EARLY SPAIN To understand the conditions that prevailed, a short historical overview is necessary. In the 5th century, as the western Roman Empire tottered toward collapse, it's Spanish dominions fell under the sway of the Visigoths, a wandering Germanic tribe. The Visigoths then ruled the Iberian peninsula until the Islamic invasion erupted from Africa in the early 700's. Further Moorish advances into Western Europe were turned aside by the Franks at the Battle of Tours in 732, but the Moors kept their hold on the bulk of Spain. There, they devoted their energies to establishing what became one of the most advanced societies of the time. Moorish Spain peaked under the central rule of the long-lived Umayyad dynasty. In the early 1000's, however, that dynasty died out and the powerful caliphate broke up into a jumble of smaller states, and taifas. These petty kingdoms quickly fell to fighting among themselves, leaving them prey to the aggressive expansionism of the reinvigorated Christian states of northern Spain. By this time, those states had become distinct kingdoms and counties, as inclined to fight among themselves as with the Moors to the south. Living as they did on a military frontier, the forces of the northern states had been toughened by routine fighting and raiding. Available military strength grew as the population did and the comparative riches of the peninsula made the hiring of additional mercenary troops commonplace in both the north and the south. At this time, there seems to have been little religious antagonism, despite the differences in beliefs between Moors and Christians. Fanaticism and the crusading spirit would come later to both sides. In the north, the kingdom of Leon held ascendancy among the Christian states for a time. After Castile achieved its independence from Leon in the 10th century, however, Castile increasingly became the leading northern power. Farther West, the county of Portugal struggled for many years to separate itself from the overlordships of Leon and Castile. Meanwhile, toward the Pyrenees, the kingdoms of Navarre and Aragon and the county of Barcelona -also known as Catalan reflected strong French influence in their cultures and their military systems. In 1085, Alfonso VI of Castile inadvertently set the peninsula aflame with his conquest of the key central city of Toledo. The fall of this Moorish bastion put in motion the chain of events that determined the eventual course of Spanish medieval history, The repercussions also created the conditions that allowed the legendary El Cid to capture the popular imagination and remain a national hero down through the ages. The fall of Toledo sent a shock wave throughout Moorish Spain­Andalusia. The emirs of the taifas saw the rising power of the Christian states, as well as their own divided weakness. Ltd by the emir of Seville, they extended an invitation to the Almoravids of North Africa, under their own great leader, Yusuf Ibn Tashfin, to enter Spain and aid their Islamic brothers. The Almoravids were relatively recent converts to Islam who had won an empire in North Africa on the basis of their willingness to suffer and die in combat for their faith. Again and again, they overwhelmed their opponents with their zealous determination. The 20,000 invading Almoravids; found they had little in common with the more tolerant and, in Almoravid eyes, decadent Andalusians. Yet the Almoravids and Andalusians combined their forces to hand Christian Spain one of it's greatest defeats at the battle of Zallaka or Safrajas in 1086. At Zallaka, the Christian forces under Alfonso were at first triumphant, but then were routed by the Almoravid counterattack. Christian casualties were extremely heavy. Alfonso himself was wounded, but he, with a mere handful of knights, managed to escape. Yet, now a strange thing happened. Instead of following up his victory over the Christians, Yusuf turned his forces against his Andalusian compatriots. The Almoravids began a systematic subjugation of the taifa kingdoms that would occupy them for the remainder of die century. The northern Christian states thus were given time to recover from their defeat at Zallaca while the Iberian peninsula was torn asunder by a long-running and complex muddle of inter-state warfare. It was at this point that Ed Cid emerged to play out his role on history's stage. THE CAREER OF EL CID For the most part, the popular image of the Cid in this country has been formed by the 1961 movie El Cid. But the movie was a mass entertainment vehicle. It is questionable history. The movie is gilded with anachronism and paints Rodrigo Diaz as a majestic would-be unifier of Spain. Opinions remain mixed, but the real Cid seems to have been more a self-seeking adventurer than the idealized nationalistic hero of romantic imagination. The movie also has the unfortunate feel of a "spaghetti Western", with a large foreign cast, topped off by a couple of box office draws of the time, Charlton Heston and Sophia Loren. A flawed epic, the movie deserves the mediocre ratings critics have given it, but it does have some entertaining moments and spectacular battle scenes. Occasionally, it even generates some historical interest. The real Cid, this Rodrigo Diaz, was born into the Castillian minor nobility in 1043. In fact, much of his continuing popularity as a hero may be traced to his relatively humble birth and his starding ascent to power in early medieval Spain. The Cid rose to command his king's armies, then his own personal army. Eventually, he set himself up as an independent ruler­a king in all but title. For the times, that's quite a career for someone not of the higher nobility. In the centuries after his death, the Cid's fame created a vast network of legends around his name. But the basic historical facts of his life are fairly well known. He isn't a shadowy Robin Hood. By the age of 24, Rodrigo Diaz already had commanded a Castilian army besieging Saragossa. Later in his 20's, as Castilian chief marshal, he defeated the champion of Navarre in single combat in a boundary dispute, earning himself the nickname of "Campeador", which is variously translated as "the challenger" or "the expert warrior". He added that sobriquet to the one already given him by this time, "El Cid", from the Arabic "sayid" for .noble" or "lord". The Cid faithfully served King Sancho II of Castile during the civil wars among the heirs of old King Ferdinand. Upon Sancho's murder, his brother, Alfonso VI, a bitter rival, took the throne amid considerable ill feeling on the part of Castilians, including the Cid. From that moment in 1072, Alfonso and the Cid carried on a hot and cold relationship that endured until the Cid's death. Exiled from Castile by Alfonso in 1081 on what may have been trumped-up charges by enemies at court, the Cid went to Saragossa, where he served the Moorish emirs, basically as a mercenary. In the next few years, his forces defeated the armies of Moorish Lerida, of Barcelona and of Aragon. Alfonso reconciled with the Cid after the disastrous defeat at Zallaca. Acting as Alfonso's vassal, the Cid's soldiers helped stabilize the situation in eastern Spain. But misunderstandings again boded over and Alfonso exiled the Cid a second time. Meanwhile, the Almoravids were bringing Andalusia to heel. Out of the ebb and flow of this ongoing warfare, the city of Valencia emerged as a key point of contention between the Cid's army and the Almoravids and their backers. In 1092, the Cid invested Valencia and, after an epic siege lasting a year and a half, Valencia fell to Rodrigo Diaz. He spent the last.years of his life defeating other Almoravid forces and consolidating his personal hold on the province of Valencia. The Cid never lost a battle with the Almoravids and appears to have been the only Spanish Christian commander with the military ability to cope with the novelties of Almoravid tactics, as well as with their greater numbers. After the Cid's death in 1099, his followers continued to occupy the city of Valencia for three years. But finally they were forced to evacuate it and leave it to the Almoravids. The Cid's conquest disappeared in the swirl of history. But the Almoravid empire did not survive either. Their early zealotry evaporated amid the pleasures and sophistication of conquered Andalusia. By the middle of the 12th century, the Almoravids had been swept aside by a second invading North African tribe, inaugurating another phase of the Reconquista, a phase outside the time frame under discussion here. More El Cid Introduction Early Spain and the Career of El Cid Arms and Equipment and Coloring Military Forces, Organization, and Tactics Wargaming, Lists, and Bibliography Back to Table of Contents -- Courier #60 To Courier List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1993 by The Courier Publishing Company. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com