Rodrigo Diaz, Vivar del Cid, Burgos, c. 1041-1054– Valencia, 1099) was a Castilian knight who came to dominate the Levant of the Iberian Peninsula at the end of the 11th century at the head of his own retinue, autonomously from the authority of any king. He managed to conquer Valencia and established an independent dominion in this city from June 15, 1094 until his death.
It is a historical and legendary figure of the Reconquista, whose life inspired the most important epic song of Spanish literature, the Cantar de mio Cid. He has gone down to posterity as El Campeador or El Cid. He was known by the nickname "Campeador" in life, as it is attested in documents from 1098; The nickname "Cid", although it is conjectured that his Zaragoza or Valencian contemporaries could have used it, appears for the first time in the Poema de Almería, composed between 1147 and 1149.