http://www.medievalists.net/2014/01/14/el-cid-cluny-and-the-medieval-spanish-reconquista/

El Cid, Cluny and the Medieval Spanish Reconquista

BY 

MEDIEVALISTS.NET

 – JANUARY 14, 2014

El Cid, Cluny and the Medieval Spanish Reconquista

Simon Barton (University of Exeter)

English Historical Review: Vol. CXXVI No. 520 (2011)

Abstract

Rodrigo Díaz, better known by his title El Cid, has traditionally been portrayed as one of the great heroes of Spanish history, perhaps the Spanish national hero par excellence. Our ‘vision’ of this Castilian nobleman, whose main claim to fame was his conquest of the Muslim city of Valencia in 1094, is drawn principally from the testimony of a clutch of sources composed between fifty to a hundred years after his death and it is on these texts, on the posthumous portrayal of El Cid, that most scholars have concentrated their efforts. There is, however, one precious source that has not yet received the attention it deserves as the only document drawn up in El Cid’s name in Valencia that has survived to this day.