The medieval knight Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, better known as El Cid, died over a thousand years ago as the ruler of the minor state of Valencia on the Mediterranean coast of the Iberian Peninsula; his historical significance is debatable. The values he represented, though, long outlived him. The ideals of medieval chivalry – the guiding principles of medieval knights – with which El Cid was familiar, would also have been familiar to knights at the end of the Middle Ages. The great 15th-century knight Rodrigo Ponce de León, for example, thought of himself as a “new Cid” and, if the two men could have sat down and chatted, they would have found much that they had in common.1 El Cid himself was animated by an early manifestation of medieval chivalry and later medieval knights of Iberia transformed him into a chivalric hero, even as they edited the facts of his life in order to mold him into an image of themselves. They told stories and sang songs of him, highlighting his valor in battle, his defense of his honor, and his loyalty to his king. Late medieval Iberians were imagining El Cid in a way that served their own needs, achieved their own social and political ends, and confirmed their own cultural values. Medieval chivalry in the Iberian Peninsula focused strongly on valor in battle, violence against one's enemies, and service to God on the battlefield, and these values were projected onto the hero who had died hundreds of years before they were born. The legend of El Cid was important to late medieval knights because it allowed them to place themselves in a long line of powerful heroes, and to see their own virtues and values become timeless.

Although medieval chivalry slowly began to wane in the 16th century, remembrances of it continued to animate key moments in the Spanish Golden Age and the Age of Exploration. Conquistadors, noblemen, and explorers imagined themselves as medieval knights going forth in service of God and the lord king, augmenting and defending their honor, and pursuing violence against their enemies. They imagined themselves as living versions of the great romances of medieval Iberia, discovering fantastic new lands and slaughtering non-Christians. After the empire fell by the 19th century, Spain sought to reinvent itself as a nation.