i I = i - I Oxford University Press Oxjbrd New York Toronto Delhi Bombay Calcutta Madras Karachi Petaling Jaya Singpore Hong Kong Tokyo Nairobi Dar es Salaam Cape Town Melbourne Auckland and associated companies in Berlin Ibadan Copyright © 1989 by Richard Fletcher First published in Great Britain by Century Hutchinson Ltd., London, in 1989 First published in the United Stales by AIJred A. Knopf, Inc., New York, in 1990 First issued as an Oxford University Press paperback, 1991 Published by arrangement with AIJred A Knopf, Inc. Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No pars of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press, inc. Fletcher, R. A. (Richard A.) The guest for El Cid / Richard Fletcher. Includes bibliographical references and index. I. Cid, ca 1043-1099. 2. Spain—History—711-1516. I. Title. [DP99.F57 1991J 946—dc20 90-22382 CIP US ISBN 0-19-506955-2 (pbk.) UK ISBN: 0-19-285244-2 8 10 9 7 Printed in the United States of America to Rachel In long-delayed fulfilment of a promise List of illustrations PLATES following page 78 I Wood and ivory casket carved at Cuenca 2 Ivory casket panel with ‘christianized’ insert 3 Andalusian silk fragment from tomb of bishop Pedro 4 Archway from Zarogoza palace 5 Astrolabe —Toledo 1067 6 Coinage issued by taifa rulers 7 Crucifix presented to San Isidoro, Leon 8 Tomb of Alfonso Ansurez (1993) 9 Charter for Silos (1076) issued by Rodrigo Diaz io Charter issued by Pedro I of Aragon 11 King Alfonso ofLedn— Castile (c. 1130) 12 Hell as pictured by Silos artist ’3 Castle of Atienza, Castile 14 Ruins of fortress of Murviedro 15 Statue of El Cid 16 Still from film El Cid 17 Leaf from Historia Roderici MAPS Spain in the Youth of El Cid 42 Castile 57 Aragon, Catalonia and the Ebro Valley 124 The Almoravide Empire >43 The Spanish Levante 165 nowledgewients The preliminary research for this book was aided by a grant from the Helene Herroys Literary Foundation which made possible a journey to Morocco in 1987, and by contributions from the Univer­ sity of York to my travelling expenses in Spain in 1986 and 1988: to both institutions I offer my thanks. 1 am grateful to Mr John Parker, Professor George Scanlon and Dr David Wasserstein for advice in connection with translations of Arabic texts and their interpretation. Professor Colin Smith has not only been prodigal with offprints of his many admirable articles on Cidian matters, but also very kindly lent me the works devoted to the life and writings of Ramon Menendez Pidal which are listed in the bibliographical note to Chapter 12. In one of the more bizarre encounters which have contributed to the making of this book, Mr Charlton Heston shared with me — at a moment of some personal inconvenience, in the dressing-room of an English provincial theatre only a few minutes before he was due on stage - his recollections of Menendez Pidal in his role as historical adviser in the making of the film El Cid. Professor Bernard F. Reilly generously sent me a copy of his study of the reign of Alfonso VI in advance of its publication, a timely present which considerably assisted me in my final revision of the text of this book. To all I express my hearty thanks. It seems a long time since the moment when, sitting in the rubble of a half-built conservatory on a hot August night in 1975, I first gave spoken utterance to my hope one day to write a book on El Cid. Without the help of her with whom I shared this confidence the job could never have been done. This book is for her. Richard Fletcher Nunnington, York November 1988 Xi Genealogies The royal families of Le6n-Castile and Aragon The genealogr is much simplified It should be borne in mind that the kingdom of Navarre rras partitioned between the rulers of Castile and Aragon after the murder of Sancho IV in 1076. Sancho the Great d.1035 I I I Fernando I Garcia Ramiro Castile 1035-1065 Navarre 1035-1054 Aragon 1035-1063 r I Sancho II Garcia Sancho IV' Sancho Ramirez Castile Galicia Navarre 1054-1076 Aragon 1063-1094 1065-1072 1065-1071 Alfonso VI = Constance of Burgundv Le6n 1065-1072 Leon-Castilc-Galicia 1072-1109 I I I Raymond of Burgundy = Lrraca = Alfonso el Batallador Pedro 1 Count of Galicia Leon- Aragon 1104-1134 Aragon d.l 107 Castile 1094-1104 1109-1126 Alfonso VII Lc6n-Castile 1126-1157 xiii i Rulers of the Taifa of Valencia Those a>ho ruled Valencia are indicated by capital letters. Almanzor d.1002 I I ’Abd al-Malik d.1008 ’Abd al-Rahman d.1009 I AL-MA’MUN ’ABD AL-’AZIZ Toledo 1043-44-1075 Valencia 1022-1061 Valencia 1065-1075 | I r I r~ I Isma’il daughter = ’ABD AL-MALIK ABU BAKR Valencia 1061-65 Valencia 1075-1085 r AL-QADIR al-Musta’in = daughter UTHMAN Toledo 1075-1079, Zaragoza 1085-1110 Valencia 1085 1080-1085 Valencia 1085-1092 xiv The Band Hud of Zaragoza The genealogy is much simplified. Rulers of Zaragoza are indicated by capital letters. Hud I Muhammad I SULAYMAN AL-MUSTA‘IN I 1039-1046 I I AHMAD AL-MUQTADIR Yusuf al-Muzaffar Zaragoza 1046-1082 Lerida 1046-1078 Denia 1076-1082 Prisoner at Rueda Lerida 1078-1082 I ! YLSUF AL-MUTAMIN Mundhir al-Hayib Zaragoza 1082-1085 Ldrida-Dcnia 1082-1090 AHMAD AL-MUSTA’IN II Zaragoza 1085-1110 ’ABD AL-MALIK Zaragoza 1110 Lord of Rueda de Jalon 1110-1130 XV i I S T^e Problem and tl?e Method In the summer of the year 1099 there died in the city of Valencia, on the eastern seaboard of Spain, a man whose name was Rodrigo Diaz but who is better known to posterity as El Cid. Cid is derived from the Arabic word transliterated sayyid, meaning ‘lord’ or ‘master’: it was originally used only of a certain line of the Prophet’s descendants but later came to be used more widely as a courtesy title, as it still is in the forms Sidi or Si in many parts of the Arabic­ speaking world today. El Cid therefore means ‘the lord’, ‘the leader’, ‘the commander’, ‘the boss’, ‘the gaffer’: it is equivalent, perhaps unpalatably, to Caudillo, Duce or Fiihrer. Unlike the latter three words, however, el Cid was never used as an official title during its holder’s lifetime. We do not indeed even know for certain whether it was used of him at all during his lifetime, though there is every likelihood that it was. It is a fair if unprovable assumption that this is how Rodrigo’s followers would have referred to him. The term’s first appearance in our surviving records is in a Latin poem com­ posed in celebration of the conquest of Almeria, in south-east Spain, by the emperor Alfonso VII of Le6n-Castile in 1147. The anony­ mous author, assumed to have composed his verses soon after the triumph they celebrate, twice in the space of a few lines referred to Rodrigo as meo Cidi, ‘my Cid’, in such a fashion as to make it plain that he expected his audience to know at once to whom he was referring. The use of the possessive is arresting and prompts specu­ lation. If a man can refer informally to ‘my lord’ it stands to reason that other men may have other lords to whom they will refer in the same terms. In Rodrigo Diaz’s lifetime there were in Spain and elsewhere many lords, leaders, commanders or bosses. In his day 3 I THE PROBLEM AND THE METHOD he was not unique but one of a type. Who were these military bosses' of the eleventh century? What sort of world did they operate in? However, if there were many cicis there is only one national hero of Spain (and more particularly of Castile), El Cid - the crusading warrior who waged wars of re-conquest for the triumph of the Cross over the Crescent and the liberation of the fatherland from the Moors. There is a disjunction here between eleventh-century reality and later mythology. In Rodrigo’s day there was little if any sense of nationhood, crusade or reconquest in the Christian king­ doms of Spain. Rodrigo himself, as we shall see, was as ready to fight alongside Muslims against Christians as vice versa. He was his own man and fought for his own profit. He was a mercenary soldier. In modern Anglo-American usage the term ‘mercenary’ carries pejorative overtones. It is true that the mercenary soldiers of today — for example, in post-colonial Africa - are not a very savoury bunch. Their eleventh-century predecessors may have been equally unappealing: we must not romanticise the Cid. Be that as it may, the word ‘mercenary’ will be used in this book in the neutral sense of‘one who serves for pay’. Rodrigo made his living out of warfare: he was a professional soldier. He was a highly successful one too; more so than many, less so than a few. From modest origins among the aristocracy of Old Castile he so prospered that he ended his life as the independent ruler of a principality which he had won for himself in that region of eastern Spain known as the Levante, whose legend transform him into what he had not been during his life? Why does the image thus created retain its vitality in Spanish national mythology? These are some of the questions which this book will discuss.