III. Now had King Don Alfonso for many years cut down the bread and the wine and the fruits in all the country round about Toledo, and he made ready to go against the city. The tidings of this great enterprise spread far and wide, and adventurers came from all parts lo be present; not only they of Castille and Leon, Asturias and Nagera, Galicia and Portugal, but King Sancho Ramirez of Aragon came also, with the flower of Aragon and Navarre and Catalonia, and Franks and Germans and Italians, and men of other countries, to bear their part in so great and catholic a war. And the King entertained them well, being full bountiful, insomuch that he was called He of the Open Hand. Never had so goodly a force of Christians been assembled in Spain, nor so great an enterprise attempted, since the coming of the Moors. And of this army was my Cid the leader. So soon as the winter was over they began their march. And when they came to a ford of the Tagus, behold the river was swoln, and the best horsemen feared to try the passage. Now there was a holy man in the camp, by name Lesmes, who was a monk of St. Benedict's; and he being mounted upon an ass rode first into the ford, and passed safely through the flood; and all who beheld him held it for a great miracle. IV. Greatly to be blamed are they who lived in those days for not handing down to everlasting remembrance the worthy feats which were atchieved at this siege. For not only was Toledo a strong city, both by nature and in its walls and towers, but the flower of the chivalry of all Spain and of all Christendom was there assembled, and the Moors of Spain also, knowing that this was, as it were, the heart of their empire, did all they could to defend it: greatly to be blamed are they who neglected to transmit to us the memory of their deeds, and greatly have they wronged the worthy knights whose exploits should else have gained for them a never-dying renown. Nothing more, owing to their default, can we say of this so notable a siege, than that when Don Cabrian, the Bishop of Leon, was earnestly engaged in prayer for the success of the Christian arms, the glorious St. Isidro appeared unto him, and certified that in fifteen days the city should be surrendered; and even so it came to pass, for the gates were opened to the King on Thursday the twenty-fifth of May, in the year of the æera 1123, which is the year of Christ 1085. The first Christian banner which entered the city was the banner of my Cid, and my Cid was the first Christian Alcayde of Toledo. Of the terms granted unto the Moors, and how they were set aside for the honour of the Catholic faith, and of the cunning of the Jews who dwelt in the city, and how the Romish ritual was introduced therein, this is not the place to speak; all these things are written in the Chronicles of the Kings of Spain.