The Hero: El Cid By Rodrigo Díaz De Vivar

Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar; better known as El Cid, was a hero, an important character in the unification of very early Spain, most importantly he was a legend. His is the story of a man that came from modest origins and moved up through the art of war. El Cid was a courageous man that feared no one and served one. He was loyal, brave, and honorable; a man that his vassals and subjects should fear as much as they should love. Often referred to as, “he who was born in the lucky hour” ; El Cid follows the classic path of a wrongly judged and sentenced hero who loses his honor and then regains it, unfortunately for him, El Cid loses his honor and has to regain it more times than once. He has inspired many works of literature and is looked back at

The goal of the book was to address the common man in Spain, to inspire them and make them hopeful for social mobilization. It is an epic that strives to unify the Christian people of very early Spain. It helped set goals and expectation for leaders and subjects as well. The poem is by no means a reliable historical document, it does address important people and event in history, but the accounts are biased and favor El Cid even when he has been unjust and dishonorable. The image of a humble and astute man is painted to make people more proud of the so called national hero. He was not the character he was painted to be.

The epic of El Cid describes the social and political relationships of the medieval eleventh- century Iberian Peninsula. Political relationships were based on social relationship which in turn were based on honor. Everything in medieval Europe revolved around honor, one had to marry advantageously to either someone with a family who was of higher status than ourselves or marry someone with connections and a high possibility for upward social mobility. Richard Fletcher in, The Quest for El Cid wrote, “From Alfonso’s point of view it bound together two prominent families from different parts of the Kingdom, and thus