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Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar

1099 CE

Retrace Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar's life across the map — 10 events in chronological order, from a cinematic flythrough to a full timeline.

Life journey

1. Battle of Graus1063 CE
   The Battle of Graus was a battle of the Reconquista, traditionally said to have taken place on 8 May 1063. Either in or as a result of the battle, King Ramiro I of Aragon died.
2. Battle of Llantada1068 CE
   The Battle of Llantada or Llantadilla was a border skirmish fought on 19 July 1068 on the banks of the Pisuerga near the frontier between León and Castile. There Sancho II of Castile defeated his brother Alfonso VI of León. Though Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar is usually associated with this battle, the evidence of his presence there is rather late and his influence in Castile at that early stage of his career too slight to make plausible the tradition that he was Sancho's alférez.
3. Battle of Golpejera1072 CE
   The Battle of Golpejera also known as Golpejar, was an internecine battle among Christian kingdoms fought in early January 1072. King Sancho II of Castile defeated the forces of his brother Alfonso VI of León near Carrión de los Condes. It is notable as being one of the battles in which El Cid participated.
4. Battle of Cabra1079 CE
   The Battle of Cabra took place in 1079 in southern Iberia between two Islamic states, Granada and Seville. Each side was aided by Castilian knights under Alfonso VI. It resulted in a victory for El Cid, who routed the invading forces of Emir Abd Allah of Granada and his Christian allies led by Count García Ordóñez. El Cid captured Ordóñez and other Christian knights and held them for three days until releasing them to return to Castile.
5. Battle of Almenar1082 CE
   The battle of Almenar was fought in the spring or summer of 1082 between the taifa kingdom of Zaragoza and the taifa kingdom of Lleida. The Zaragozan army under El Cid defeated the Lleidan army and its Catalan allies, thus relieving a siege of Almenar. Count Berenguer Ramon II of Barcelona was taken captive, but was soon released.
6. Battle of Morella1084 CE
   The Battle of Morella (14 August 1084×88), southwest of Tortosa, was fought between Sancho Ramírez, King of Aragon and Navarre, and Yusuf al-Mu'tamin, King of Zaragoza, while the former was engaged in a campaign of conquest against the latter. All surviving sources for the battle are either later by a generation or literary in character, and they are confused on the chronology and dating of the event. The encounter was a defeat for Sancho and sparked a brief reversal of fortunes in the Navarro-Aragonese Reconquista. The Castilian hero, Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, El Cid, was a general for al-Mu'tamin at the time. According to the Aragonese Crónica de San Juan de la Peña (c.1370), Sancho later sought out El Cid, who had also defeated his father in the Battle of Graus (1063), and defeated him in the year 1088. However, the Crónica is the only source mentioning such an encounter and, as it was written three hundred years later, most leading scholars give no credence to this claim, which was probably intended to justify the prerogatives of Peter IV of the Crown of Aragon.
7. Siege of Zaragoza1086 CE
   The Siege of Zaragoza of 1086 was one of the battles of the Reconquista.
8. Siege of Valencia1092 CE
   The Siege of Valencia (1092–1094) was fought between Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, later revered as “El Cid” and Ibn Jahhaf, the Muslim ruler of the Taifa of Valencia. Rodrigo’s victory established the Christian Lordship of Valencia.
9. Battle of Quart de Poblet1094 CE
   The Battle of Cuarte or Battle of Quart de Poblet was a military engagement that took place on 21 October 1094 between the forces of El Cid, ruler of the Principality of Valencia, and the Almoravid Empire under the command of Muhammad ibn Tashfin, near the towns of Mislata and Quart de Poblet, located a few kilometres from Valencia.
10. Battle of Bairén1097 CE
    The Battle of Bairén was fought between the forces of Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, also known as "El Cid", in coalition with Peter I of Aragon, against the forces of the Almoravid dynasty, under the command of Muhammad ibn Tasufin. The battle was part of the long Reconquista of Spain, and resulted in a victory for the forces of the Kingdom of Aragon and the Principality of Valencia.

Event data from Wikipedia/Wikidata (CC-BY-SA). Spotted a mistake? Email [email protected].