s
heresy has not wanted followers even in Spain. The truth of the matter,
however, has been expressed by Cervantes, through the mouth of the Canon
in _Don Quixote _: "There is no doubt there was such a man as the Cid,
but much doubt whether he achieved what is attributed to him." The
researches of Professor Dozy, of Leiden, have amply confirmed this
opinion. There is a Cid of history and a Cid of romance, differing very
materially in character, but each filling a large space in the annals of
his country, and exerting a singular influence in the development of the
national genius.

The Cid of history, though falling short of the poetical ideal which the
patriotism of his countrymen has so long cherished, is still the
foremost man of the heroical period of Spain--the greatest warrior
produced out of the long struggle between Christian and Moslem, and the
perfect type of the Castilian of the 12th century. Rodrigo Diaz, called
de Bivar, from the place of his birth, better known by the title given
him by the Arabs as the _Cid_ (_El Seid_, the lord), and _El Campeador_,
the champion _par excellence_, was of a noble family, one of whose
members in a former generation had been elected judge of Castile. The
date of his birth cannot be fixed with any certainty, but it was
probably between 1030 and 1040. As Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar he is first
mentioned in a charter of Ferdinand I. of the year 1064. The legends
which speak of the Cid as accompanying this monarch in his expeditions
to France and Italy must be rejected as purely apocryphal. Ferdinand, a
great and wise prince, under whom the tide of Moslem conquest was first
effectually stemmed, on his deathbed, in 1065, divided his territories
among his five children. Castile was left to his eldest son Sancho, Leon
to Alphonso, Galicia to Garcia, Zamora and Toro to his two daughters
Urraca and Elvira. The extinction of the western caliphate and the
dispersion of the once noble heritage of the Ommayads into numerous
petty independent states, had taken place some thirty years previously,
so that Castilian and Moslem were once again upon equal terms, the
country being almost equally divided between them. On both sides was
civil war, urged as fiercely as that against the common enemy, in which
the parties sought allies indiscriminately among Christians and
Mahommedans.

No condition of affairs could be more favourable to the genius of the
Cid. He rose to great distinction in the war betw