides on past the caves of Anguita, crossing the river into the Plain of Taranz. He defends a camp on a round hill surrounded by water near Alcocer, helping himself to spoils as he goes. It is entirely feasible that the clashes the Cid had here represent some of those battles the author of the Historia Roderici says it would be tedious to recount or about which he had no knowledge. And at Alcocer, we have a glimpse of Rodrigo as general. Reinforcing his hill fort by digging a ditch to create a moat, the Cid settles down to a fifteen week siege. The villages go over to him – Terrer, Calatayud – but Alcocer remains firm behind its stone ramparts. So the Cid feigns a withdrawal, leaving only one tent standing and the citizens, thinking the evacuation is genuine, open their gates and give chase:

  ‘The Campeador turned his face around;

  he judged the distance between the Moors and their castle,

  bade them turn with their banner …

  Halfway across the meadow they came together.

  God, their hearts were glad upon that morning.’32

  With the Moors caught out in the open, it was no contest –

  ‘Know, in this manner, my Cid took Alcocer.’33

  A new name now appears as Rodrigo’s man Pedro Bermudez plants the Cid’s banner at a high point in the city, as a symbol of Christianity and power. Whether this was the golden dragon of the Carmen or some over device we do not know, but by the time the Poema was written and certainly by the time Per Abbat copied it, true heraldry was an exact science and all the colour of the Heston film would have been a reality in Spain.

  Retribution is soon on its way when the local citizenry beg King Tamin of Valencia to eject the Cid. He sends the minor kings Fariz and Galve to besiege Alcocer and they try to cut off the water supply to the city. Again, it is Fañez who suggests a sortie at dawn and the Cid appoints Pedro Bermudez as his standard bearer:

  ‘What haste among the Moors. ‘They set to arm.

  It seemed the earth could split with the noise of their drums

  … and as for the coloured pennons, who could count them?

  … They clasp their shields over their hearts,

  they lower the lances swathed in pennons,

  they bared their faces over their saddletrees …

  “I am Ruy Diaz, the Cid, the Campeador of Bivar!”’34

  What we have here is an important affirmation of the battle tactics of the Cid’s time or shortly after it. His knights are charging the enemy with their lances at rest, under their arms and to bend low over the saddle, they would have to ride with straight legs and long stirrup-leathers. The self-announcement by the Cid can be taken as a sort of battle cry, rather as the Saxons at Hastings when Rodrigo was a young man shouted ‘Out! Out!’ and the crusaders in Jerusalem as he lay dying bellowed ‘Deus Lo Volt.’35

  Chapter Thirty Six gives an encapsulation of the traditional Cid-against-the-Moors scenario:

  ‘You would have seen so many lances rise and go under,

  So many bucklers [shields] pierced and split asunder,

  So many coats of mail break and darken,

  So many white pennons drawn out red with blood,

  So many good horses run without their riders.

  The Moors call on Mohammed and the Christians on

  St James.’36

  True to the poetic tradition continued into the Shakespearean era and beyond, leader fights with leader, as was the natural order of things. So Rodrigo duels personally with King Fariz, hitting him so hard with his third sword stroke that the enemy break and the field is won. Martin Antolinez goes one better fighting with Galve:

  ‘He broke in pieces the rubies of his helmet;

  he split the helmet, cut into the flesh.’37

  With the spoils of this battle, Rodrigo sends ‘a bootful’ of gold and silver to Santa Maria in Burgos to pay for a thousand Masses, the remainder to go to his wife and daughters, then he sells Alcocer back to the Moors. He does this several times in the Poema, contrary to historical evidence elsewhere, but it does show the Cid’s fascinating nature. War was a way of life to him, as was loot. As he tells his men:

  ‘Lances and swords must be our shelter, or else on this meagre earth we cannot live.’38

  The birds wheel overhead again as the Cid leaves Alcocer and he is on the road again. Alvar Fañez is sent with a share of the loot to Alfonso of Castile, who promptly pardons him on the spot; but ‘of the Cid Campeador I [Alfonso] will say nothing.’39 This is an important passage because it creates the myth, current still today and blessed by an historian of the eminence of Menendez Pidal, that Rodrigo was unswervingly loyal to his king and did all that he did, including the taking of Valencia, in his name and out of devotion to Castile. It is simply not true.

  Large numbers follow Fañez with Alfonso’s backing to join the exile. For fifteen weeks (the usual time attributed to sieges in the Poema) the Cid lays waste to the Martin valley near Zaragoza and camps on the stone ledge of El Poyo –

  ‘As long as there are Moors and Christian people,

  it will be called the Chair of the Cid.’40

  Rodrigo’s raiding now takes him into the lands of the Count of Barcelona – the Pass of Olocau, Huesca and Montalban. The Count is miffed:

  ‘It weighed on him heavily.

  He took it as an affront.’41

  It is clear from the Poema that there is already bad blood between the Count and Rodrigo -

  ‘He offended me once in my own court;

  he struck my nephew and gave no reparation.’42

  - and this incursion with his outlawed bandits is the last straw. He gathers his mixed army of Christians and Moors and finds Rodrigo in the pine grove at Tevar. Again, we have a tantalizing glimpse of the Cid’s battle tactics:

  ‘Cinch tight the saddles and arm yourselves.

  They are coming downhill, all of them in breeches.

  Their saddles are flat and the girths loose.

  We shall ride with Galician saddles, with boots over our hose.’43

  The exact meaning of the different riding techniques is now lost to time. Rodrigo is confident and is successful, of course, and in the heat of battle, he wins an important prize – ‘the sword Colada, worth more than a thousand marks’44 (a third of the price of the city of Alcocer).

  Ramon of Barcelona now goes on hunger strike, playing a psychological game of cat and mouse with the Cid which does not end until Rodrigo lets him go. It is perhaps based on fact and perhaps represents an attempt by Ramon Berenguer to go home with some of his dignity intact. In fact, of course, he had lost, men, territory and a sizeable chunk of tribute to the Cid, who probably never intended to kill his man anyway. Here, with the Cid’s men ‘so rich they cannot count all they have’ the first cantar ends.

  The opening of the second cantar – The Wedding – follows on and takes the story on to Valencia, with Rodrigo growing in reputation as his army prospers. Almencar, Jerica, Burriana, Murviedro – the place names are accurate and they echo what we know about the real Rodrigo:

  ‘They are frightened in Valencia, they do not know what to do.

  Know, the fame of my Cid has gone everywhere.’45

  And the poet gets it more or less right when he explains the lack of support from Yusuf Ibn Teshufin: ‘he was so deep in war with the King of the Atlas [mountains] that he neither sent to advise them nor came to their rescue.’46

  The taking of Valencia is reasonably accurate too – a nine-month siege followed by the acquisition of vast riches; Rodrigo’s fifth is worth 30,000 marks in cash, let alone goods, and

  ‘His flag flew from the top of the Moorish palace.’47

  Once again, the faithful Cid sends presents back to Alfonso of Castile.

  In dealing with Rodrigo’s government of Valencia, the poet is again well-informed and pulls no punches. The Cid is ready to hang men who attempt to desert him and he welcomes the fighting cleric Jeronimo – ‘Bishop Don Jerome’. He is –

  ‘learned in letters and with much wisdom

  and a ready warrior on foot or on a horse.’48

  Valencia has a bishop again and all Christendom is delighted.

  In the Poema, Alfonso has in effect been holding the Cid’s family prisoner at Cardena and the long-suffering Alvar Fañez is once again at his court, giving the king the Cid’s present of a hundred richly harnessed horses. He asks for Jimena and her girls to be released and Alfonso complies:

  ‘It pleases my heart;

  I shall provide them with escort while they go through my lands

  and keep them from harm and grievance and from dishonour.’49

  Only once in the entire Poema does the Cid admit to having Moorish allies:

  ‘Ride forward through Santa Maria to Molina, which is further on;

  Abengalbon [Ibn Ghalbun] is lord there, my friend, at peace with me.’50

  In Chapter 86 we learn that Babieca is not only a stallion, but the animal was acquired from the amir of Seville:

  ‘He who was born in good hour did not delay;

  he put on his silk tunic, his long beard hung down;

  they saddled for him Babieca and fastened the caparisons [harness].

  My Cid rode out upon him bearing wooden arms.

  On the horse they called Babieca he rode, rode at a gallop;

  it was a wonder to watch … from that day Babieca was famous through all Spain.’51

  Reunited with his adoring family, Rodrigo goes to the highest vantage point in Valencia and

  ‘their eyes behold the sea.

  They look on the farmlands, wide and thick with green.’52

  The King of Morocco, called Yusuf in the Poema is greatly annoyed, remarking:

  ‘For in the lands that are mine he has trespassed gravely and gives thanks for it to no one save Jesus Christ.’53

  So Yusuf Ibn Teshufin sails across the Straits with an army of 50,000 and Rodrigo makes a curious comment:

  ‘My wife and daughters will see me in battle,

  in these foreign lands they will see how houses are made,

  they will see clearly how we earn our bread.’54

  It is almost as though the taking of cities and destroying of countryside is just a day-job like any other, and the battle-hardened veteran takes a teenage delight in ‘showing off’ in front of his family.

  In his description of the battle of Cuarte, in which yet again the Cid achieved surprise by striking out from a beleaguered and apparently hopeless situation, the poet has Rodrigo encountering Ibn Teshufin personally, wounding him three times with his sword. Again, vast riches fall to the Cid’s men –

  ‘a thousand horses of the best and best broken’ …

  …’precious tents and jewelled tent poles’55

  - one of which, Ibn Teshufin’s, Rodrigo sends back to Alfonso.

  At this point, the Poema’s version of the Cid’s exploits, with various minor exceptions, not at all far from the truth, now descends into fairytale. Two Castilian noblemen, Diego and Fernando, called usually the Heirs of Carrion, an area to the west of Burgos, press Alfonso to give them the Cid’s daughters in marriage. It is clear throughout that these men are Machiavellian schemers in league with Garcia Ordoñez the Cid’s implacable enemy at court and they are blatantly after the Cid’s money. Carrion is real, but nothing else about this interlude rings true. The girls are called Elvira and Sol, as though the poet had no idea of their real names. The Cid smells a rat, but as the loyal subject of Alfonso who also wants the weddings to take place, he reluctantly agrees.

  The third cantar continues the theme. Once the poet is locked into the fiction of the daughters’ weddings, the Outrage at Corpes is a particularly unlikely way to get back to reality. This section opens with the Cid’s pet lion escaping and so terrifies the Heirs that they end up hiding under the furniture. Rodrigo, of course, calmly sorts the problem out:

  ‘My Cid rose to his elbow, got to his feet,

  with his cloak on his shoulders walked towards the lion;

  the lion, when he saw him, was so filled with shame,

  before my Cid he bowed his head and put his face down.

  My Cid Rodrigo took him by the neck, led him as with a halter

  and put him in his cage.’56

  It is entirely plausible that Rodrigo Diaz did own a lion. Presents of exotic beasts stretch back to the ancient world and the fact that this animal was caged in Valencia may mean that it was originally a pet of al-Qadir, the last amir before the Cid took the city. The incident is bizarre, but of course its purpose in the Poema is to point up the cowardice of the Heirs of Carrion, which becomes even more apparent when a new Almoravid army arrives, under King Bucar ‘of whom you have heard tell.’57

  This may refer to Teshufin’s nephew Mohammed, but rather than seeing it as Rodrigo did, with the grim determination of the fortress mentality, in the Poema it is a cause for rejoicing, because here is another opportunity for plunder. In the battle that follows, the Cid crosses swords with Bucar and the result is devastating:

  ‘The Cid overtook Bucar three fathoms from the sea,

  raised Colada and struck him a great blow,

  and there he cut away the jewels of his helmet,

  split the helmet and driving through all below,

  as far as the waist his sword sank.’58

  In the right hands, a broadsword could perhaps split a skull, but anything beyond that is a work of imagination. Stories of Saxon two-handed axes doing similar damage at Hastings in 1066 are probably equally ‘tall’. From this encounter, the Cid obtained his second sword, Tizon, ‘worth a thousand marks of gold.’59

  In an unusual aside, Rodrigo allows himself a little vanity:

  ‘I win battles, as pleases the Creator;

  Moors and Christians go in fear of me.

  There in Morocco, where the mosques are,

  they tremble lest perhaps some night I should take them by surprise’…60

  We can almost hear him pausing and winking to his audience:

  ‘…but I plan no such thing.

  I shall not go seeking them, but stay in Valencia…’61

  Rodrigo gives his splendid swords to his sons-in-law as they ride back to their homes with their new brides – ‘The Heirs have ridden out from Valencia the Shining.’62 And on the way, the dastardly pair plot to kill Abengalbon, who quickly rumbles them and only lets them pass on because of his respect for the Cid.

 

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