| Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, an 11th-century Spanish warrior known as El Cid, became a national hero and served as the subject for the most famous epic in Spanish literature, El cantar de mío Cid (The Song of the Cid, composed about 1200). El Cid rose to prominence as a soldier of fortune, gaining great power and wealth with his small army. In 1094 El Cid and his men took Valencia from the Moors, who at that time held a large part of Spain. |