Diego Rodríguez (son of El Cid)

Diego Rodríguez or Diego Ruiz (died 15 August 1097) was the only son of Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, El Cid Campeador, and his wife, Jimena Díaz.[1]

The earliest reference to El Cid's son is in the Historia Roderici under the year 1088, when he was captured along with his mother and sisters by King Alfonso VI of Castile after the siege of Aledo. A few weeks later the captives were freed. The Historia does not name him, but its use of the masculine plural liberos implies the presence of a son. The Liber regum, written about a century later in Navarre, records his name, Diago Royz, and says explicitly that El Cid and Jimena had one son. Ambrosio Huici Miranda's theory that Diego was the son of El Cid by an earlier wife is based on the less reliable Mocedades de Rodrigo.[1]

Shortly after the capture of Valencia in 1094, according to the Estoria de España, El Cid ordered his men to give the same deference to those Muslims remaining in the city as they would to himself or his son, which implies that his son was also in Valencia and was of an age that he could walk the streets unaccompanied by his parents. The same later chronicle tradition, calling him Diag Roiz, and the Liber regum record his death fighting in the army of Alfonso VI at the battle of Consuegra against the Almoravids on 15 August 1097.[1]

Since 1997 an annual commemoration of his death has been held in Consuegra.