Online Encyclopedia

Search over 40,000 articles from the original, classic Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Edition.

CID, THE

Online Encyclopedia
Originally appearing in Volume V06, Page 362 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
» Make a correction to this article.
» Add information or comments to this article.
Spread the word: del.icio.us del.icio.us it!

See also:

CID, THE , the favourite See also:hero of See also:Spain, and the most prominent figure in her literature. The name, however, is so obscured by myth and See also:fable as scarcely to belong to See also:history. So extravagant are the deeds ascribed to him, and so marvellous the attributes with which he has been clothed by the fond See also:idolatry of his See also:country-men, that by some he has been classed with the Amadises and the Orlandos whose exploits he emulated. The Jesuit See also:Masdeu stoutly denies that he had any real existence, and this See also:heresy has not wanted followers even in Spain. The truth of the See also:matter, however, has been expressed by Cervantes, through the mouth of the See also:Canon in See also:Don Quixote: " There is no doubt there was such a See also:man as the Cid, but much doubt whether he achieved what is attributed to him." The researches of See also:Professor See also:Dozy, of See also:Leiden, have amply confirmed this See also:opinion. There is a Cid of history and a Cid of See also:romance, differing very materially in See also:character, but each filling a large space in the See also:annals of his country, and exerting a singular See also:influence in the development of the See also:national See also:genius. The Cid of history, though falling See also:short of the poetical ideal which the patriotism of his countrymen has so See also:long cherished, is still the foremost man of the heroical See also:period of Spain—the greatest See also:warrior produced out of the long struggle between See also:Christian and Moslem, and the perfect type of the Castilian of the 12th See also:century. Rodrigo See also:Diaz, called de Bivar, from the placeof his See also:birth, better known by the See also:title given him by the See also:Arabs as the Cid (El Seid, the See also:lord), and El Campeador, the See also:champion See also:par excellence, was of a See also:noble See also:family, one of whose members in a former See also:generation had been elected See also:judge of See also:Castile. The date of his birth cannot be fixed with any certainty, but it was probably between I030 and 1040. As Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar he is first mentioned in a See also:charter of See also:Ferdinand I. of the See also:year 1064. The legends which speak of the Cid as accompanying this monarch in his expeditions to See also:France and See also:Italy must be rejected as purely apocryphal. Ferdinand, a See also:great and See also:wise See also:prince, under whom the See also:tide of Moslem See also:conquest was first effectually stemmed, on his deathbed, in xo65, divided his territories among his five See also:children.

Castile was See also:

left to his eldest son Sancho, See also:Leon to See also:Alphonso, See also:Galicia to See also:Garcia, See also:Zamora and See also:Toro to his two daughters Urraca and See also:Elvira. The extinction of the western See also:caliphate and the See also:dispersion of the once noble heritage of the Ommayads into numerous See also:petty See also:independent states, had taken See also:place some See also:thirty years previously, so that Castilian and Moslem were once again upon equal terms, the country being almost equally divided between them. On both sides was See also:civil See also:war, urged as fiercely as that against the See also:common enemy, in which the parties sought See also:allies indiscriminately among Christians and Mahommedans. No See also:condition of affairs could be more favourable to the genius of the Cid. He See also:rose to great distinction in the war between Sancho of Castile and Sancho of See also:Navarre, in which See also:lie won his name of Campeador, by slaying the enemy's champion in single combat. In the See also:quarrel between Sancho and his brotherAlphonso, Rodrigo Diaz espoused the cause of the former, and it was he who suggested the perfidious stratagem by which Sancho eventually obtained the victory and See also:possession of Leon. - Sancho having been slain in 1072, while engaged in the See also:siege of Zamora, Alphonso returned from See also:exile and occupied the vacant See also:throne. One of the most striking of the passages in the Cid's legendary history is that wherein he is represented as forcing the new See also:king to swear that he had no See also:part in his See also:brother's See also:death; but there was cause enough without this for Alphonso's animosity against the man who had helped to despoil him of his patrimony. For a See also:time the Cid, already renowned throughout Spain for his prowess in war, was even advanced by the king's favour and entrusted with high commissions of See also:state. In 1074 the Cid was wedded to Ximena, daughter of the See also:count of See also:Oviedo, and See also:grand-daughter, by the See also:mother's See also:side, of Alphonso V. The See also:original See also:deed of the See also:marriage-See also:contract is extant. Some time afterwards the Cid was sent on an See also:embassy to collect See also:tribute from Motamid, the king of See also:Seville, whom he found engaged in a war with Abdallah, the king of See also:Granada.

On Abdallah's side were many Castilian knights, among them Count Garcia Ordonez, a prince of the See also:

blood, whom the Cid endeavoured vainly to persuade of the disloyalty of opposing their See also:master's ally. In the See also:battle which ensued under the walls of Seville, Abdallah and his auxiliaries were routed with great slaughter, the Cid returning to See also:Burgos with many prisoners and a See also:rich See also:booty. There fresh proofs of his prowess only served to kindle against him the rancour of his enemies and the See also:jealousy of the king. Garcia Ordonez accused him to Alphonso of keeping back part of the tribute received from Seville, and the king took See also:advantage of the Cid's See also:absence on a See also:raid against the See also:Moors to banish him from Castile. Henceforth Rodrigo Diaz began to live that See also:life of a soldier of foxtune which has made him famous, sometimes fighting under the Christian banner, sometimes under Moorish, but always for his own See also:hand. At the See also:head of a See also:band of 300 See also:free lances he offered his services first to the count of See also:Barcelona; then, failing him, to Moktadir, the Arab king of See also:Saragossa, of the See also:race of the Beni Houd. Under Moktadir, and his successorsMoutamin and Mostain, the Cid remained for nearly eight years, fighting their battles against See also:Mahommedan and Christian, when not engaged upon his own, and being admitted almost to a See also:share of their royal authority. He made more than one See also:attempt to be reconciled with Alphonso, but, his overtures being rejected, he turned his arms against the enemies of the Beni Houd, extending their dominions at the expense of the Christian states of See also:Aragon and Barcelona, and harrying even the border lands of Castile. Among the enterprises of the Cid the most famous was that against See also:Valencia, then the richest and most flourishing See also:city of the See also:peninsula, and an See also:object of cupidity to both Christian and Moslem. The Cid appeared before the place at the, head of an See also:army of 7000 men, for the greater part Mahommedans. In vain did the Valencians implore succour from the emir of See also:Cordova, and from their co-religionists in other parts, of the peninsula. In See also:defiance of an army which marched to the See also:relief of the beleaguered city under Yusef the Almoravide, the Cid took Valencia after a siege of nine months, on the 15th of See also:June 1094--the richest See also:prize which up to that time had been recovered from the Moors.

The conditions of the surrender were all violated—the See also:

cadi See also:Ibn Djahhaff burnt alive, a vast number of the citizens who had escaped death by See also:famine slaughtered, and the possessions divided among the Campeador's companions. In other respects the Cid appears to have used his victory mildly, ruling his See also:kingdom, which now embraced nearly the whole of Valencia and See also:Murcia, for four years with vigour and See also:justice. At length the See also:Almoravides,, whom he had several times beaten, marched against him in great force, inflicting a crushing defeat at See also:Cuenca upon the Cid's army, under his favourite See also:lieutenant, Alvar Fanez. The See also:blow was a fatal one to the aged and war-worn Campeador, who died of anger and grief in See also:July 1099. His widow maintained Valencia for three years longer against the Moors, but was at last compelled to evacuate the city, taking with her the See also:body of the Cid to be buried in the monastery of, See also:San Pedro at Cardefia., in the neighbourhood of Burgos. Here, in the centre of a small See also:chapel, surrounded by his See also:chief companions- in arms, by Alvar Fanez Minaya, Pero See also:Bermudez, See also:Martin Antolinez and Pelaez the Asturian, were placed the remains of the mighty warrior, the truest of See also:Spanish heroes, the embodiment of all the national virtues and most of the national vices. The bones have since been removed to the See also:town See also:hall of Burgos. See also:Philip II. tried to get him canonized, but See also:Rome objected, and not without See also:reason. Whatever were his qualities as a fighter, the Cid was but indifferent material out of which to make a See also:saint,—a man who battled against Christian and against Moslem with equal zeal, who burnt churches and mosques with equal zest, who ravaged, plundered and slew as much for a livelihood as for any patriotic or religious purpose, and was in truth almost as much of a Mussulman as a Christian in his habits and his character. His true place in history is that of the greatest of the guerrilleros—the perfect type of that sort of warrior in which, from the days of Viriathus to those of Juan Diaz, El Empecinado, the See also:soil of Spain has been most productive. The Cid of romance, the Cid of a thousand battles, legends and dramas, the Cid as apotheosized in literature, the Cid invoked by See also:good Spaniards in every national crisis, whose name is a perpetual and ever-See also:present See also:inspiration to Spanish patriotism, is a very different character from the See also:historical Rodrigo Diaz—the freebooter, the See also:rebel, the consorter with the infidels and the enemies of Spain. He is the Perfect One, the See also:Born in a Happy See also:Hour, " My Cid," the invincible, the magnanimous, the all-powerful.

He is the type of knightly virtue, the See also:

mirror of patriotic See also:duty, the See also:flower of all Christian See also:grace. He is See also:Roland and See also:Bayard in one. In the popular literature of Spain he holds a place such as has no parallel in other countries. From an almost contemporary period he has been the subject of See also:song; and he who was chanted by wandering minstrels in the 12th century has survived to be hymned in revolutionary odes of the 19th. In a barbarous Latin poem, written in celebration of the conquest of See also:Almeria by Alphonso VII. in the year 1147, we have the See also:bard testifying to the supereminence of the Cid among his country's heroes: " Ipse Rodericus Mio Cid See also:semper vocatus, De quo cantatur quod ab hostibus haud superatus, Qui domuit Mauros, comites domuit quoque nostros." Within a See also:hundred years of his death the Cid had become the centre of a whole See also:system of myths. The Peeing del Cid, written in the latter See also:half of the 12th century, has scarcely anytrace of a historical character. Already the Cid had reached his See also:apotheosis, and Castilian See also:loyalty could not consent to degrade him when banished by his See also:sovereign; " Dios, que buen vassalo si oviese bum senor " cry the weeping citizens of Burgos, as they See also:speed the exile: on his way. The Poem of the Cid is but a fragment of 3744 lines, written in a barbarous See also:style, in rugged assonant rhymes, and a See also:rude Alexandrine measure,. but it glows with the pure See also:fire of See also:poetry, and is full of a noble • simplicity and a true epical grandeur, invaluable as a living picture of the See also:age. The See also:ballads See also:relating to the Cid, of which nearly two hundred are extant, are greatly inferior in merit, though some of them are not unworthy to be ranked with the best in this See also:kind. See also:Duran believes the greater part of them to have been written in the 16th century. A fete betray, not more by the antiquity of their See also:language than by their natural and See also:simple See also:tone, traces of an earlier age and a freer national life. They all take great liberties with history, thus belying the opinion of Sanch Panza that " the ballads are too old to tell lies." Such of them as are not genuine See also:relics of the 12th century are either poetical versions of the leading episodes in the hero's life as contained in the See also:Chronicle, that Chronicle itself having been doubtless composed out of still earlier legends as sung by the wandering juglares, or pure inventions of a later time, owing their inspiration to the romances of See also:chivalry.

In these last the ballad-mongers, not to let their native hero be outdone by the Aniadises, the Esplandians, and the Felixmartes, engage him in the most extravagant adventures—making war upon the king of France and upon the See also:

emperor, receiving embassies from the soldan of See also:Persia, bearding the See also:pope at Rome, and performing other feats not mentioned even in the Poem or the Chronicle. The last and the worst of the Cid ballads are those which betray by their frigid conceits and feeble See also:mimicry of the See also:antique the false See also:taste. and essentially unheroic spirit of the age of Philip II. As for the innumerable other poems, dramas and tales which have been founded on the See also:legend of the Cid, from the days of Guillen de See also:Castro and See also:Diamante to those of See also:Quintana and See also:Trueba, they serve merely to prove the abiding popularity of the national hero in his native See also:land. The thief See also:sources from which the See also:story of the Cid is to be gathered are, first, the .Latin chronicle discovered by Risco in the See also:convent of San Isidro at Leon, proved by See also:internal See also:evidence to have been written before 12 8 ; the Cronica See also:General, composed by Alphonso X. in the second half of the 13th century, partly (sso far as relates to the Cid) from the above, partly from contemporary Arabic histories, and partly from tradition; the Cronica del Cid, first published in 1512, by Juan de Velorado, See also:abbot of the monastery of San Pedro at Cardena, which is a compilation from the last, interlarded with new See also:fictions due to the piety of the compiler; lastly, various Arabic See also:manuscripts, some of contemporary date, which are examined and their claims weighed in the second See also:volume of Professor Dozy's Recherches sur l'histoire politique et littiraire de l'Es,agne See also:pendant le moyen dge (Leiden, 1849). See also:Huber, See also:Muller, and Ferdinand See also:Wolf are among the leading authorities in the history and literature of the Cid. M. Dames Hinard has publishedthe.poem, with a literal See also:French See also:translation and notes, and See also:John HookhamFrere has rendered it into See also:English with extraordinary spirit and fidelity. The largest collection of the Cid ballads is that of Durant, in the Romancero general, in two volunies, forming part of Rivadeneyra's Biblioteca de autores espanoles. (H. E.

End of Article: CID, THE

Additional information and Comments

There are no comments yet for this article.
» Add information or comments to this article.
Please link directly to this article:
Highlight the code below, right click, and select "copy." Then paste it into your website, email, or other HTML.
Site content, images, and layout Copyright © 2006 - Net Industries, worldwide.
Do not copy, download, transfer, or otherwise replicate the site content in whole or in part.

Links to articles and home page are always encouraged.

[back]
CICOGNARA, LEOPOLDO, COUNT (1767-1834) 		[next]
CIDER (q.v.)

Site © 2006 - Net Industries