This cannot have been written much later than 1120, about a score of years after the Cid’s death. The theme, like many another theme of the same kind, was too alluring to be left to monks who wrote in a learned language for a small circle, and it was soon treated in the speech of the people by _juglares_—not necessarily laymen—who recited their compositions in palaces, castles, monasteries, public squares, markets, or any other place where an audience could be got together. In this way a body of epical poems came into existence. You may say that this is late, and so it is if you are thinking of _Beowulf_ and _Waldhere_ which, in their actual shapes, certainly existed before the reign of Alfred, and have even been assigned to the sixth century. But we must make a radical distinction. _Beowulf_ and _Waldhere_ are, we may say, sagas in verse, and have no immediate relation to England, so far as subject goes: the French and Spanish epics are conspicuously national in theme and sentiment. We know that Spain possessed many epics which have not survived: epics on Roderick, on Bernardo del Carpio, on Fernán González, on Garci-Fernández, on Sancho García, perhaps on Alvar Fáñez Minaya, the Cid’s lieutenant. Only three of these ancient _cantares de gesta_ have been saved, and among them is the epic known as the _Poema del Cid_, Possibly it was not the first vernacular poem on the subject, though it was composed about the middle of the twelfth century, some fifty years after the Cid’s time; but, as we shall see presently, there is a long interval between the date of composition and the date of transcription. As to the author of the _Poema_ nothing is known. On the ground that some two hundred lines relate to events occurring at the monastery of Cardeña near Burgos, it has been conjectured that the author was a monk attached to this monastery. It has also been thought, owing to his warlike spirit, that he was a layman, and that he came from the Valle de Arbujuelo: this is inferred from his minute knowledge of the country between Molina and San Esteban de Gormaz, and from the relative vagueness of such knowledge as the itinerary extends to Burgos and Saragossa. These, however, are but surmises. It is further surmised that the substance of the _Poema del Cid_ may be derived from earlier epic poems. That may be: but, as it stands, it has a unity of its own.