There was no written text of this romance or ballad until a researcher, Julián Pérez López, printed it in Al Destierro con el Cid (Burgos, 1979), having taken it down from an oral rendition by an old woman in the hometown of El Cid in Vivar. Although the story of the ballad doubtless goes back a long way in time, its strophic form suggests a baroque mindset.

The Jimena of history was a daughter of the Count of Oviedo. This Count's name was Diego, and Jimena's surname would be Diaz, that is to say, Diego's child. She was also a first cousin of Alfonso who later became Alfonso VI, the Cid's King. The ballads name Jimena's father as Lozano, which is an adopted name, just as is the surname Gómez. This adoption is already sanctioned by a chronicle of 1344, and Juan de Mariana's History of Spain endorses it in Book IX, Chapter V. The Cid, Mariana writes, engaged in battle with Count Gómez and defeated and killed him.

All of Christian Spain had acknowledged Asturias/León as successor to the Kingdom of Toledo. In 714, Toledo, the capital of Visigothic Spain, had fallen to the Moors. Castile, however, emerged as a rival and ultimately stronger power. The childless King Bermudo III (1028-1037) made León a dowry for his sister Sancha who became wife of Fernando, Prince Heir of Navarre, who in 1029 had become Count of Castile.

Fernando yielded to ancestral rivalries among his vassals and re-divided his kingdom. To his son Alfonso he gave León, and to his son Sancho he gave Castile and its capital, Burgos. Sancho ousted Alfonso who fled to the Moors in Toledo; but at the siege of Zamora in 1072 Sancho was murdered and Alfonso returned and claimed the succession.

The Cid's ancestry has been traced back to a Judge of Castile named Lain Calvo.

A Few Notes

Rodrigo was the Cid's name.

Cid is Arabic for 'Lord'.

Campeador means 'master on the battlefield'.

Burgos and León were capital towns of two Christian kingdoms that united under Fernando I.

Lain Calvo was a Judge of Castile and the Cid's ancestor.

There is a tradition that calls Jimena's father Lozano, a Count.

Jimena was a king's first cousin.

Gómez, according to one tradition, is the surname of both Jimena and Lozano.

The Cid and Count Lozano fought out their differences in strict accordance with the Gothic Law Code.

In Spanish ballads Gerineldos is Charlemagne's finest Page.

St Isidore's was the Royal Basilica and Pantheon.