This is the Cid Campeador as he appears in Ibn-Bassam’s _Dhakira_, written ten years after the Cid’s death, and in the anonymous _Gesta Ruderici Campidocti_ which dates from between 1140 and 1170. The authors write from opposite points of view, and are not critical, but they are trustworthy in essentials, and a statement made by both may usually be taken as a fact, or as a close approximation to fact. The Cid, as you perceive, is far from being irreproachable. He has all the qualities, and therefore all the defects, of a mediæval soldier of fortune: he was brave, mercenary, perfidious and cruel. How, then, are we to account for his position as a national hero? In the first place, we must avoid the error of judging him by modern standards, and in the second place, we must bear in mind that almost all we learn of his later years—the best known period of his life—comes to us from enemies whose prejudices may have led them unconsciously to darken the shadows in the portrait. It is a shock to discover that the man who symbolises the spirit of Spanish patriotism was a border chief in the pay of the highest bidder; it is a greater shock to find that the man who figures as the type of knightly orthodoxy fought for the Mohammedans against the Christians. We must part with our simple-minded illusions, and admit that Pius V. was right in turning a deaf ear when Philip II. suggested (so it is said) the canonisation of the Cid. All heroes are apt to lose their glamour when dragged from the twilight of tradition and poetry into the fierce blaze of fact and history. The Cid is no exception. Renan sums up against him with gay severity. ‘Tout ce qu’il fut, il le dut aux ennemis de sa patrie, même le nom sous lequel il est resté dans l’histoire. Le représentant idéal de l’honneur espagnol était un _condottiere_, combattant tantôt pour le Christ, tantôt pour Mahomet. Le représentant idéal de l’amour n’a peut-être jamais aimé. Encore une idole qui tombe sous les coups de l’impitoyable critique!’