History presentation about Jimena

Jimena

History presentation in El Cid

By Noh Chae-rin From class 23

Hello everyone my name is Noh Chae-rin and today I am going to talk about Jimena. In my first presentation, I presented about El Cid’s daughters Elvira and Sol. When I wrote about a presentation about Elvira and Sol, I thought that it would be better to learn about El Cid’s family, which the word first came up to my mind, Jimena. So that is why I picked Jimena. Also in the movie Jimena comes out often than other characters, does many actions and movies. It would be comfortable to do a presentation too.

   For this presentation I referenced 3things, 2books and one movie. One book is called Legends and Romances of Spain, by Lewis Spence. The other book is Life in Medival Villages, by Frances and Joseph Gies. The movie is El Cid, the one that we watched in our class. The book Legends and Romances of Spain has lots of information it tells you more about El Cid or other characters in the book. If you want more information on a certain character in Spain, I will recommend this book for you to read.

   First I will tell you about Jimena. Then how the women’s lived in the middle ages, and lastly what I think about Jimena.

   Jimena is a daughter of Count Gormaz. She is a noble and Jimena’s father had close relationships with King Ferdinand. So in this movie it shows that she was a high class noble than others nobles. Things get worse when Count Gormaz Jimena's father slaps Rodrigo's father with his glove. Later Rodrigo confronts Jimena's father. He says: "You shamed my father. I want his name back." But Count Gormaz says he cannot apologize. Rodrigo asks that Count Gormaz take pity on a proud old man. In fact, he begs him. Jimena's father says he will not apologize. This results in a sword fight between the two men in which Rodrigo kills the father of Jimena. Jimena gets mad because her father is dead and the person who killed her father is the person she loves. I think Count Gormaz is so disrespectful for El Cid’s father Don Diego. Even though they think letting the Moores feel like betraying their country, a noble person don’t slap another person with a glove. After the fight, now they had a new champion in the country. El Cid killed the King's champion, Count Gormaz’ so he should fight with the champion of Aragon. At the fight Jimena is still angry with El Cid and tries to kill him. Jimena asks Don Martin, the person who is going to fight with El Cid to wear her colors and avenge her father. Then, Princess Uracca gives her colors to Rodrigo. Giving a color is a lady giving a cloth to the men who is fighting. By looking at this scene it shows that they had chivalry in the medival ages. Before the game he said a promise to King Ferdinand that if he wins the game he would marry Jimena. Unfortunately, Jimena marries El Cid. When El Cid gets exiled Jimena and her daughters, Elvira and Sol lived in a convent. Happily, Count Ordonez, who liked Jimena, and once was a enemy of El Cid helps Jimena by working with her when she needs help and becomes friends with El Cid. I was so happy and relieved that Count Ordonez helped El Cid and became friends with him.

   Sadly in the last scene El Cid gets an arrow on his chest in a war with Ben Yussef’s soldiers. El Cid loses a lot of blood. Inside the city Rodrigo's officers try to tell the city residents and the troops that the Cid is alive and well and that they attack tomorrow. But the residents and troops do not believe the Cid is alive. So Rodrigo gets himself out of bed, struggles over to a place overlooking a large part of the city and shows himself to the people. The people spot him and then burst into cheers for him. Rodrigo shouts: "Tomorrow morning I will ride with you!"

Back in his bed Rodrigo tells his wife that he must be on his horse and at the head of his soldiers, alive or dead. King Alfonso and his troops arrive. Alfonso speaks with Rodrigo and asks him to forgive him. Rodrigo tells the King: "Its not easy for a man to conquer himself. But you have." Tomorrow they will fight side by side. Rodrigo shouts for Jimena. He tells her to remember him riding with his king. He dies. But knows he is dead except for their family and some other people.

Rodrigo is sitting upright in his saddle on his white horse. The officers ride with the Cid through the ranks of their troops. Jimena and her daughters were standing at the castle looking at El Cid’s dead body, waving their hands.

   Next I will talk about how women lived and married in the middle ages. In a book called Life in Medieval Villages by Frances and Joseph Gies, it says that noble usually gave dowries in weddings. The dowries were acres of land, money and chattels. Unfortunately, the poor peasants would marry with nothing. In the Middle Ages, marrying was the part of an economy. When you are in a middle ages, your parents might make you marry someone that you didn’t even hear or see. Even Kings and Queens mostly marry with other country to make their relationships better with other countries. The people in medieval ages thought that marrying someone that you liked were foolish. But I think their thought were foolish. Even though making the economy better were good, they have no right to marry who they like. They only thought about economies.

   I think that Jimena is very poor. She lost her father and her husband, all because of a battle. I think Jimena will hate fighting or battling. Especially killing somebody. Because she mostly had bad accidents and memories of killing and dying. Also she was the one who didn’t have a bad spirit and didn’t kill anyone.

   Thank you for listening to my presentation.