The Quest for El Cid - Hardcover

Fletcher, Richard

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0394574478 ISBN 13: 9780394574479

Publisher: Knopf, 1990

Synopsis

Looks at the life of the eleventh century mercenary and examines the legends that have developed about him and his times

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Reviews

Known as El Cid ("the leader"), Rodrigo Diaz is Spain's first national hero, the 11th-century warrior whose conquests liberated the fatherland from the Moors. But the El Cid celebrated in epic and verse bears little relation to the real Diaz, claims British historian Fletcher ( Saint James's Catapult ). Instead of the shining Christian knight, family man and loyalist of legend, he gives us a mercenary soldier who switched sides and spent five years in the pay of a Muslim ruler, fighting Christians. Arrogant and insubordinate, this Cid was "the scourge of his time," in one contemporary's words, a stern overlord of his conquered subjects, driven by an unquenchable thirst for money. Noting that there was little sense of nationhood in the Spain of the time, Fletcher overturns more myths, e.g., the so-called Arab conquest of Spain in the eighth century was carried out mainly by Berbers. Graceful prose and seamless scholarship buoy this idol-smashing portrait. Illustrated.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Beginning students, sophisticated scholars, and the general reader interested in Spanish medieval history will benefit from this provocative, learned, and elegantly written study of Rodrigo Diaz (c.1043-99)--El Cid--the 11th-century soldier of fortune who became the Spanish national hero. Fletcher begins by sketching the historical scene in Spain and Europe. After an imaginative discussion of the complicated sources of El Cid's life, he describes his aristocratic family background, knightly education, early military campaigns, service at the court of king Sancho II, exile spent as a mercenary soldier in Muslim service, and ultimate triumph as Prince of Valencia. The concluding chapter, as exciting as a murder mystery, explains the growth of the El Cid legend. As an important story fascinatingly told, and as a rich mine of information about many facets of Spanish and Muslim medieval cultures, this book is highly recommended.
- Bennett D. Hill, Georgetown Univ., Washington,
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Knopf
• Publication date: 1990
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0394574478
• ISBN 13: 9780394574479
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 217