The poet either from ignorance or choice has disregarded the historical significance of the campaigns of the Cid. He fails to mention his defeat of the threatening horde of Almoravides at the very moment when their victory over Alphonso's Castilians at Zalaca had opened to them Spain's richest provinces, and turns the crowning achievement of the great warrior's life into the preliminary to a domestic event which he considered of greater importance. We are grateful to him for his lack of accuracy, for it illustrates how men thought about their heroes in that time. The twelfth century Castilians would have admitted that in battle the Cid was of less avail than their patron James, the son of Zebedee, but they would have added that after all the saint was a Galilean and not a Spaniard. In order then to make the Cid not merely heroic but a national hero he must become the possessor of attributes of greatness beyond mere courage. The poet therefore, probably assuming that his hearers were well aware of the Cid's prowess in arms, devoted himself to a theme of more intimate appeal. The Cid, an exile from Castile and flouted by his enemies at home, must vindicate himself. The discomfiture of the Moor is not an end in itself but the means of vindication and, be it said, of support. When he is restored to favor, the marriage of his daughters to the Heirs of Carrión under Alphonso's auspices is the royal acknowledgment. The treachery of the heirs is the pretext for the Parliament of Toledo where the Cid shall appear in all the glory of triumphant vindication. The interest in the hecatombs of Moors and even in the fall of Valencia is a secondary one. What really matters is that the Cid's fair name be cleared of all stain of disloyalty and the doña Elvira and doña Sol wed worthy husbands.