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El Cid By: Adam Giancola

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El Cid By: Adam Giancola ‘What our limited skill can do we have done’: A Review of The Quest for El Cid By: Adam Giancola A mere glimpse at the history of 11th century Spain unescapably calls to mind the legacy of Rodrigo Diaz, widely known as El Cid. An aristocratic military warrior most famous for his Christian conquest of Valencia in 1094, his presence continues to have a lasting effect on Reconquista discourse today. Yet genuine inquiry into the life of the Cid warrants a careful consideration of the sources available. One such piece of scholarship, Richard Fletcher’s 1989 publication The Quest for El Cid, poses itself as a re-examination of the ubiquitous tale of the life of the Cid, seeking to distinguish the man from the myth. Fletcher, a specialist in medieval Spanish and English history and Senior Lecturer in History at the University of York, has authored works such as Saint James’ Catapult and Moorish Spain.1 Employing the words of the Historia Roderici, Fletcher presents his most recent work as a humble contribution to a pre-existing body of research, admitting that, “What our limited skill can do we have done: written of his deeds briefly and in a poor style, but always with the strictest regard for truth.”2 Fletcher’s hope to furnish ‘the strictest regard for truth’ is grounded in his requirement that only those sources contemporary to the life of the Cid be employed.3 Unlike previous scholars, including Reinhart Dozy and Ramon Menendez Pidal, who have addressed the historical problem of the Cid head-on either by rejecting or affirming popular belief, Fletcher intends to offer what he calls a ‘horizontal’ approach, locating the Cid as part of a broader movement of military conquest across European soil.4 It is therefore the task of this paper to provide a thoughtful review of Fletcher’s presentation of the life of Rodrigo Diaz, considering whether or not a contextual approach can be used to derive an effective portrait of the Cid’s life. While Fletcher refuses to go beyond the sources 1 Richard Fletcher. The Quest for El Cid. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), Back. 2 Fletcher. The Quest for El Cid, 205. 3 Fletcher. The Quest for El Cid, 4. 4 Fletcher. The Quest for El Cid, 6. contemporary to the period, it will be suggested that such an approach limits our understanding, providing conclusions that do not accommodate for the multiplicity of interpretations that inevitably arise from the sources themselves. The Quest for El Cid begins with an assessment of the plausibility of a figure like Rodrigo Diaz as a timeless hero in popular Spanish Christian mythology. His life is unavoidably a paradox, in which ‘from modest origins among the aristocracy of Old Castile he so prospered that he ended his life as the independent ruler of… Valencia.’5 Fletcher’s thesis suggests a look ‘beyond the Pyrenees’ in order to cast light on the veiled legacy of El Cid: The Cid has too often been interpreted in a distortingly narrow, merely Spanish perspective. But eleventh-century Europe at large was full of warrior adventurers. To try to characterize some of the features of aristocratic life which were common to the noble classes of Christendom at that time is to liberate Rodrigo from the shackles of patriotic hero-worship and to assist, it is hoped, a juster appreciation of him as a man of his time – a remarkable one, certainly, but not unique.6 Embedded within his central argument, Fletcher makes two fundamental claims: first, he argues that understanding the life of Rodrigo Diaz requires a thorough examination of 11th century aristocratic warriors at large, affirming notions of Christian reconquest as neither articulated nor widely shared. Secondly, he argues that the legendary El Cid parts significantly from the historical Rodrigo Diaz, whose accomplishments ‘unveiled’ can be deemed significant, yet not aggrandized. In the first part of Fletcher’s work, he maps out the historical development of the peninsula in order to provide a landscape within which the Cid grew up. Fletcher argues that the two centuries preceding the reign of the Cid can be characterized by a “markedly fissile tendency, where a single political authority has had the greatest difficulty in imposing its will upon the provinces.”7 Given this particularity, Fletcher paints the picture of a highly mutable socio-political structure, suggesting that the fracture of the tenth century caliphate of Al-Andalus into smaller taifa kingdoms was an inevitable 5 Fletcher. The Quest for El Cid, 4. 6 Fletcher. The Quest for El Cid, 6. 7 Fletcher. The Quest for El Cid, 23. prospect.8 In contrast, the experience in the north saw the development of tiny polities into larger and more sophisticated kingdoms by the eleventh century, unified by their “common enemy across the religious frontier.”9 Typical of the second half of the eleventh century was a growing movement to encourage new settlement through royal patronage, and it is upon this foundation that Fletcher argues that Rodrigo Diaz can be apprehended as a Castilian of the feudal aristocracy who perceived the Moorish south “not [as] danger but opportunity.”10 Dissenting from the common perception which views the tale of the Cid as the story of a rag to riches, Fletcher suggests that the landscape of 11th century Christian Spain was a period dominated by the constant warfare of military elite. When commenting on the exile of Rodrigo Diaz at the hands of King Alfonso VI, Fletcher suggests that such an outcome was common given Rodrigo’s status as a prominent military leader in Castile. In effect, the image of the Cid fits comfortably with the paradigm of “war as a means of livelihood… the pursuit of feud and the experience of exile: these activities [were] central to the quality of aristocratic life in eleventh century Europe.”11 Fletcher also looks across the Mediterranean to the heroic Bohemond, ‘Prince of Antioch’, and conqueror of Jerusalem to reinforce this assessment. He argues that the Cid’s exploits can be cast in the same mould as Bohemond, having conquered Valencia for a mere eight years, and leaving no male heirs to continue his legacy.12 By placing El Cid within the program of military settlement, accomplishing deeds not unlike anyone before him, Fletcher lends weight to his first claim, namely, that the actions of Rodrigo Diaz can be interpreted as nothing greater than being characteristic of the time in which he lived. The second component to Fletcher’s argument emerges out of his treatment of the sources in determining the historical authenticity of the legend of the Cid. Fletcher frequently cites Ramon 8 Fletcher. The Quest for El Cid, 27. 9 Fletcher. The Quest for El Cid, 47. 10 Fletcher. The Quest for El Cid, 73. 11Fletcher. The Quest for El Cid, 81. 12 Fletcher. The Quest for El Cid, 85. Menendez Pidal’s La Espana del Cid as a reference point for his own work. Nonetheless, our attention should be given particularly to the four contemporary sources from which Fletcher fashions the life of Rodrigo Diaz, forming the backbone of the latter half of his work. The first source is the Carmen Campi Doctoris or ‘Song of the Campeador’, a set of Latin verses celebrating the early exploits of Rodrigo Diaz, likely composed around 1083. The author praises Rodrigo as a military hero, demonstrating his familiarity with the life of the Cid was well as his own proficiency with ancient texts.13 The next source, and the most important to Fletcher, is the Historia Roderici, which chronicles the deeds of Rodrigo, beginning from his early years and concluding with his death in 1099. Fletcher uses this source often, arguing for its composition around 1125. Similar to the Carmen, the Historia demonstrates the author’s familiarity with the topography of eastern Spain where Rodrigo campaigned.14 More importantly, the source stands out, since it provides a more critical view of the life of Rodrigo that is not present in more popular accounts. For example, when describing the Cid’s conquest of Toledo, Fletcher reports, “the Historia tells us that he rounded up 7000 captives, ‘ruthlessly laying hold of all their wealth and possession, and brought them back home with him’… The king and his advisers were ‘very gravely displeased”.15 The final two sources both provide an Arab account of the Cid’s deeds, shedding light on the tone of public life in the age of the taifa rulers16. Ibn ‘Alqama’s work of local history in the town of Valencia specifically offers an Islamic reaction to the Cid’s rulership over the city between 1094-1099. The second source comes from Ibn Bassam, who composed an encyclopedia of notable inhabitants in al-Andalus.17 From these texts, Fletcher demonstrates how popular legends concerning the life of the Cid stray significantly from the historical certainties found in the sources. Far from the image of the 13 Fletcher. The Quest for El Cid, 92. 14 Fletcher. The Quest for El Cid, 93. 15 Fletcher. The Quest for El Cid, 132. 16 Fletcher. The Quest for El Cid, 100. 17 Fletcher. The Quest for El Cid, 99. emphatically Castilian, uncompromisingly Christian, and consistently loyal military warrior18, “what is fairly clear is that Rodrigo could make his own terms. The king was desperate, and was prepared – or could be bought – to pay Rodrigo handsomely for returning to his service.”19 Yet the most significant highlight of Fletcher’s argument arises not from the sources he employs, but rather from the sources he fails to make use of: the Poema de Mio Cid as well as the Primera Cronica General.
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