The long road of El Cid: From plundering mercenary to Francoist legend

In the 11th century, the Spanish region known today as La Rioja was part of a vast uninhabited area of the Iberian Peninsula that served as a buffer zone between the Christian and Muslim kingdoms. It was a sparsely populated territory, fraught with danger.

In 1092, a Christian mercenary did not hesitate to raze those lands, even though they belonged to King Alfonso VI. “Cruelly and mercilessly, he set fire to all those lands, razing them completely in the most cruel and impious manner. He devastated and destroyed that entire region, carrying out ferocious and inhuman pillage,” states the medieval chronicle Historia Roderici. That implacable warrior was named Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, and he has gone down in history as El Cid. How is it possible that a ruthless mercenary, who sold his services without regard for his employer’s religion, went on to become a legend of Christianity and embraced by the National Catholicism of Franco’s regime?

The medievalist Nora Berend, 59, who teaches at St. Catharine College, Cambridge, has dedicated a book, El Cid. The Life and Afterlife of a Medieval Mercenary to try to explain the abyss that separates the Historia Roderici — the first medieval account of the adventures of El Cid, written in the 12th century — from the famous poem by Manuel Machado that generations of Spaniards had to learn by heart in school (“Through the terrible Castilian steppe / into exile, with twelve of his own / dust, sweat and iron / El Cid rides”).

Other famous iterations include the El Cid myth fed by Franco’s National Catholic Crusade, as well as the Cantar de Mío Cid, a medieval epic poem about which there is hardly any reliable data, but which is widely viewed as marking the beginning of Castilian literature. There is also El Cid by the French playwright Corneille, which revolutionized European theater in the 17th century, and the 1961 film by Anthony Mann starring Charlton Heston and Sofia Loren.

Berend’s book also explores contributions by Ramón Menéndez Pidal, the Spanish scholar who seized upon the figure of El Cid in the 20th century (one might also say that it was the other way around and that the professor was possessed by books of chivalry); the adventurous reconstruction of El Cid by the novelist Arturo Pérez-Reverte in Sidi, and even a photograph of former Spanish conservative prime minister José María Aznar dressed as El Cid, which appeared in this newspaper in 1987. The historian’s work not only describes the historical figure — a subject to which she dedicates the first chapter — but also the long path that goes from history to legend.

“As a first step, it was easy to transform Rodrigo’s story into that of a supposed leader of a Christian war against the Muslims, a transformation that had already taken place in medieval times,” Nora Berend explains via email. “Francoist nationalists then used the distorted past of a ‘crusade’ to liberate Spain from the Muslims, with El Cid as their first leader. Castile’s leadership in the Reconquista was a key element of Francoist ideology, and El Cid was seen as a Castilian patriot. This served as a model for a ‘crusade’ against the Republicans [or, in other words, it transformed the medieval past to serve the Francoist present]. This was part of the strategy to legitimize terror by creating a supposed continuity."

She continues: “In this way, the nationalist cause was presented as a religious crusade, claiming to continue a medieval ‘Reconquista.’ According to this, the supposed common past of the Spanish people, through which they constructed their identity and the very essence of the Spanish nation, was Christian and nationalist. The Francoist legacy then serves as an inspiration and model for the New Right.”

The surprising thing, as Berend explains in her book, is that this metamorphosis began taking place while El Cid was still alive. “Rodrigo’s family, their descendants, and the monks of San Pedro de Cardeña, among others, contributed to the development of the legend that presents him as the savior of Christians sent by God. An unparalleled warrior, never defeated, of firm Christian faith, and faithful vassal of the king, he was a good role model to propagate from the perspective of later kings, so that his legend, largely developed in the monastery of San Pedro de Cardeña, was incorporated into the official histories compiled at the courts of Alfonso X and Sancho IV.

“The monks created the image of a saintly Rodrigo, although the attempt at canonization in 1554 ultimately failed. In all cases, the legend of Rodrigo was transformed according to the needs of the users of the story. These legends became part of literary texts, such as chronicles, romances, chivalric tales and plays, turning Rodrigo into a well-known literary hero in the Iberian Peninsula.”

Although the epic poem Cantar de mío Cid remains a profound mystery, the facts surrounding the life of Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar are fairly well documented. He was a medieval warrior, born around the middle of the 11th century, and died in 1099 in Valencia, a territory he had taken control of and which his wife Jimena inherited. He served under King Sancho II and King Alfonso VI, although he was exiled and later served the Muslim kingdom of Zaragoza. As Berend notes, he did not distinguish between friend and foe based on their religious beliefs. But little by little, the legend deepened, and many of his most famous exploits — such as winning a battle after death — although false, have come to be accepted as real.

Of particular interest is the episode of the Oath of Santa Gadea, a precursor to the Magna Carta that English nobles wrested from King John “Lackland” in the 13th century and considered a precedent for contemporary democratic rights. According to legend, El Cid forced King Alfonso VI to swear in the Church of Santa Gadea in Burgos that he had nothing to do with the death of his brother Sancho II in order to ascend to the throne. This oath, Berend explains, was considered “a precedent for parliamentary democracy, an emblem of resistance to tyranny, and a symbol of legal controls on monarchical power.” However, everything related to this story is a fabrication. The striking thing is that, if the myth had moved in a different direction, El Cid could have become a myth of the struggle for democracy, not just a symbol for a fascist dictatorship and later for the reactionary right.

The endless debate surrounding the authorship and composition of Cantar de mío Cid reflects the many mysteries that still surround a historical figure about whom, to paraphrase the famous final line from The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, the legend was printed.

“This is, evidently, a very important text for Castilian literary history,” says the writer. “Its dating and authorship have been highly controversial. What is clear is that the monastery of San Pedro de Cardeña, in Burgos, must have influenced its writing, because the text presents Rodrigo as if he had had important ties to the monastery during his lifetime, when not only do we have no evidence of this, but there is even evidence to the contrary: his donation to San Sebastián de Silos, and the absence of any trace of a donation to San Pedro. It is also evident that the Cantar significantly transformed the historical Rodrigo into a Christian hero, a loyal vassal of the king, and a Castilian patriot. In all these respects, the Cid of the Cantar is not the Rodrigo of history.”

The myth of El Cid, like many other moments from the Middle Ages, has taken on increasing importance today, especially for the political far right. Berend explains: “In many European countries, the Middle Ages have traditionally been considered a foundational period, during which the state was born. This in itself is a simplification, but it makes medieval events especially significant, as if modern identity depended on events and ideals from many centuries ago. Over time, many groups have found an affinity with the Middle Ages, attracted by different elements, and not just for political reasons; for example, the Pre-Raphaelites, the circle of 19th-century English artists. Of course, a very selective and distorted view of the Middle Ages is always evoked. I think it’s the supposedly ‘Christian national’ values, the legitimization of violence against those who don’t conform, the idea that a uniform society can be created, that appeals to the right.”

The relationship between national myths and the Middle Ages is by no means exclusive to Spain. France, with Joan of Arc, is one of the many examples that proliferate throughout Europe. In the Balkans, a territory where the past is firmly part of the present, it is especially significant. The Serbian national myth is the Battle of Kosovo, in which, in 1389, Christian troops were defeated by the Ottomans, and the Serbs lost their freedom. It was widely used by Serbian ultranationalism in the 1980s and 1990s. However, as Noel Malcolm explains in Kosovo. A Short History, the documents do not make clear what happened, and there is much evidence that there were Muslims and Christians on both sides.

“There are also parallels with many other places: for example, the Hungarian myth of being the bastion of Christianity contrasts with the historical deeds of several Hungarian military leaders who allied and fought alongside the Ottomans against the Habsburgs.

Other examples are the myths surrounding Joan of Arc in France, which ignore the role of the Burgundians and her own compatriots in her death to instead present history as a struggle against the invaders; or also Alexander Nevsky, where myths inflate and distort his role in the fight against the Germans and eliminate the Mongols’ support for his rise to power. It was the creation of national narratives in later centuries, with clear “enemies” and “heroes,” which overrode the much more complex realities of the medieval past, that produced these parallels.” It is not only in Spain that history has been defeated by legend.

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