Chapter 4

Over chivalric lands

Thus the historian and mathematician Pelayo Artigas titled his paper on San Esteban de Gormaz in the Spanish Excursions Bulletin in 1932: «Facing one of those warlike plains, of which the poet Antonio Machado spoke, stands this smiling town with its chivalric name. Archaic texts say that, three years after the death of El Cid, Esteban de Gormaz was witness to “the passage of the greatest knight of Castile’s funeral cortege, with his widow the Lady Jimena, his daughters the Ladies Cristina and María, and the shining accompaniment of princes and warriors”»

Juan Cabré

General view of the town, with the churches of Nuestra Señora del Rivero and San Miguel and the ruins of the castle

San Esteban de Gormaz. 1911-1917

Cabré archive, IPCE, Culture & Sports Ministry

Tiburcio Crespo Palomar

Medieval bridge over the Douro River

San Esteban de Gormaz. 1925-1929

AHPSo 882

Gormaz castle emerges like a stone flagship against the vastness of the horizon. From on high we can hear voices from the past:

««From there it dominates the four points of the earth; below, the ribbon of the river and the fields of Gormaz; in the distance virtually half the entire province of Soria. The echoes of an epoch which left an indelible mark on our history still seem to be heard here, more than anywhere else».

Julio Llamazares
Cuaderno del Duero [Douro notebook]
1999, León. Edilesa Pub., p. 80.

In the footsteps of El Cid

Lands of heroic deeds recorded in poetry. «Poema de Mío Cid» [The Poem of El Cid] takes us back to the final years of the knight from Castile, Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, “el Campeador”. María Goyri and Ramón Menéndez Pidal, creators of Romancero Hispánico, followed in his footsteps. It was around 1900 and although the journey initially had the aim of a topographical study, pure chance led them to a felicitous discovery. It all started in Burgo de Osma….

Anonymous, Spanish

El Cid Campeador

20^th century

National Library of Spain

Mariana Laín

Ramón and María

2019. Oil on wood, 40 cm

Otto Wunderlich

Burgo de Osma cathedral

1917-1919

Wunderlich archive, IPCE, Culture & Sport Ministry

Otto Wunderlich

The cathedral sacristan
at the entrance to the cloister

1917-1919

Wunderlich archive, IPCE, Culture & Sport Ministry

Gonzalo Miguel Ojeda (Photo-Club)

Women washing by the bank of a rive

1924

Burgos Municipal Archive

Photographs taken during the honeymoon trip of Ramón Menéndez Pidal and María Goyri in the footsteps of El Cid, in 1900.