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Kingdom of Castile Reino de Castilla (Spanish) Regnum Castellae (Latin)
←   ← 1037–1230   →
Flag Coat of arms
The Kingdom of Castile in 1210.
Capital	Burgos & Toledo
Language(s)	Castilian, Leonese,[1] Galician, Basque, Arabic
Religion	Roman Catholic, Islam, Judaism
Government	Absolute Monarchy
King
- 1037–1065	Ferdinand I (first)
- 1217–1230	Ferdinand III (last)
Historical era	Middle Ages
- Established	1037
- Disestablished	1230
Today part of	Spain

Kingdom of Castile (Spanish: Reino de Castilla, Latin: Regnum Castellae) was one of the medieval kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula. It emerged as a political autonomous entity in the 9th century. It was called County of Castile and was held in vassalage from the Kingdom of León. Its name comes from the host of castles constructed in the region. It was one of the kingdoms that founded the Crown of Castile, and the Kingdom of Spain.

History[link]

9th to 11th centuries: The beginnings[link]

According to the chronicles of Alfonso III of Asturias; the first reference to the name "Castile" (Castilla) can be found in a document written during AD 800. The name reflects its origin as a march on the eastern frontier of the Kingdom of Asturias, protected by castles, towers or castra.

The County of Castile, bordered in the south by the Montes de Toledo, was re-populated by inhabitants of Cantabria, Asturias, Vasconia and Visigothic and Mozarab origins. It had its own Romance dialect and laws. The first Count of Castile was Rodrigo in 850, under Ordoño I of Asturias and Alfonso III of Asturias. Subsequently, the region was subdivided, separate counts being named to Alava, Burgos, Cerezo & Lantarón, and a reduced Castile. In 931 the County was reunified by Count Fernán González, who rose in rebellion against the Kingdom of León, successor state to Asturias, and achieved an autonomous status, allowing the county to be inherited by his family instead of being subject to appointment by the Leonese king.

11th and 12th centuries: Expansion and union with the Kingdom of León[link]

Kingdom of Castile 1037

The minority of Count García Sánchez led Castile to accept Sancho III of Navarre, married to the sister of Count García, as feudal overlord. García was assassinated in 1028 while in León to marry the princess Sancha, sister of Bermudo III of León. Sancho III, acting as feudal overlord, appointed his younger son (García's nephew) Ferdinand as Count of Castile, marrying him to his uncle's intended bride, Sancha of León. Following Sancho's 1035 death, Castile returned to the nominal control of León, but Ferdinand, allying himself with his brother García Sánchez III of Navarre, began a war with his brother-in-law Bermudo. At the Battle of Tamarón Bermudo was killed, leaving no surviving offspring. In right of his wife, Ferdinand then assumed the royal title as king of León and Castile, for the first time associating the royal title with the rule of Castile.

When Ferdinand I died in 1065, the territories were divided among his children. Sancho II became King of Castile, Alfonso VI, King of León and García, King of Galicia, while his daughters were given towns, Urraca, Zamora, and Elvira, Toro.

Sancho II allied himself with Alfonso VI of León and together they conquered, then divided Galicia. Sancho later attacked Alfonso VI and invaded León with the help of El Cid, and drove his brother into exile, thereby reuniting the three kingdoms. Urraca permitted the greater part of the Leonese army to take refuge in the town of Zamora. Sancho laid siege to the town, but the Castilian king was assassinated in 1072 by Bellido Dolfos, a Galician nobleman. The Castilian troops then withdrew.

As a result Alfonso VI recovered all his original territory of León, and now also became the king of Castile and Galicia. This was the second union of León and Castile, although the two kingdoms remained distinct entities joined only in a personal union. The sworn oath taken by El Cid before Alfonso VI in Santa Gadea de Burgos regarding the innocence of the Alfonso in the matter of the murder of his brother is well known.

Under Alfonso VI, there was an approach to the rest of Europeans kingdoms, including France. He gave his daughters, Elvira, Urraca and Theresa, in marriage to Raymond of Toulouse, Raymond of Burgundy and Henry of Burgundy respectively. In the Council of Burgos in 1080 the traditional Mozarabic rite was replaced by the Roman one. Upon his death, Alfonso VI was succeeded by his daughter the widowed Urraca, who then married Alfonso I of Aragon, but they almost immediately fell out, and Alfonso tried unsuccessfully to conquer Urraca's lands, before he repudiated her in 1114. Urraca also had to contend with attempts by her son (offspring of her first marriage), the king of Galicia, to assert his rights. When Urraca died, this son became king of León and Castile as Alfonso VII. During his reign, Alfonso VII managed to annex parts of the weaker kingdoms of Navarre and Aragón which fought to secede after the death of Alfonso I of Aragon. Alfonso VII refused his right to conquer the Mediterranean coast for the new union of Aragón with the County of Barcelona (Petronila and Ramón Berenguer IV).

12th century: A link between Christianity and Islam[link]

The centuries of Moorish rule had confirmed the high central tableland of Castile as a vast sheep pasturage; the fact that the greater part of Spanish sheep-rearing terminology was drawn from Arabic underscores the debt.^[2]

During the 12th century, Europe enjoyed a great advance in intellectual achievements sparked in part by the kingdom of Castile's recovery of the great cultural center of Toledo (1085). There Islamic classics were discovered, and contacts established with the knowledge and works of Muslim scientists. In the first half of the century a program of translations, traditionally called the "School of Toledo", was undertaken which rendered many philosophical and scientific works from classical Greek and Islamic world into Latin. Many European scholars, including Daniel of Morley and Gerard of Cremona travelled to Toledo to gain further education.

The Way of St. James further enhanced the cultural exchange between the kingdoms of Castile and León; and the rest of Europe.

The 12th century saw the establishment of many new religious orders, after the European fashion, such as Calatrava, Alcántara and Santiago; and the foundation of many Cistercian abbeys.

13th century: Definitive union with the Kingdom of León[link]

Alfonso VII restored the royal tradition of dividing his kingdom among his children. Sancho III became King of Castile and Ferdinand II, King of León.

The rivalry between both kingdoms continued until 1230 when Ferdinand III of Castile received the Kingdom of León from his father Alfonso IX, having previously received the Kingdom of Castile from his mother Berenguela of Castile in 1217. In addition, he took advantage of the decline of the Almohad empire to conquer the Guadalquivir Valley whilst his son Alfonso took the taifa of Murcia.

The Courts from León and Castile merged, an event considered as the foundation of the Crown of Castile, consisting of the kingdoms of Castile, León, taifas and other domains conquered from the Moors, including the taifa of Córdoba, taifa of Murcia, taifa of Jaén and taifa of Seville.

14th and 15th centuries: The House of Trastámara[link]

The House of Trastámara was a lineage that ruled Castile from 1369 to 1504, Aragón from 1412 to 1516, Navarre from 1425 to 1479, and Naples from 1442 to 1501.

Its name was taken from the Count (or Duke) of Trastámara.^[3] This title was used by Henry II of Castile, of the Mercedes, before coming to the throne in 1369, during the civil war with his legitimate brother, King Peter of Castile. John II of Aragón ruled from 1458 to 1479 and upon his death, his daughter became Queen Eleanor of Navarre and his son became King Ferdinand II of Aragon.

Union of the Crowns of Castile and Aragon[link]

The marriage of Ferdinand II and Queen Isabella I of Castile, in 1469 at the Palacio de los Vivero in Valladolid, began a familial union of the two kingdoms. They became known as the Catholic Monarchs (los Reyes Católicos). Isabella succeeded her brother as Queen of Castile and Ferdinand became jure uxoris King of Castile in 1474. When Ferdinand succeeded his father as King of Aragon in 1479, the Crown of Castile and the various territories of the Crown of Aragon were united in a personal union creating for the first time since the 8th century a single political unit referred to as España (Spain). 'Los Reyes Católicos' started policies to diminish the power of the bourgeoisie and nobility in Castile, and greatly reduced the powers of the Cortes (General Courts) to the point where they ' rubberstamped ' the monarch's acts, and brought the nobility to their side.

16th century[link]

On Isabella's death in 1504 her daughter, Joanna I, became Queen (in name) with her husband Philip I as King (in authority). After his death Joanna's father was regent, due to her perceived mental illness, as her son Charles I was only six years old. On Ferdinand II's death in 1516, Charles I was proclaimed as king of Castile and of Aragon (in authority) jointly with his mother Joanna I as the Queen of Aragon (in name).^[4] He became known as Charles V. As the first royal to reign over both Castile and Aragon he may be considered as the first operational King of Spain. Charles I also became Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor in 1519.

Government: Municipal councils and parliaments[link]

As with all medieval kingdoms, supreme power was understood to reside in the monarch "by the grace of God", as the legal formula explained. Nevertheless, rural and urban communities began to form assemblies to issue regulations to deal with everyday problems. Over time, these assemblies evolved into municipal councils, known as variously as ayuntamientos or cabildos, in which some of the inhabitants, the property-owning heads of households (vecinos), represented the rest. By the fourteenth century these councils had gained more powers, such as the right to elect municipal magistrates and officers (alcaldes, speakers, clerks, etc.) and representatives to the parliaments (Cortes).

Due to the increasing power of the municipal councils and the need for communication between these and the King, cortes were established in the Kingdom of León in 1188, and in Castile in 1250. In the earliest Leonese and Castilian Cortes, the inhabitants of the cities (known as "laboratores") formed a small group of the representatives and had no legislative powers, but they were a link between the king and the general population, something that was pioneered by the kingdoms of Castile and León. Eventually the representatives of the cities gained the right to vote in the Cortes, often allying with the monarchs against the great noble lords.

Arms of the Kingdom of Castile[link]

During the reign of Alfonso VIII, the kingdom began to use as its emblem, both in blazons and banners, the canting arms of the Kingdom of Castile: gules, a three towered castle or, masoned sable and ajouré azure.

See also[link]

• Al Andalus
• Crown of Castile
• Council of Castile
• History of Spain
• List of Castilian monarchs

References[link]

External links[link]

• The Kingdom of Castile (1157-1212) : Towards a Geography of the Southern Frontier

This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (June 2009)

Statue of El Cid in Burgos, the capital of Sancho II's kingdom, and where El Cid served in his early years.

Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar (1043 – July 10, 1099), known as El Cid Campeador (Spanish pronunciation: [el ˈθið kampeaˈðor], "The lord-master of military arts"), was a Castilian nobleman, military leader, and diplomat. Exiled from the court of the Spanish Emperor Alfonso VI of León and Castile, El Cid went on to command a Moorish force consisting of Muladis, Berbers, Arabs and Malians, under Yusuf al-Mu'taman ibn Hud, Moorish king of the northeast Al-Andalus city of Zaragoza, and his successor, Al-Mustein II.

After the Christian defeat at the Battle of Sagrajas in 1086, El Cid was recalled to service by Alfonso VI, and commanded a combined Christian and Moorish army, which he used to create his own fiefdom in the Moorish Mediterranean coastal city of Valencia.

Rodrigo Díaz was educated in the royal court of Castile and became the alférez, the chief general, of Alfonso VI, and his most valuable asset in the fight against the Moors.

Title[link]

El Cid's charter of donation to the Cathedral of Valencia (1098). His signature is shown closeup in the image below.

The name El Cid (Spanish: [el ˈθid]) comes from the article el (which means "the" in both Spanish and Arabic), and the dialectal Arabic word سيد sîdi or sayyid, which means "Lord" or "The Master". The title Campeador means "champion" or "challenger" in Spanish. Because of his exceeding prowess in arms, he was the natural challenger in single combats. In Spanish warfare, it was common for leaders of armies to pit two Champions against each other (similar to the story of David and Goliath) to determine the outcome of the conflict. This way neither side would lose a great number of men. The Cid was the champion of King Alfonso VI of Castile. He had gained the title of "Campeador" when he won victory on behalf of Alfonso against the forces of Granada.

Life and career[link]

El Cid's signature: Ego Ruderico, "I, Rodrigo".

Origins[link]

El Cid was born 1043 AD in Vivar, also known as Castillona de Bivar, a small town about six miles north of Burgos, the capital of Castile. His father, Diego Laínez, was a courtier, bureaucrat, and cavalryman who had fought in several battles. Despite the fact that El Cid's mother's family was aristocratic, in later years the peasants would consider him one of their own. However, his relatives were not major court officials; documents show that El Cid's paternal grandfather, Lain, confirmed only five documents of Ferdinand I's, his maternal grandfather, Rodrigo Alvarez, certified only two of Sancho II's, and El Cid's own father confirmed only one.

Service under Sancho II[link]

First paragraph of the Carmen Campidoctoris, the earliest literary treatment of El Cid's life, written by a Catalan partisan to celebrate El Cid's defeat of Berenguer Ramón.

As a young adult in 1057, Rodrigo fought against the Moorish stronghold of Zaragoza, making its emir al-Muqtadir a vassal of Sancho. In the spring of 1063, Rodrigo fought in the Battle of Graus, where Ferdinand's half-brother, Ramiro I of Aragon, was laying siege to the Moorish town of Cinca which was in Zaragozan lands. Al-Muqtadir, accompanied by Castilian troops including El Cid, fought against the Aragonese. The party would emerge victorious; Ramiro I was killed and the Aragonese fled the field. One legend has said that during the conflict, El Cid killed an Aragonese knight in single combat, thereby receiving the honorific title Campeador.

When Ferdinand died, Sancho continued to enlarge his territory, conquering both Christian and the Moorish cities of Zamora and Badajoz. When Sancho learned that Alfonso was planning on overthrowing him in order to gain his territory, Sancho sent Cid to bring Alfonso back so that Sancho could speak to him.

Service under Alfonso VI[link]

Sancho was assassinated in 1072, as the result of a pact between his brother Alfonso and his sister Urraca. Since Sancho died unmarried and childless, all of his power passed to his brother Alfonso.

Almost immediately, Alfonso returned from exile in Toledo and took his seat as king of Castile and León. He was deeply suspected in Castile, probably correctly,^{[citation needed]} of having been involved in Sancho's murder. According to the epic of El Cid, the Castilian nobility led by El Cid and a dozen "oath-helpers" forced Alfonso to swear publicly in front of Santa Gadea (Saint Agatha) Church in Burgos on holy relics multiple times that he did not participate in the plot to kill his brother. This is widely reported^[who?] as truth, but contemporary documents on the lives of both Rodrigo Diaz and Alfonso VI of Castile and León do not mention any such event. El Cid's position as armiger regis was taken away and given to El Cid's enemy, Count García Ordóñez.

Exile[link]

In the Battle of Cabra (1079), El Cid rallied his troops and turned the battle into a rout of Emir Abdulallh of Granada and his ally García Ordóñez. However, El Cid's unauthorized expedition into Granada greatly angered Alfonso, and May 8, 1080, was the last time El Cid confirmed a document in King Alfonso's court. This is the generally given reason for El Cid's exile, although several others are plausible and may have been contributing factors: jealous nobles turning Alfonso against El Cid, Alfonso's own animosity towards El Cid, and an accusation of pocketing some of the tribute from Seville.

At first he went to Barcelona, where Ramón Berenguer II (1076–1082) and Berenguer Ramón II (1076–1097) refused his offer of service. Then he journeyed to the Taifa of Zaragoza where he received a warmer welcome by its diverse and well cultured inhabitants.

According to Moorish accounts:

Andalusian Knights found El Cid their foe ill, thirsty and exiled from the court of Alfonso, he was presented before the elderly Yusuf al-Mu'taman ibn Hud and accepted command of the forces of the Taifa of Zaragoza as their Master.

However, the exile was not the end of El Cid, either physically or as an important figure. In 1081, El Cid, went on to offer his services to the Moorish king of the northeast Al-Andalus city of Zaragoza, Yusuf al-Mu'taman ibn Hud, and served both him and his successor, Al-Mustain II. He was given the title El Cid (The Master) and served as a leading figure in a vibrant Moorish force consisting of Muladis, Berbers, Arabs and Malians.

O'Callaghan writes:

That kingdom was divided between al-Mutamin (1081–1085) who ruled Zaragoza proper, and his brother al-Mundhir, who ruled Lérida and Tortosa. El Cid entered al-Mutamin's service and successfully defended Zaragoza against the assaults of al-Mundhir, Sancho I of Aragón, and Ramón Berenguer II, whom he held captive briefly in 1082. In 1084, El Cid and the Moorish armies defeated Sancho of Aragon at the Battle of Morella near Tortosa. He was then troubled by the fierce conflicts between the Muladis of Badajoz and the Arabs of Seville.

In 1086, the Almoravid invasion of the Iberian Peninsula through and around Gibraltar began. The Almoravids, Berber residents of present-day North Africa, led by Yusuf ibn Tashfin, were asked to help defend the divided Moors from Alfonso. El Cid had probably commanded a large Moorish force during the great Battle of Sagrajas, which took place in 1086, near the Taifa of Badajoz. The Almoravid and Andalusian Taifas, including the armies of Badajoz, Málaga, Granada, Tortosa and Seville, defeated a combined army of León, Aragón and Castile.

Recalling From Exile[link]

Terrified after his crushing defeat, Alfonso recalled from exile the best Christian general: El Cid. It has been shown that El Cid was at court on July 1087; however, what happened after that is unclear. El Cid returned to Alfonso, but now he had his own plans. He only stayed a short while and then returned to Saragossa. El Cid was content to let the Almoravid armies and the armies of Alfonso fight without his help. Even when there was a chance that the armies of Almoravid might defeat Alfonso and take over all of Alfonso's lands. The reason El Cid did not want to fight was because he was hoping that both armies would become weak.^{[citation needed]} That would make it easier for him to carry out his own plan which was to become ruler of the Kingdom of Valencia.

Conquest of Valencia[link]

Around this time, El Cid, with a combined Christian and Moorish army, began maneuvering in order to create his own fiefdom in the Moorish Mediterranean coastal city of Valencia. Several obstacles lay in his way. First was Berenguer Ramón II, who ruled nearby Barcelona. In May 1090, El Cid defeated and captured Berenguer in the Battle of Tébar (nowadays Pinar de Tévar, near Monroyo, Teruel). Berenguer was later released and his nephew Ramón Berenguer III married El Cid's youngest daughter Maria to ward against future conflicts.

Along the way to Valencia, El Cid also conquered other towns, many of which were near Valencia, such as Castejón and Alucidia.

El Cid gradually came to have more influence on Valencia, then ruled by al-Qadir. In October 1092 an uprising occurred in Valencia inspired by the city's chief judge Ibn Jahhaf and the Almoravids. El Cid began a siege of Valencia. A December 1093 attempt to break the siege failed. By the time the siege ended in May 1094, El Cid had carved out his own principality on the coast of the Mediterranean. Officially El Cid ruled in the name of Alfonso; in reality, El Cid was fully independent. The city was both Christian and Muslim, and both Moors and Christians served in the army and as administrators.

Death[link]

El Cid and his wife Jimena Díaz lived peacefully in Valencia for five years until the Almoravids besieged the city. El Cid died June 10, 1099.^[1] The cause of death is commonly accepted to be a combination of sorrow for the loss of his only son in 1098, and the increasing impact of the siege on famine and living standards more generally.^[2] Valencia was captured by Masdali on May 5, 1102 and it did not become a Christian city again for over 125 years. Jimena fled to Burgos, Castile, in 1101. She rode in with her retinue and the body of El Cid.^[3] Originally buried in Castile in the monastery of San Pedro de Cardeña, his body now lies at the center of the Burgos Cathedral.

After his demise, but still during the siege of Valencia, legend holds that Jimena ordered that the corpse of El Cid be fitted with his armor and set atop his horse Babieca, to bolster the morale of his troops. In several variations of the story, the dead Rodrigo and his knights win a thundering charge against Valencia's besiegers, resulting in a war-is-lost-but-battle-is-won catharsis for generations of Christian Spaniards to follow. It is believed that the legend originated shortly after Jimena entered Burgos, and that it is derived from the manner in which Jimena's procession rode into Burgos, i.e. alongside her deceased husband.^[4]

Warrior and general[link]

Battle tactics[link]

During his campaigns, El Cid often ordered that books by classic Roman and Greek authors on military themes be read aloud to him and his troops, for both entertainment and inspiration before battle. El Cid's army had a novel approach to planning strategy as well, holding what might be called brainstorming sessions before each battle to discuss tactics. They frequently used unexpected strategies, engaging in what modern generals would call psychological warfare — waiting for the enemy to be paralyzed with terror and then attacking them suddenly; distracting the enemy with a small group of soldiers, etc. (El Cid used this distraction in capturing the town of Castejón as depicted in Cantar de Mio Cid (The Song of my Cid)). El Cid accepted or included suggestions from his troops. In The Song the man who served him as his closest adviser was his vassal and kinsman Álvar Fáñez "Minaya" (meaning "My brother", a compound word of Spanish possessive Mi (My) and Anaia, the basque word for brother), although the historical Álvar Fáñez remained in Castile with Alfonso VI.

Taken together, these practices imply an educated and intelligent commander who was able to attract and inspire good subordinates, and who would have attracted considerable loyalty from his followers, including those who were not Christian. It is these qualities, coupled with El Cid's legendary martial abilities, which have fueled his reputation as an outstanding battlefield commander.

Babieca[link]

Tomb of Babieca at the monastery of San Pedro de Cardeña.

Babieca or Bavieca was El Cid's warhorse. Several stories exist about El Cid and Babieca. One well-known legend about El Cid describes how he acquired the stallion. According to this story, Rodrigo's godfather, Pedro El Grande, was a monk at a Carthusian monastery. Pedro's coming-of-age gift to El Cid was his pick of a horse from an Andalusian herd. El Cid picked a horse that his godfather thought was a weak, poor choice, causing the monk to exclaim "Babieca!" (stupid!) Hence, it became the name of El Cid's horse. Another legend states that in a competition of battle to become King Sancho's "Campeador", or champion, a knight on horseback wished to challenge El Cid. The King wished a fair fight and gave El Cid his finest horse, Babieca, or Bavieca. This version says Babieca was raised in the royal stables of Seville and was a highly trained and loyal war horse, not a foolish stallion. The name in this instance could suggest that the horse came from the Babia region in León, Spain. In the poem Carmen Campidoctoris, Babieca appears as a gift from "a barbarian" to El Cid, so its name could also be derived from "Barbieca", or "horse of the barbarian".

Regardless, Babieca became a great warhorse, famous to the Christians, feared by El Cid's enemies, and loved by El Cid, who allegedly^{[by whom?][attribution needed]} requested that Babieca be buried with him in the monastery of San Pedro de Cardeña.^{[citation needed]} His name is mentioned in several tales and historical documents about El Cid, including The Lay of El Cid.

Swords[link]

Tizona

A weapon traditionally identified as El Cid's sword, Tizona, used to be displayed in the Army Museum (Museo del Ejército) in Toledo. In 1999, a small sample of the blade underwent metallurgical analysis which confirmed that the blade was made in Moorish Córdoba in the eleventh century and contained amounts of Damascus steel. [Garcia Alonso et al., 1999]

In 2007 the Autonomous Community of Castile and León bought the sword for 1.6 million Euros, and it is currently on display at the Museum of Burgos.

El Cid also had a sword called Colada.

Marriage and family[link]

El Cid was married in July 1075 to Alfonso's kinswoman Jimena Díaz. The Historia Roderici calls her a daughter of a Count Diego of Oviedo, a person unknown to contemporary records, while later poetic sources name her father as an otherwise unknown Count Gomez de Gormaz.

Tradition states that when El Cid first laid eyes on her, he was enamored of her great beauty. Together El Cid and Jimena had three children. Their daughters Cristina and María both married into the high nobility; Cristina to Ramiro, Lord of Monzón, grandson of García Sánchez III of Navarre via an illegitimate son; María, first (it is said) to a prince of Aragon (presumably the son of Peter I) and second to Ramón Berenguer III, count of Barcelona. El Cid's son Diego Rodríguez was killed while fighting against the invading Muslim Almoravids from North Africa at the Battle of Consuegra (1097).

El Cid's own marriage and those of his daughters raised his status by connecting him to the peninsular royalty; even today, most European monarchs and many commoners of European ancestry descend from El Cid, through Cristina's son, King García Ramírez of Navarre and to a lesser extent via a granddaughter Jimena of Barcelona, who married into the Counts of Foix.

References[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: El Cid

Bibliography[link]

• Simon Barton and Richard Fletcher. The world of El Cid, Chronicles of the Spanish reconquest. Manchester: University Press, 2000. ISBN 0-7190-5225-4 hardback, ISBN 0-7190-5226-2 paperback.
• Gonzalo Martínez Díez, "El Cid Histórico: Un Estudio Exhaustivo Sobre el Verdadero Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar", Editorial Planeta (Spain, June 1999). ISBN 84-08-03161-9
• Richard Fletcher. "The Quest for El Cid". ISBN 0-19-506955-2
• Kurtz, Barbara E. El Cid. University of Illinois.
• I. Michael. The Poem of El Cid. Manchester: 1975.
• C. Melville and A. Ubaydli (ed. and trans.), Christians and Moors in Spain, vol. III, Arabic sources (711-1501). (Warminster, 1992).
• Joseph F. O'Callaghan. A History of Medieval Spain. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1975
• Peter Pierson. The History of Spain. Ed. John E. Findling and Frank W. Thacheray. Wesport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1999. 34-36.
• Bernard F. Reilly. The Kingdom of León-Castilla under King Alfonso VI, 1065-1109 Princeton, New Jersey: University Press, 1988.
• The Song of El Cid. Translated by Burton Raffel. Penguin Classics, 2009.
• R. Selden Rose and Leonard Bacon (trans.) The Lay of El Cid. Semicentennial Publications of the University of California: 1868-1918. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1997.
• Steven Thomas. 711-1492: Al-Andalus and the Reconquista.
• M. J. Trow,El Cid The Making of a Legend, Sutton Publishing Limited, 2007.
• Henry Edwards Watts. "The Story of El Cid (1026-1099)" in The Christian Recovery of Spain: The Story of Spain from the Moorish Conquest to the Fall of Grenada (711-1492 AD). New York: Putnam, 1894. 71-91.
• Cantar de mío Cid - Spanish (free PDF)
• Poema de Mio Cid, Códice de Per Abbat in the European Library (third item on page)
• T.Y. Henderson. "Conquests Of Valencia"
• J. I. Garcia Alonso, J. A. Martinez, A. J. Criado, "Origin of El Cid's sword revealed by ICP-MS metal analysis", Spectroscopy Europe, 11/4 (1999).

Sources and external links[link]

• Information about The Route of El Cid - English

Notes[link]