Cid Campeador is the name given in histories, traditions and songs to
the most celebrated of Spain's national heroes.

His real name was Rodrigo or Ruy Diaz (i.e. "son of Diego"), a
Castilian noble by birth. He was born at Burgos about the year 1040.

There is so much of the mythical in the history of this personage that
hypercritical writers, such as Masdeu, have doubted his existence; but
recent researches have succeeded in separating the historical from the
romantic.

Under Sancho II, son of Ferdinand, he served as commander of the royal
troops. In a war between the two brothers, Sancho II. and Alfonso VI. of
Leon, due to some dishonorable stratagem on the part of Rodrigo, Sancho
was victorious and his brother was forced to seek refuge with the
Moorish King of Toledo.

In 1072 Sancho was assassinated at the siege of Zamora, and as he left
no heir the Castilians had to acknowledge Alfonso as King. Although
Alfonso never forgave the Cid for having, as leader of the Castilians,
compelled him to swear that he (the Cid) had no hand in the murder of
his brother Sancho, as a conciliatory measure, he gave his cousin
Ximena, daughter of the Count of Oviedo, to the Cid in marriage, but
afterwards, in 1081, when he found himself firmly seated on the throne,
yielding to his own feelings of resentment and incited by the Leonese
nobles, he banished him from the kingdom.

At the head of a large body of followers, the Cid joined the Moorish