Spanish martyr, a name subsequently modified into San Servan (in which form it appears in the Poem of the Cid ), San Servantes, and San Cervantes: with regard to which last the Handbook for Spain warns its readers against the supposition that it has anything to do with the author of Don Quixote .
Ford, as all know who have taken him for a companion and counsellor on the roads of Spain, is seldom wrong in matters of literature or history. In this instance, however, he is in error. It has everything to do with the author of Don Quixote , for it is in fact these old walls that have given to Spain the name she is proudest of today.
Gonzalo, above mentioned, it may be readily conceived, did not relish the appropriation by his brother of a name to which he himself had an equal right, for though nominally taken from the castle, it was in reality derived from the ancient territorial possession of the family, and as a set-off, and to distinguish himself ( diferenciarse ) from his brother, he took as a surname the name of the castle on the bank of the Tagus, in the building of which, according to a family tradition, his great-grandfather had a share.
Both brothers founded families.
The Cervantes branch had more tenacity; it sent offshoots in various directions, Andalusia, Estremadura, Galicia, and Portugal, and produced a goodly line of men distinguished in the service of Church and State.
Gonzalo himself, and apparently a son of his, followed Ferdinand III in the great campaign of 1236–48 that gave Cordova and Seville to Christian Spain and penned up the Moors in the kingdom of Granada, and his descendants intermarried with some of the noblest families of the Peninsula and numbered among them soldiers, magistrates, and Church dignitaries, including at least two cardinal-archbishops.