El Cid was born Rodrigo Díaz circa AD 1043 in Vivar, also known as Castillona de Bivar, a small town about six miles north of Burgos, the capital of Castile. His father, Diego Laínez, was a courtier, bureaucrat, and cavalryman who had fought in several battles. Despite the fact that El Cid's mother's family was aristocratic, in later years the peasants would consider him one of their own.
El commanded the forces of Sancho II of Castile against Sancho's brother, Alfonso VI of León, but on Sancho's assassination accepted Alfonso as king of Castile. However, in 1081 Alfonso banished him on the pretext that he had failed to surrender the whole tribute which he had collected from the Moorish king of Seville.
El Cid then began the famous career of exploits which made him the hero of Spanish legend and literature. As a soldier of fortune, he offered his services to Christians and Moors alike, was refused by the Christian Count of Barcelona, but was accepted by the Moorish king of Saragossa. Under his leadership, the Moorish dominions in Spain were expanded, and failing to regain the favour of Alfonso, he also harried Castile.
El's most famous campaign was the conquest of the Moorish kingdom of Valencia which was attacked by the head of a North African Moslem dynasty. Proceeding at the head of a Moslem force from Saragossa, El Cid took Valencia in 1094 and became its effective ruler. However, in 1099 his troops were routed by the Almoravides. Unable to survive the blow, he died on July 10, 1099. Valencia was led by his widow until 1102, when she evacuated the city, taking her husband's body for burial at the monastery of San Pedro at Cardena, near Burgos.
The figure of El Cid has been the source for many literary works, beginning with the Cantar del Mio Cid, an epic poem from the 12th century which gives a partly-fictionalized account of his life. This poem, along with similar later works such as the Mocedades de Rodrigo, contributed to portray El Cid as a chivalric hero of the Reconquista, making him a legendary figure in Spain.
In the early 17th century the Spanish writer Guillén de Castro wrote a play called "Las Mocedades del Cid", on which French playwright Pierre Corneille based one of his most famous tragicomedies, Le Cid. He was also a popular source of inspiration for Spanish writers of the Romantic period, such as Juan Eugenio Hartzenbusch, who wrote "La Jura de Santa Gadea", or José Zorrilla, who wrote a long poem called "La Leyenda del Cid".
El Cid was married in July 1075 to Jimena Díaz, said to have been a kinswoman of King Alfonso. El Cid and Jimena had two daughters and a son.
