Quote:
Originally Posted by Jim McDougall
I turned to a book I have long had titled "The Quest for El Cid" by Richard Fletcher (1989), in which there is of course no mention of Tizona, or any sword or weapon.
This is in my view, characteristic of much academic material, which avoids subject matter which is surrounded with subjective or any apocryphal detail.
This is unfortunate, as these details often offer important perspective in the review of the subject at hand.
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An excellent book, which I have on my shelf as well - probably still the best in English on the "real" El Cid. The problem with the historicity of his swords Tizona and Colada is that they are first attributed to him in the heavily fictionalized
Cantar de Mio Cid, composed long after its hero's death. There is a very interesting paper by Helmut Nickel, "About the Knight with Two Swords and the Maiden under a Tree", that traces many recurring motifs in medieval romances, and many details of the
Cantar seem clearly to be tropes of this genre rather than historical fact.
However, there is a document from the 1020s (meaning before Rodrigo Diaz' birth c. 1043) showing that the count of Barcelona owned a valuable sword called "Tizonem". This had led to the theory that Rodrigo claimed this sword after the battle of Tébar in 1090, when he captured the old count's grandson, Berenguer Ramon II. It is in the
Cantar's version of this battle that El Cid wins Colada from "Count Ramon".
The problem is that the word "tizon" in old Spanish (derived from Latin
titio) plays much the same role as the Northern European "brand": literally a firebrand, metaphorically a sword, and in practice a personal name as well. There was a Pedro Tizón who was lord of Monzón, a castle to which Tizona was later linked in various legends, but does it follow that Tizona must have been his? Must it be the same weapon as King Jaime of Aragon's lucky sword Tiso? Not every "brand" must have belonged to a man named "Brand" after all!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jim McDougall
As a note toward the interesting background of Tizona, I found a clipping in the pages of my copy of Fletchers 1989 book (I often place such items in books in my library),
Titled "Sword of El Cid at the Heart of a Battle", (Judith Kane, "Renaissance" , #24; Vol.8, "6....discussing the sword Tizona in a legal battle between the family of the Marquis de Falces who had owned it since the 15th c.
They had loaned it to the Army Museum in Madrid for 60 years, but the family had offered to sell it for 5 million dollars.
The Spanish government questioned the swords authenticity but still offered $660,000, which was declined.
They then used 'heritage laws' to prevent the Marquis from selling it outside Spain.
There seems to have been other legal disputes concerning ownership which were concurrent.
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This is another very interesting story in its own right. The Falces Tizona was eventually purchased by the Spanish government for a very inflated price, and is now on display in Burgos. Leading up to its purchase, arguments were produced that the blade at least dated to the 11th century and so could potentially be the genuine sword of El Cid. Hardly credible, in my mind, and the conclusions have been contested by archaeometallurgist Alan Williams.
Pardon the self-promotion, but many of the points are touched on by my article available here:
https://www.academia.edu/35847672/Th...act_and_legend 