What is the name of the medieval epic about Spanish hero El Cid?

The story behind the answer

Because the medieval Castilian work about Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar is an epic poem (Spanish: Cantar de mio Cid), the conventional English title used in scholarship emphasizes its poetic form. The other choices point to different genres: a “chronicle” is prose historiography, a “romance” is a later narrative form, and while “song” reflects the literal Spanish word cantar, it’s not the standard English title for this epic.

Composed around 1200 and preserved in a manuscript dated 1207 (copyist Per Abbat), it’s the earliest extensive epic in Spanish. It follows El Cid’s exile, conquest of Valencia, and the restoration of his honor, even featuring legal redress at the Cortes. Noted for its realism and restraint, it offers a window into the social, legal, and military world of the Reconquista.