Rodriguo Diaz the Cid and the empire of Valencia

Well, I didn't mean he didn't exist. Obviusly the historicity of Rodrigo Díaz probably can't be denyed, both muslim and christian documents reffers to him (interestingly, muslim sources reffer to him in very negative terms though they acknowledge his martial skills but, wasn't El Cid the tolerant knight and caudillo beloved by christians and muslims?). The historicty of Mío Cid Ruy Díaz, el de Vivar Campeador is more questionable.The probelm is, due to the lack of seizable historical data to reconstruct his life and the allure of legend the figure reached, we have one of those cases where myth and and history have been intermixed dangerously. Plus, you have to take into account that medieval chronicles, as the literature, didn't lose a chance to use famous figures with moralizing goals. For that reason El Cid is always represented as the model of knight who follows the chivalry code under any circumstances, the best of lords, the best of vassals and the best of warriors, his "problems" with Alfonso VI are reduced to moral/emotional causes, like the envy of the king and other castilian nobles. It's said that he descended from one of the original Judges of Castille linking him with the fundational myth of Castile, or the marriages of his daughter with the lineages of Aragon and Navarra, linking him with the kings of Hispania. There is both a moralizing and a political agenda behind all that. Even the allegedly more serious source about his life, the Historia Roderici or Gesta Roderici moves dangerously in the line between the chronicle and the hagiography (like many other medieval chronicles, by the way, their concept of History wasn't our concept of History) and even it has been suggested that it could be an attempt made by the aragonese monarchy to appropriate the symbolical value of El Cid. Finally, among the modern historians interested in El Cid, probably the most influent was Menéndez Pidal. The problem with Pidal was that he wanted to believe in the legendary hagiography of El Cid because, as a traditionalist, he liked the political implications of the mythical Rodrigo Díaz. Thus, the least we can say is that El Cid is, in historical terms, a problematic figure.

Of course, you can muse about him, but taking into account two things:
1. We should be critic about most of we think we know about him and
2.He was an human being, not an virtuous and unbeatable knight, so he had human motivations and flaws.
We can accept that his dinasty could have established a durable rule over Valencia. The "history" says that the Almarivids took the city after the Cid's death, so they wasn't so toasted. It makes sense if we accept that he was that unbeatable warrior. If not, what happened to the mighty of his men once he was death? But well, let's asume that another great leader tooks his place, perhaps his son Diego if he doesn't fall, as the history-legend says, fighting for Castille. As much, the new dinasty can aspire to survive as taifa lords of Valencia. With her riches, Valencia can't take over the rest of the peninsula. With its riches, the muslim rulers of Valencia had problems to survive at the time the Cid started to serve the king of Zaragoza. They needed an alliance with Barcelona and latter with the Almoravids and it wasn't enough. You have to think that 11th century Iberia, as much of Europe, is a world of warlords (an over-symplification, I know) and clientelar relations. A world where not only militar power but also the ability to make compromises was essential to survive and also a world where alliances were "dynamic". Castille and Leon, with all their might (in comparative terms) couldn't have took over souther Spain, that's the reason why they compromised with the taifas. Even less could a mercenary who had jus took over Valencia, if we accept the history, with the valuable support of the taifa of Zaragoza. Of someone would have tried to outright take over the others, everyone else would have teamed up against him. In short, it would be necessary a generations long policy of dynastic and non-dynastic alliances, luck and militar success to have a dominant Valencia, which by the way is exactly the history of the successful kingdoms of Iberia.

Cheers.[/QUO
Who said he was perfect, I know that hes a Human being, but he already had Allainces, with Powerful Iberian Kingdoms, such as Aragorn, and Navarre, Also Yes it willl be extremly challenging for the CID and he may not have been that tolerant but if that's the case why did Moors rally to his banners why did the Emir of Zaragoza trust him so much that they became good friends, surely you don't think he conquered Valencia with a bunch of Spaniards because I would be downright impossible, also in His capture of Valencia a civil war was going on and he used it to his advantage and took over, the city, For what you say that Moors hated him, only the Berbers, most likely because he crushed their army, and reppeled Yusuf before dying, so Most likely they hate hm for temporarily halting the great Almoharavid advance, and I also do not completely trust Spanish sources because many would realize that most sources in Spain will be a little biast to their national Hero:p. So when I write the TL i shall write it from a completely Objective view;), using both Muslim and christian sources I will put it together, Also the Cid will not take that much land, However due to his daughters royal marraige with Barcelona, he can enter into a personal union with Barcelona, and I am planning for his son to marry a princess of either Navarre, Aragorn, or Portugal, which do you think would prove more useful...... :)
 
Out of curiosity do you know of any major features of Valencian that differ from Catalan?

Wow, that's a very sensitive issue. It has been strongly politized, specially in the last decades, mainly because valencians permanently want to differenciate themselves from catalans (and also from castilians), something legitime, but sometimes they go too far. I'm a rookie in catalan and I'm not linguist, so my impressions could be wrong. My impression is that catalan and valencian are no more different to each other than castilian spanish and andalusian spanish, for example, let apart latin-american dialects. There are obvious phonetical differences, valencian seems more close to castilian phonetically speaking, though it's also true that the catalan spoken in the industrial belt of Barcelona (dormitory-towns populated during the 20th century by immigrants from other parts of Spain, mainly from Andalusia, Extremadura and Galicia) is also very "castellanized" in its phonetic as it is in its vocabulary. There is also some differences in the spelling, for example the female possessives "my", "yours", "hers" are spelled meva, teva, seva in catalan and meua, teua, seua in valencian, also in the numerals, for example catalans spell vuit for "eight" and velancians huit. Also differences in the lexic (as is usual among different dialects), so, catalans use to say petit to mean "small" and valencians menut, "today" is said avui in catalan and huí in valencian or "this" and "that" are in catalan aquest/a aqueix/a, and in valencian este/a, eixe/a, for comparation, in castilian we say este/a and ese/a. Of course there are tons of examples of this that I don't know, but you have the idea, I hope.
But, for example, if you go to any website of the spanish government, that are translated to all our offical languages, you will realize that the catalan and valencian versions are almost the same, even if they are differenciated to avoid offending sensibilities. Some blaveros, extreme "valencianists",pretend that they don't understand catalan, but that is ridiculous, I have understood prefectly catalan since I learned french thanks that when it's not similar to spanish it's similar to french, so a valencian, whose "language" is by far closer to catalan than either french or spanish, should understand it without problems. Thus I think we can say that they are mutually understable (and much more). Balearic dialects are probably more different to catalan and valencian variants than catalan and valencian to each other and they, or at least most of them, don't pretend to speak a different language.

Cheers.
 
Wow, that's a very sensitive issue. It has been strongly politized....

Cheers.
Thanks. Your explanation was very informative. I think I can analogize it because I am technically a native speaker of Mexican Spanish so Castillian presents almost no problems to me despite having a number of differences. [I asked because I couldn't think of any big differences between them off hand -ED]

It would be interesting to speculate what Valencian would sound like if Valencia was politically divided from Aragon for longer than IOTL and ruled over what must be assumed to be a more heavily Muslim south. Reduced French and greater Arab or Berber I'd say (yet that element would also be distinct from Castillian which had less French still). Maybe even more terms of Jewish origins. With the relatively heavy Slav population around Denia you could also end up with some very strange elements if any of their original languages survived saqaliba conversion to Islam.
 
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Thanks. Your explanation was very informative. I think I can analogize it because I am technically a native speaker of Mexican Spanish so Castillian presents almost no problems to me despite having a number of differences. [I asked because I couldn't think of any big differences between them off hand -ED]

It would be interesting to speculate what Valencian would sound like if Valencia was politically divided from Aragon for longer than IOTL and ruled over what must be assumed to be a more heavily Muslim south. Reduced French and greater Arab or Berber I'd say (yet that element would also be distinct from Castillian which had less French still). Maybe even more terms of Jewish origins. With the relatively heavy Slav population around Denia you could also end up with some very strange elements if any of their original languages survived saqaliba conversion to Islam.

Yes, the analogy with mexican and iberian spanish fits perfectly. Well, our academies work together to keep the unity of the language (I think that catalan and valencian academies don't cooperate always, thought I can assure it), but on the other hand we have an ocean separating us.

Your question about what could be speaked in Valencia is interesting. I had wondered how could be valencian if, instead of being "repopulated" by catalans it would have been "repopulated" by aragoneses (with aragoneses I mean proper aragoneses, from Aragon itself) But I had never thought about your idea. I can't say much, to be honest. Perhaps some short of catalanized mozarabe could be possible (actually in OTL the differences between catalan and valencian could be due to the mozarabe substrate, but I mean more mozarabe and less catalan than in OTL) or an arabized catalan. I guess that in OTL arab lexicon is greater in valencian than in catalan, as I said I'm a rookie in catalan, I support my assumption only in the toponomy, and I know it is a weak support. But arab toponomy is very common in Valencia, not a surprise of course, so your suggestion about greater arab influence sounds likely. Regarding the slavic influence I agree, we could see weird things, perhaps it could lead to the loss of the articles...

Por cierto, no sabía que fueras hispanohablante. Bueno, dado el interés que muestras por la historia de España suponía que quizá lo hablases, pero no sabía que fuera tu lengua materna. Perdona la indiscreción, pero como dices "técnicamente", se me ha despertado la curiosidad. ¿Eres mexicano y vives en EEUU o eres estadounidense de ascendencia mexicana? Por supuesto, entenderé que no quieras responder una pregunta personal.

Un saludo.
 
Who said he was perfect, I know that hes a Human being, but he already had Allainces, with Powerful Iberian Kingdoms, such as Aragorn, and Navarre, Also Yes it willl be extremly challenging for the CID and he may not have been that tolerant but if that's the case why did Moors rally to his banners why did the Emir of Zaragoza trust him so much that they became good friends, surely you don't think he conquered Valencia with a bunch of Spaniards because I would be downright impossible, also in His capture of Valencia a civil war was going on and he used it to his advantage and took over, the city, For what you say that Moors hated him, only the Berbers, most likely because he crushed their army, and reppeled Yusuf before dying, so Most likely they hate hm for temporarily halting the great Almoharavid advance, and I also do not completely trust Spanish sources because many would realize that most sources in Spain will be a little biast to their national Hero:p. So when I write the TL i shall write it from a completely Objective view;), using both Muslim and christian sources I will put it together, Also the Cid will not take that much land, However due to his daughters royal marraige with Barcelona, he can enter into a personal union with Barcelona, and I am planning for his son to marry a princess of either Navarre, Aragorn, or Portugal, which do you think would prove more useful...... :)

Well, my point was that it is difficult to separate the legend from the history. In an extreme case, it could be even a completly invented personage. Probable it is not the case, but still in the different versions and sources about El Cid, besides the obvious ideological intentions, there are historical flaws, anachronisms and people who wouldn't be there regarding what we know from other sources about them. So, when you say you want to be objetive, though your intentions are laudable, I simply warn you that it will be difficult. On the other hand, I didn't say that hispanomuslims hated him. Actually I can't figure what was his image among the hispanosmuslims as an ensemble. I only said that andalusi sources had a negative view of him. Also, it could be that muslim sources had took a mythologized hero of the christians and demonized him as counter-propaganda, thought it would make them less reliable as historical sources, how can we know?
Personally, I see El Cid as a very interesting literary figure which offers a lot of options to make a good story, but very problematic to make a good history. Of course, many mediavalists (and I'm not mediavalist by any stretch) with better knowledge than me have thought differently (others not). I mean, I don't want to discourage you, and El Cid and his descendants keeping Valencia is not ASB at all, thought challenging. But I can avoid to be skeptical about everything surrounding El Cid, because what has been legated to us seems mostly a masterpiece of propaganda.

That said, assuming that we can be confident in most of the historicity regarding the took of Valencia(not so unlikely) and the royal marriages (more unlikely in my opinion) take into account that, if Valencia and Barcelona enter in alliance via the marriage between María and Ramon Berenguer III, their heir would be a Barcelona and not a Rodríguez, though an early Valencia under the house of Barcelona could be interesting to see, it seems that it's not your plan, since Diego will be still alive. Still, you need butterflies, after all Berenguer and María didn't have known offspring (suspect, isn't it?). I don't know who would better to marry. Aragon has as natural area of expansion Zaragoza, an allied of El Cid, without Zaragoza, the aragonese are not much more than a bunch of backwarded highlanders. Navarra could be a source of problems with Castille and also with Zaragoza, and Portugal is too far. Trying to be in the shoes of someone from the 11th century, I would ally with Aragon and backstab Zaragoza when possible, which with the time could be a menace to valencian and catalan flanks, taking into account they are ev0l muslims who want to destroy the amer...I mean the valencian way of life. With a personal union after Diego has a son (you should check if there was some aragonese princess avilable at the time and how much people should be poisoned to make her son the heir of the crown), the diplomatic and dynastic politic should be cntered in Catalonia, I guess. But MNP's propossal of no Aragonese expansion sounds very attractive.

Cheers.
 
Well, my point was that it is difficult to separate the legend from the history. In an extreme case, it could be even a completly invented personage. Probable it is not the case, but still in the different versions and sources about El Cid, besides the obvious ideological intentions, there are historical flaws, anachronisms and people who wouldn't be there regarding what we know from other sources about them. So, when you say you want to be objetive, though your intentions are laudable, I simply warn you that it will be difficult. On the other hand, I didn't say that hispanomuslims hated him. Actually I can't figure what was his image among the hispanosmuslims as an ensemble. I only said that andalusi sources had a negative view of him. Also, it could be that muslim sources had took a mythologized hero of the christians and demonized him as counter-propaganda, thought it would make them less reliable as historic
al sources, how can we know?
Personally, I see El Cid as a very interesting literary figure which offers a lot of options to make a good story, but very problematic to make a good history. Of course, many mediavalists (and I'm not mediavalist by any stretch) with better knowledge than me have thought differently (others not). I mean, I don't want to discourage you, and El Cid and his descendants keeping Valencia is not ASB at all, thought challenging. But I can avoid to be skeptical about everything surrounding El Cid, because what has been legated to us seems mostly a masterpiece of propaganda.

That said, assuming that we can be confident in most of the historicity
regarding the took of Valencia(not so unlikely) and the royal marriages (more unlikely in my opinion) take into account that, if Valencia and Barcelona enter in alliance via the marriage between María and Ramon Berenguer III, their heir would be a Barcelona and not a Rodríguez, though an early Valencia under the house of Barcelona could be interesting to see, it seems that it's not your plan, since Diego will be still alive. Still, you need butterflies, after all Berenguer and María didn't have known offspring (suspect, isn't it?). I don't
know who would better to marry. Aragon has as natural area of expansion Zaragoza, an allied of El Cid, without Zaragoza, the aragonese are not much more than a bunch of backwarded highlanders. Navarra could be a source of problems with Castille and also with Zaragoza, and Portugal is too far. Trying Literature.org:
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to be in the shoes of someone from the 11th century, I would ally
and backstab Zaragoza when possible, which with the time could be a menace to valencian and catalan flanks, taking into account they are ev0l muslims who want to destroy the amer...I mean the valencian way of life. With a personal union after Diego has a son (you should check if there was some aragonese princess avilable at the time and how much people should be poisoned to make her son the heir of the crown), the diplomatic and dynastic politic should be cntered in Catalonia, I guess. But MNP's propossal of no Aragonese expansion sounds very attractive.

Cheers.

I agree, about the Barcelona, I was planning on Berenger die an early death and the Maria could take over Barcelona which she could then give to her father the CID.... Is that possible or no.
 
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