That night the Cid talked with Alvar Fanez and Pero Bermudez and all the others of his council in regard to the manner in which they should live among the Moors. On the next day the chief men of the Moors came again to the Alcazar, and the Cid took his seat, and he said to them: “Good men of Valencia, you know how I served and defended your king Yahia and you also until his death. I had great sorrow for him and tried to revenge him, and endured great hardships in winning Valencia. Now I will have it for myself and those who have helped me, under the sovereignty of king Don Alfonso. You are all now in my power to do with you whatever I will. But I will do you no harm. I will that the honorable men among you who have always been loyal shall remain in their dwellings with all their families, and that none of you keep more than one beast, which shall be a mule, and that you shall not use arms, nor have them in your possession except when I permit you. All the rest of the people shall go out of the city and dwell in the suburb Alcudia. You shall have two mosques, one in the city and one in the suburb. You shall have your alfaquis and follow your own law. You shall have your cadis and your guazil. You shall have your inheritances and pay me a tenth, and the power of justice shall be mine. Do you therefore who wish to dwell here stay, and let those who wish depart, and good luck go with them; but they shall take only their own persons.”
When the Moors heard this, they were very sorrowful; however, this was no time to do anything but obey. So they began to go from the city into Alcudia, and as the Moors went out, the Christians came in. So great was the multitude that left the city that it took two whole days for them to remove. From that day the Cid was called “My Cid the Campeador, Lord of Valencia.”
Calvin Dill Wilson, The Story of the Cid: For Young People (Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1901), 178–80.
Short Stories on Honor, Chivalry, and the World of Nobility—no. 843
