El Cid

Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar (1043-1099), known as El Cid Campeador, fought as well for the Christian Kings as for the Moorish Kings. Many stories about him go around. So it is said that he, after beating the forces of Granada disastrously, captured their leader, Count García Ordóñez and pulled his beard, the ultimate insult of those days. El Cid created his own fiefdom in the Moorish Mediterranean city of Valencia. Officially he ruled in the name of the Christian King Alfonso, but in reality he was fully independent. The city was both Muslim and Christian.