Just at the end of the Cid’s life, the Crusader’s battle to seize Jerusalem from the Moslems was under way. An emissary from the Sultan of Persia attempted to dissuade the Cid, the greatest warrior in Christendom, from joining the Crusade.
Then he told him that the land beyond sea was in such state that they weened it would be lost, and that the Christians would win it, so great a Crusade had gone forth against it from Germany, and from France, and from Lombardy, and Sicily, and Calabria, and Ireland, and England, which had won the city of Antioch, and now lay before Jerusalem.