The Cool Historian Episode #4

Hello everyone and welcome back to the coolest story in episode 4 and today I'm gonna talk to you about El Cid Rodrigo Diaz most of you might not have heard of him, but this guy was a Castilian nobleman a military leader a Diplomat who after being exiled conquered and ruled the city of Valencia he was also a major figure in the fight against the Moors in the Iberian Peninsula and The reason why I chose to speak about him is because a good friend of mine His name is Rodrigo Diaz and Rodrigo for years has been telling me about El Cid and Rodrigo is from Asturias and Rodrigo tattooed El Cid on his chest and then when I made it out to Burgos where El Cid is from well he's actually from a town about six six kilometers north of there called Vivar or Castillon de Vivar and when I made to Burgos I learned about El Cid about his conquest with the Castilian and Leon kings And then also with the Moors and this guy is a very interesting figure and I'm gonna just break it down for you And his tomb is actually under the Cathedral of Burgos. All right, so I'm gonna start off in the beginning Rodrigo Diaz was born in 1043 in a small town of Vivar or Castillon on Castillon de Vivar about six miles north of Burgos at only 13 years old in 1057 he fought off the Moors in Zaragoza under Sancho the second king of Castilla Leon six years later in 1063 He fought in the Battle of Gran's here They say that he killed an Aragonese knight and single combat and that's why they give him the name compadre compadre compadre and that means the competitor or you know conquer compadre compadre Okay in 1072 the king Sancho the second was assassinated and his brother Alfonso the sixth Came back from from exile from Toledo and took his seat at the throne in 1079 El Cid took his troops to the Battle of Cabra and then he routed his troops Towards Granada and Alfonso got very pissed off at this happened. And this is why he exiled El Cid Well, they say there's many different things They say that he was accused for stealing money from Sevilla And they also say that a lot of noblemen that were next to Alfonso hated El Cid So they so they bad-talked Alfonso about El Cid and that's why he sent El Cid into exile at first El Cid didn't know what to do. So he went to Barcelona to Ramon Berugia But Ramon refused his services then he journeyed to the Taif of Zaragoza, which is a Moorish King and he welcomed El Cid with open arms And this is where El Cid got his name El Cid which in Arabic means the master El is obviously Spanish But El Cid means the master so Rodrigo Diaz the Cid was given the position of being the master of the armies of of Taif of Zaragoza He served as a leading figure in a vibrant Moorish force consisting of mulay this Berbers Arabs and mullions. All these names are very foreign to me So, um, you know and just trying to say as clearly as I can then in the year 1086 there was a huge battle called the Battle of Sagras This was a huge battle between the amorphous armies of Badajoz, Málaga, Granada, Tortosa And Sevilla against the Christian unified armies of Alfonso which were León Aragon, Castilla Alfonso was actually stunned because he was defeated so easily and then he called back El Cid out of exile So El Cid came back to him and then they don't really know what happened between The the time he came back to Alfonso and Right after that when he conquered Valencia, but they do know that El Cid set out to conquer the city of Valencia He successfully took control the city with his Moorish and Christian armies by May 1094 El Cid actually created his own principality in Valencia He ruled Valencia under the name of Alfonso's kingdom, but it was really his own principality So he was the the sole ruler of Valencia It was an amazing city because the Moorish and the Christians were living in peace Which is something that you didn't see in the Iberian Peninsula at all during this time because the whole time it was the Moorish The Moorish trying to take over the whole entire Iberian Peninsula and the Christians trying to reconquer their Iberian Peninsula So it's incredible that he actually had The ability to have these people live in peace for many years For actually three years and El Cid ruled in peace then the Amoravids besieged the city and El Cid was killed He was killed he was a struck in the heart with an arrow and his wife successfully grabbed him and took him to Burgos and the city of Valencia fell in 1102 to the Amoravid dynasty and it would stay Moorish for another 125 years So I enjoyed the story of El Cid because this guy during that time during the you know The reconquering the Iberian Peninsula. He actually was a Christian was betrayed by his own king He was sent out into exile He became a master to a Moorish kingdom and then he ruled Valencia with Christians and Moors at peace Which is something that you would never have found in that time that time It was all about taking back the land from the Moors So this is why I wanted to speak about him and I hope you enjoyed the story about El Cid Rodrigo Diaz and next week I'm gonna talk about something that might be outside of Europe I'm sorry that I'm sticking in Europe, but Europe is just so much history that I just want to keep learning more about it Alright, so I hope you enjoyed this. This is David Hoffman the coolest story and checking out check me out next time next week. Peace