El Cid the life story Rodrigo Díaz' father, Diego Laínez, was a member of the minor nobility (infanzones) of Castile. But the Cid's social background was less unprivileged than later popular tradition liked to suppose, for he was directly connected on his mother's side with the great landed aristocracy, and he was brought up at the court of Ferdinand I in the household of that king's eldest son, the future Sancho II of …showed first 75 words of 1410 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1410 total…epic poem of Castile, El cantar de mío Cid ("The Song of the Cid") and later by Pierre Corneille's tragedy Le Cid, first performed in 1637. For authentic information historians have to rely mainly on a few contemporary documents, on the Historia Roderici (a reliable, private 12th-century Latin chronicle of the Cid's life), and on a detailed eyewitness account of his conquest of Valencia by the Arab historian Ibn 'Alqamah. (P.E.R.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ **Bibliography**