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Episode 358: The Poem of the Cid
00:34:39
John J. Miller is joined by Nora Berend of the University of Cambridge to discuss The Poem of the Cid.
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- [00:07]
John J. Miller
Hello and welcome to the Great Books Podcast. Today we'll talk about the Poem of the Cid. I'm your host, John J. Miller of National Review, and you're listening to a production of National Review. Our guest is Nora Behrend, a professor of European history at the University of Cambridge. She's published extensively on medieval history, and she's written for History Today and other journals. Her brand new book is El Cid the Life and Afterlife of a Medieval. She joins us by Zoom as we record from Hillsdale College's campus radio station, WRFH in Michigan. Nora, welcome to the Great Books Podcast.
- [00:42]
Nora Behrend
Hi, and thank you for having me on.
- [00:44]
John J. Miller
Why is the Poem of the Cid a great book?
- [00:48]
Nora Behrend
Well, it's become part of national history and almost sort of identity in Spain. Obviously, it was important in literary history because it is the first very long vernacular epic poem from the medieval period. But I think it became even more important because of the various myths that were built around the protagonist.
- [01:13]
John J. Miller
We're going to talk about all of that, the story that the poem tells, but also the history behind it, a little bit about the movie starring Charlton Heston, and a lot more. The story of the Poem of the Cid begins with tears. Our hero, El Cid, they're streaming down his face because he's been banished by his king, Nora, who is El Cid, and what did he do to deserve his exile?
- [01:45]
Nora Behrend
So, historically speaking, he was a man called Rodrigo Diaz. He was born sometime in the 1040s. We don't know exactly what his birth date was. And he rose to promise at the royal court as a warrior. And then eventually he conquered for himself Valencia and became a ruler in his own right. But in the poem, he is a rather different person because there, the exile is completely unjust. So according to the text, he has enemies at court, and that is why the king just very, very unjustly exiles him. But we know from other sources that histor speaking, it was not really the King Alfonso VI's fault, but it was his own that he was trying to become independent. He was not loyal to the king. And I should also just add that it's a very effective way to start the poem. But of course, it was not actually the start of the poem itself, because we're missing the first page of the actual text. So there's a unique manuscript which does not have the beginning. So actually we don't really know what they were original beginning was, what the first scene was.
- [03:07]
John J. Miller
We don't even know what the name of the poem should be or at least what the author Intended it should be. We don't know who the author is, for example, and so we call it the Poem of the Cid, because that just sounds like a good idea, right?
- [03:20]
Nora Behrend
Yes, indeed. We don't know. And there's another alternative title as well, the song, the Kantar of the Cid. So, yes, song or poem, but it is just a title given to it by modern editors. We don't actually know whether it had a title, so it's not necessarily the case that it had a title, but indeed, we know very little about it, and there have been huge debates about when it was written and who may have written it, or whether it's perhaps even a kind of oral composition at the beginning, which was eventually written down. So there are all kinds of theories about it.
- [04:02]
John J. Miller
What does the name Cid mean? That's Cid. L. Cid. What does that mean?
- [04:09]
Nora Behrend
That's also now debated because traditionally it used to be thought that this came from Arabic and it came from the word lord in Arabic. So this would be the lord or my lord, so a kind of vernacular word combined with an Arabic word. And the theory was that this name was given to him by the Musl inhabitants of the Iberian Peninsula, and perhaps when he already ruled Valencia, so by his Muslim subjects, or perhaps even earlier, as a kind of sign of the recognition of his greatness. But there's more recent work which actually argues that this may not be the case at all. And of course, I should say that some historians also thought that this was not a name that he actually ever had in life. This is just a name that was conferred on him posthumously. And the first mention of it, of course, is sort of much later, so after his death. But the more recent work suggests that this kind of designation actually existed in the vernacular Castilian. So indeed, at some point it must have come from Arabic, but not kind of to designate this particular person. And it was already used in this region around Burgos, where Rodrigo was active, as a way to designate nobles. So in that case, and none of this is absolutely certain, of course, when this kind of vernacular designation really started, whether it was already in existence in his lifetime or only slightly later on, because apart from him, the first evidence comes just kind of at the very end of the 11th, very beginning of the 12th century, it could be that this is a designation that was used in his lifetime, but it was not unique. It was just used for nobles at the time. It could also be that it was a designation specifically for him, but perhaps not in his lifetime, but only posthumously.
- [06:26]
John J. Miller
You say it's written in the vernacular. And one of the things that means is it's not written in Latin. This is part of the transition away from Latin as the language of Europe, the international language of Europe, and toward these languages, these distinct languages in different regions. And this is also the national epic of Spain you mentioned. It's written in Castilian. What is that? Is that a kind of Spanish?
- [06:51]
Nora Behrend
It is basically the ancestor of what we know as Spanish. So modern Castilian is kind of what other countries, other people call Spanish. But it's only one of the languages of the Iberian Peninsula. So obviously, even today there are many other languages. Castilian became the sort of common language. And then, of course, it became the national language of Spain. And Franco even sort of tried to make it rather impossible to use other languages in official ways. So in education and dealing with state authorities and so on and so forth. But among the others, there's Catalan, Gallego, Basque and so on.
- [07:36]
John J. Miller
And of course, there's Portuguese. Cause the Iberian Peninsula today is modern Spain and Portugal. But let's go back to the time of the poem. It's set in the 11th century, Iberia, a time when that area was split between Christian rule and Muslim rule. What was going on there in the 11th century?
- [07:59]
Nora Behrend
Yes, so since the early 8th century, when there was an Arab led, sort of Arab Berber conquest, which led to the creation of a very large Muslim entity called Al Andalus, the Iberian Peninsula was split initially very unequally. So Al Andalus, the Muslim part, was much, much larger. And on the northern fringe of the peninsula, Christians started to organize and created in succession several kingdoms. So by the time Rodrigo was born, and so BY during the 11th century, there were already several Christian kingdoms in the north. And from 1031, the southern part, Al Andalus, actually fragmented. So this used to be one unified polity, initially actually part of a much larger empire, the Umayyad empire. But then it became independent. But now in the 11th century, it fell apart into very many separate bits called taifas. So these were basically city states, so areas with a town as their center. And all these rulers were trying to gain more territory from their neighbors, and also, of course, wanted some kind of protection against those neighbors. And this fragmentation allowed the Christians of the north to take a much more active role because they could start raiding the southern territories, which of course, were much, much richer. And Angus Mer Mackay, a historian, called this a protection racket, because very soon, Christian kings of the north started to collect tribute from the Muslims, who paid in order to avoid these raids. So the 11th century was a period which really favored warriors. They had a lot of possibilities to enrich themselves and to carve out territories for themselves.
- [10:09]
John J. Miller
We'll get to Rodrigo, the historic El Cid, in a moment. In the poem, though, El Cid is a warrior for Christendom, indeed.
- [10:19]
Nora Behrend
And that is one of the transformations that happened in the poem, that he is represented as somebody really fighting for the faith. And we know that that was not the case for the historical Rodrigo. Indeed, he spent many years of his life as a mercenary serving Muslim lords in Al Andalus, specifically Zaragoz, after he was exiled by the king. In the poem, this service to the Muslims is completely written out of the story. So it's not mentioned at all. Instead, he's represented as fighting all these battles against Muslims and having various victories against Muslims. Historically, he actually, for part of his life, fought for Muslims against Christians.
- [11:11]
John J. Miller
But in the poem, he's exiled by his king, but he stays loyal to his king. He continues to fight on behalf of his king because he knows he believes he's been falsely accused.
- [11:21]
Nora Behrend
Indeed. So in the poem, again, kind of real transformation compared to what we know about the historical Rodrigo. He stays loyal. He keeps hoping for a royal pardon, which he eventually does get. So the king finally kind of recognizes that he had been wrong and pardons Rodrigo and elevates him again. And he keeps sending him presents and from his booty. So what he takes from Muslims, he keeps sending the king presents. But again, this is basically the invention of the poema.
- [11:56]
John J. Miller
So he goes to war. In the poem, he wins a bunch of battles against the Muslims in Spain, stays loyal to his king at one point, where he seeks and finds shelter for his wife and his two daughters. And the daughters, especially, become important in the poem what happens to them.
- [12:15]
Nora Behrend
This idea that Rodrigo had these close ties to the monastery of San Pedro de Cardena in his lifetime and that his wife and daughter stayed there is really the invention of this piece of literature, of the poema. In the poema, his two daughters whose actual names were changed. So Rodrigo, the historical Rodrigo, did have two daughters. And we know a bit about them, but in the poem, they get different names. And after Rodrigo is pardoned by the king and restored to great honor, the king also proposes to have his daughters married to these people, the Infantes de Carrillon, who, again, are sort of invented figures. And according to the text, these two nobles are basically just very sort of scheming, evil human beings who first want to marry Rodrigo's daughter because they want the riches and they want the kind of prestige that this would bring. And then after the marriage, it turns out that they are real cowards. So they approve their cowardice, so to speak. They demonstrate their cowardice several times, both in peacetime when they get scared by a lion which breaks out of its cage, and then in war against the Muslims when they. They basically don't fight. And then even one of them is happy to claim a victory that he did not bring about. So somebody else's deed is attributed to him because of this cowardice that is known by Rodrigo's men. And they're mocked, even though Rodrigo himself not only does not mock them, but actually kind of forbids this. Nonetheless, they want revenge. And their idea is that they can dishonor Rodrigo through their wives. And so they pretend that they want to take their wives to their own homeland. They leave with a retinue and with a lot of gifts, but then they send the retinue ahead, and in a wood at Korpas, they basically beat their wives. So tie them up, beat them and leave them for dead. The basically expectation, clearly, of these men is that the women will die in this forest. But one of Rodrigo's men who had been accompanying this large retinue was suspicious, and so he kind of stayed in the neighborhood. He went back then and found the women and rescued them. So they're taken back to their father and they're nursed back to health. Rodrigo, so in the end exacts revenge for this dishonor and for the kind of mistreatment of his daughters. And finally these two women are married again, but now to sort of heirs of royal thrones. And so it's presented as a much better, much more honorable marriage.
- [15:29]
John J. Miller
So he rescues Christian Spain from the Muslims, and he rescues his daughters from a couple of bad marriages. It's this place where he drops off his daughter. Initially, San Pedro de Cardena is an actual place. You can visit it today. It may be the source of the manuscript of the poem Noor. You visited this place. What happened there? What did you learn today?
- [15:56]
Nora Behrend
It's actually fairly sort of remote, so if you don't have a car, the closest bus stop is like 4 or 5 kilometers away. So it's not the easiest place to get to. And it's still an active monastery. So I actually had to go back twice because although supposedly the monastery was going to be open, but in fact it wasn't. And then the second time, again, I was told that it's not open. But I managed to convince an old monk who very kindly allowed me to go in. And then finally, sort of somebody, a postulant in the monastery gave me a little tour. So I could see the parts of the monastery where tourists are allowed in. Obviously, some parts are closed because it's an active monastery. So in the church today, they still have the tomb of the Ximena, so his wife. But the bones, of course, are not there. They had been removed. And the bones kind of wandered around for a bit before finally being buried in the Cathedral of Burgos. But the actual sort of tombstone that was elevated again much later, centuries later than his death is still there. Much of the monastery had been rebuilt various times over the centuries. So there's a 12th century cloister, and there are parts of a tower that. So these parts can still be seen that do go back, according to archaeologists, to the 11th century. But obviously, what had been there during this time is not there anymore. Nonetheless, this monastery was really one of the. The places where the myth of the Cid was developed. So, yes, perhaps this poem. So there are various ideas about whether it was actually written at San Pedro or just that the author had some kind of ties to San Pedro. And so we don't know exactly, but it does seem that there is definitely a connection. And there were many other myths eventually in the 13th century and after that, which we can absolutely tie to San Pedro. So trying to create a kind of saint out of the city whose body remained intact after death. The idea that also comes up in the film that after he died, his body was tied onto his horse, and he had this final victory over the Muslims in death that also comes from a legend that was created at San Pedro.
- [18:33]
John J. Miller
Your new book is called El Cid the Life and Afterlife of a Medieval Mercenary. And you discuss the poem in this book, but you're mostly discussing Rodrigo Diaz, who you've told us a little bit about him already. The actual person upon whom the legend of El Cid is based. Just who is this guy? What do we need to know about Rodrigo Diaz? When did he live? What did he do? What was he like?
- [19:02]
Nora Behrend
So he was an aristocrat. He was born in the 1040s. He died in 1099. And basically his greatest feat, in a sense, was the conquest of Valencia, which at the time was deep inside Muslim Al Andalus, so very far from Christian territories which he then ruled for several years until he died. So he was a warrior. He clearly was also a very successful warrior, but clearly also a good strategist. And for a while, he served well, first Christian kings and then Muslim rulers of Naragoth. But he built up his own warrior retinue. So he basically had these people who followed him, who served him, and he built up his base. Even before conquering Valencia, he was taking tribute from some of the minor rulers. He was also, when he was fighting, he was taking plunder. And I mean, that's not something that only he was doing at the time. That was quite common, quite normal, so to speak. But of this tribute and plunder, he basically paid his followers, his warriors, and this is what eventually enabled him to create this principality. It is quite possible that he would have liked to become king, or at least kind of had ideas that his descendants might become kings. We know that there were other aristocrats who. Who had that sort of path in the period. But when he died, he did not have any living sons anymore. So his widow held Valencia for three years after his death. But then afterwards it was not possible. And so eventually they evacuated and sort of the Muslims again took Valencia. And it stayed in Al Andalus until much later, when the Christian conquered, sort of took off in the 13th century.
- [21:08]
John J. Miller
So you describe him as a mercenary, which suggests he was a sword for hire. Did he believe in something? Was he a Christian? Was he a Christian warrior or just a soldier of fortune?
- [21:20]
Nora Behrend
I think it's impossible to know what he himself really believed in. I mean, we can assume that he was a Christian. He might have sort of had some sort of basic Christian beliefs, but that did not prevent him from serving Muslims and fighting against Christians. And again, in the period, this was fairly normal. So there was a coexistence of a kind of religious rhetoric and the rhetoric of religious war, which. So coexistence of that with the reality, which was much messier, which was really about opportunistic fighting where Christians fought against Christians, Muslims fought against Muslims, and Christian Muslim alliances fought against other Christian Muslim alliances. So in that sense, he was not unique at all. But it's not really possible to sort of say what exactly these people thought about all this, how they reconciled Christian beliefs with alliances and service of Muslims. But already, at the very end of his life, this myth of a Christian warrior and a Christian savior started to be created by ecclesiastics in Valencia. However, we cannot really tell whether he himself believed this. Did he sort of agree with this view, or he just accepted it, put up with it, so to speak, didn't mind. But in the Donation Charter to the bishopric of Valencia, so after he conquered this city, he had the mosque transformed into a church, which again, was quite usual in this period. And Even later. And he gave a lot of lands and goods to the bishopric. And this was written down in this document to prove, if needed later on, that the cathedral and the bishop owned these properties. And in the prologue of that charter, they represent Rodrigo as sent by God to basically free the Iberian Peninsula from Muslims.
- [23:41]
John J. Miller
He sounds like an unlikely source for El Cid, the Christian hero of Spain. How did that transformation happen and why did it happen?
- [23:54]
Nora Behrend
Yes, well, it happened gradually, in a way. So as I said, already at the end of his life, we have this sort of the start of this transformation. In the poem, this transformation is taken even further. And in later sources, this keeps kind of growing. So the myths. Initially, I think this transformation happened probably because of two key reasons. One, I think his widow and his daughters potentially transmitted ideas about his greatness. So we cannot tell exactly what sort of ideas. But in family, this kind of, well, cult, if you like, of ancestors. So keeping track of one's ancestors, but in a much more positive way, very often passed through the women during the medieval period. So his daughter's heirs eventually, so their children and grandchildren became kings in the Iberian Peninsula. So I think this kind of fostered, if you like, a whitewashed image of Rodrigo. And the second one, of course, was the monastery San Pedro de Cardena, because obviously ecclesiastics would be writing about a Christian hero and not about some sort of dubious, opportunistic warrior giving them gifts. Eventually, I think this took off because it wasn't just in the family or just for one particular monastery that he became important during the following centuries, when the Christians slowly, slowly were gaining territory. So basically, by the middle of the 13th century, almost the entire Iberian Peninsula was in Christian hands, apart from Granada. And in those centuries, he became a sort of hero, a model for Christian warriors fighting for the faith. So that really reinforced his position. And then after that, he became an important figure in literature. So both orally kind of recited and composed ballads, and then theater pieces and then various kind of dramas and literature that was sort of written down in the early modern and modern period. So, so basically, you have this accumulation of stories about him as a Christian hero which really then cemented his position in this way.
- [26:42]
John J. Miller
Did Spain need a national hero, and to what extent do we all need national heroes?
- [26:48]
Nora Behrend
I think the answer to that is no. But obviously a lot of people have thought otherwise and sort of wanted and created national heroes, both in Spain and elsewhere. In Spain, of course, he became very important during the Francoist period. So Franco, who won the civil war, the Christian nationalists, saw the Fed as a kind of forerunner of their ideas. And that after Franco's death and the fall of this regime, that obviously led to kind of seeing him as a kind of toxic heritage. But then other people have tried to recuperate him. And of course that also has roots, kind of going back to the 19th century, of seeing him as a kind of republican, someone who can hold the King to account. And more recently, he's even been seen as a kind of multiculturalist who lived together with the Muslims and is a kind of model for us. So there are very many ways in which, which he is presented as a kind of forerunner of some sort of ideas that people hold dear and think that the state should kind of follow those particular lines. But I think that this is all quite dangerous because he's so. The historical Rodrigo is always really lurking behind all these sort well meaning or not so well meaning myths. And historically speaking, I mean, he lived off of killing and plundering. And I don't think we should see that as a model.
- [28:36]
John J. Miller
My first encounter with El Cid was through the movie, the 1961 movie starring Charlton Heston and Sophia Loren. How does that movie plug into the larger story of El Cid and his reputation in Spain?
- [28:54]
Nora Behrend
It's quite interesting because the movie, although often it is thought to be a Hollywood movie because of the stars, it was not actually a Hollywood movie. It was made in Spain. There was this producer, Samuel Bronson, who really wanted to create a kind of alternative Hollywood, if you like. So it was his pitch to create a film that would be equally famous, but it was also tied to the Franco regime. So this was in a period when obviously Franco was trying to get more international acceptance. And the film was also kind of a way to lure tourists to Spain. So they very much said that this was filmed on location. Of course it wasn't. I mean, it was filmed in Spain. But of course the locations of the historical Rodrigo were no longer kind of there in the way that they had been in the 11th century. So they actually used much later, late medieval castles and so on and so forth. But anyway, so it really kind of both aimed to make Spain known and more accepted. And the historical advisor was Ramon Menendez Vidal, who spent his whole life editing the texts about the Cid, writing about the Cid. But unfortunately he really kind of fell in love with his subject matter, in a sense, and he thought that a lot of the myths were actually reality. So he transmitted all that to the filmmakers. So the Rodrigo we see in the film is very much the kind of mythical one and not the Historical one. There wasn't really any attempt to get closer to the historical Rodrigo for this film. But interestingly, in a way, the state of the film basically took revenge, if you like, on the kind of Christian nationalist, Francoist ideas, because it became a kind of reality in itself. So many people thought that the Drigo represented in the film somehow matches the historical one. And people started to refer to him as this wonderful, powerful, multicultural person who coexisted in peace with the Muslims, who actually wanted peace. So he only really kind of had any kind of recourse to violence as a last resort. So taking that as a kind of reality, he became a sort of protagonist in these multiculturalist reinterpretations, which I'm sure Franco would not have appreciated.
- [31:40]
John J. Miller
Nora, you're a scholar of. Of medieval history, and you've written extensively about the medieval period in Europe. What drew you to this subject of El Cid so much that you wanted to write a book about it?
- [31:53]
Nora Behrend
Well, I started to get to know his story when I was teaching. I was teaching a course on how the medieval is used in modern nationalism in different countries in Europe. And so I very quickly found him in this case. It's very interesting, and read up on him. So basically then I thought that what is really important is not just the historical Rodrigo, so not just kind of trying to recreate what we know about him, and of course, other books have been written about that, but to really show how this transformation took place over the centuries and what sort of individuals and what sort of groups contributed to this transformation and why. So that it's not just a question of, well, here's a historical Rigo, and then there are all these distortions about him, but it's really why and how myths are built and what people and groups sort of want out of that. Looking at it very closely, that drew me to this issue, to this topic.
- [32:59]
John J. Miller
So one final question. What is the lesson about all of this for us Today in the 21st century, as you look at the story of El Cid, the real figure, the legend, the movies, all of that, is there a lesson about for us now?
- [33:14]
Nora Behrend
Well, I think it's to really learn critical thinking, to be able to evaluate these stories and to be able to distinguish between myths and historical reality, because historical reality was and is, I think, always messier, with lots of gray areas. And these kind of heroic myths make it both simplistic, black and white, but also completely kind of unrealistic. However, these myths then do a lot of damage, or at least people, in the name of the myths, do a lot of damage. So I think for me, what is very, very important is to try to teach people to be critical and to really sort of learn how to evaluate texts and stories.
- [34:13]
John J. Miller
Nora Baron, thanks so much for joining us and telling us all about the poem of the Sid.
- [34:17]
Nora Behrend
Thank you.
- [34:18]
John J. Miller
You've just listened to the Great Books Podcast, a production of National Review. Please subscribe to the Great Books Podcast, leave reviews of the show that helps us keep this podcast going. Send me your ideas for future episodes. You can reach me through my website@heymiller.com on Twitter. My handle is heymiller. And last of all, a special thanks to all of you for listening. We'll be back next week with an episode of the Great Books Podcast.