The Quest for El Cid PDF Download
Are you looking for read ebook online? Search for your book and save it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Download The Quest for El Cid PDF full book. Access full book title The Quest for El Cid by Richard A. Fletcher. Download full books in PDF and EPUB format.
Author: Richard A. Fletcher
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780195069556
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 246
Get Book
Book Description
Rodrigo Díaz, the legendary warrior-knight of eleventh-century Castile known as El Cid, is still honored in Spain as a national hero for liberating the fatherland from the occupying Moors. Yet, as this book reveals, there are many contradictions between eleventh-century reality and the mythology that developed later. By placing El Cid in a fresh, historical context, Fletcher shows us an adventurous soldier of fortune who was of a type, one of a number of "cids," or "bosses," who flourished in eleventh-century Spain. But the El Cid of legend--the national hero -- was unique in stature even in his lifetime. Before his death El Cid was already celebrated in a poem; posthumously he was immortalized in the great epic Poema de Mío Cid. When he died in Valencia in 1099, he was ruler of an independent principality he had carved for himself in Eastern Spain. Rather than the zealous Christian leader many believe him to have been, Rodrigo emerges in Fletcher's study as a mercenary equally at home in the feudal kingdoms of northern Spain and the exotic Moorish lands of the south, selling his martial skills to Christian and Muslim alike. Indeed, his very title derives from the Arabic word sayyid, meaning 'lord' or 'master.' And as there was little if any sense of Spanish nationhood in the eleventh century, he can hardly be credited for uniting a medieval Spanish nation. This ground-breaking inquiry into the life and times of El Cid disentangles fact from myth to create a striking portrait of an extraordinary man, clearly showing how and why legend transformed him into something he was not during his lifetime.--From publisher description.
Author: Richard A. Fletcher
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780195069556
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 246
Get Book
Book Description
Rodrigo Díaz, the legendary warrior-knight of eleventh-century Castile known as El Cid, is still honored in Spain as a national hero for liberating the fatherland from the occupying Moors. Yet, as this book reveals, there are many contradictions between eleventh-century reality and the mythology that developed later. By placing El Cid in a fresh, historical context, Fletcher shows us an adventurous soldier of fortune who was of a type, one of a number of "cids," or "bosses," who flourished in eleventh-century Spain. But the El Cid of legend--the national hero -- was unique in stature even in his lifetime. Before his death El Cid was already celebrated in a poem; posthumously he was immortalized in the great epic Poema de Mío Cid. When he died in Valencia in 1099, he was ruler of an independent principality he had carved for himself in Eastern Spain. Rather than the zealous Christian leader many believe him to have been, Rodrigo emerges in Fletcher's study as a mercenary equally at home in the feudal kingdoms of northern Spain and the exotic Moorish lands of the south, selling his martial skills to Christian and Muslim alike. Indeed, his very title derives from the Arabic word sayyid, meaning 'lord' or 'master.' And as there was little if any sense of Spanish nationhood in the eleventh century, he can hardly be credited for uniting a medieval Spanish nation. This ground-breaking inquiry into the life and times of El Cid disentangles fact from myth to create a striking portrait of an extraordinary man, clearly showing how and why legend transformed him into something he was not during his lifetime.--From publisher description.
Author: Simon Barton
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 1526112639
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 296
Get Book
Book Description
Makes available, for the first time in English translation, four of the principal narrative sources for the history of the Spanish kingdom of León-Castile during the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Three chronicles focus primarily upon the activities of the kings of León-Castile as leaders of the Reconquest of Spain from the forces of Islam, and especially upon Fernando I (1037-65), his son Alfonso VI (1065-1109) and the latter's grandson Alfonso VII (1126-57). The fourth chronicle is a biography of the hero Rodrigo Díaz, better remembered as El Cid, and is the main source of information about his extraordinary career as a mercenary soldier who fought for Christian and Muslim alike. Covers the fascinating interaction of the Muslim and Christian worlds, each at the height of their power. Each text is prefaced by its own introduction and accompanied by explanatory notes.
Author: M. J. Trow
Publisher: Sutton Pub Limited
ISBN: 9780750939096
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 248
Get Book
Book Description
And so the Cid rode out of the gates of history - and into legend. Viewed at one level, Rodrigo Diaz, from the little town of Burgos in Castile, was just another warlord, like countless others. That he fought for Muslim as well as Christian sent a shudder of outrage through the whole of Christendom; the man was a traitor to his God as well as his king. Why, then, was an epic film starring Charlton Heston made about the man known as El Cid? Why is he the national hero of Spain and why is there a statue to him in his native Burgos, and in New York City, three thousand miles and a thousand years away from the man and his times? Acclaimed author M.J. Trow peals back the layers of legend. He reveals the facts of the Cid's life and places his life in the context of the times, looks at how the Cid became the hero of the Reconquista in his own time and in later centuries, examines the way Spain's politicians and ruling elite have used the icon of the Cid, and discusses why the man and his story have fascinated numerous writers, from the 16th century to modern times.
Author: Richard Fletcher
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :
Get Book
Book Description
Author: Anthony Bale
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108474519
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 307
Get Book
Book Description
This volume offers a literary and cultural history of the idea of crusading over the last millennium.
Author: James Fitzhenry
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780979630101
Category : Castile (Spain)
Languages : en
Pages : 186
Get Book
Book Description
This book is an inspiring biography about an extraordinary Catholic knight chosen by God to save his nation from Islamic aggression. Known by the honorary title of El Cid, Rodrigo Diaz is an epic hero who is relevant to our time. Exiled by his king, insulted and maligned by those who should have supported him, he selflessly fought against seemingly insurmountable odds to save Christian Spain. Commanding the respect even of his enemies, upon his death a Muslim historian acclaimed him a "miracle among the great miracles of the Almighty." The Cid is an example of what can be achieved through devotion to duty, prayer, and trust in God.
Author: John Matthews
Publisher: Brockhampton Press
ISBN: 9781860194252
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 212
Get Book
Book Description
This volume tells in exciting detail the story of four great warlords from the early medieval era.
Author: Richard Fletcher
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 682
Get Book
Book Description
The story of how Europe was converted to Christianity from 300AD until the barbarian Lithuanians finally capitulated at the astonishingly late date of 1386. It is an epic tale from one of the most gifted historians of today. This remarkable book examines the conversion of Europe to the Christian faith in the period following the collapse of the Roman Empire to approximately 1300 when the hegemony of the Holy Roman Empire was firmly established. One of the book’s great strengths is the degree to which it shows how little was inevitable about this process, how surrounded by uncertainties. What was the origin of the missionary impulse? Who were the activists who engaged in this work – the toilsome, often unrewarding, sometimes dangerous work of evangelisation, and how did they set about putting over this faith? How did a structure of ecclesiastical government come into being? Above all, at what point can one say that an individual or a society has become Christian? Fletcher’s range, lucidity and mastery of his sources brings the answers to these and many other questions as far within our grasp as they probably ever can be. Like Alan Bullock and Simon Schama, Fletcher is a historian with the true gift of a storyteller and a wide general readership ahead of him. Fletcher’s previous book, The Quest for El Cid won both the Wolfson History Prize and the Los Angeles Times Book Award for History. This book is even better – the most impressive achievement so far of this strikingly gifted historian.
Author: Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101147067
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 512
Get Book
Book Description
The New York Times bestseller “The Shadow of the Wind is ultimately a love letter to literature, intended for readers as passionate about storytelling as its young hero.” —Entertainment Weekly (Editor's Choice) “One gorgeous read.” —Stephen King Barcelona, 1945: A city slowly heals in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, and Daniel, an antiquarian book dealer’s son who mourns the loss of his mother, finds solace in a mysterious book entitled The Shadow of the Wind, by one Julián Carax. But when he sets out to find the author’s other works, he makes a shocking discovery: someone has been systematically destroying every copy of every book Carax has written. In fact, Daniel may have the last of Carax’s books in existence. Soon Daniel’s seemingly innocent quest opens a door into one of Barcelona’s darkest secrets--an epic story of murder, madness, and doomed love.
Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 152
Get Book
Book Description
