ZAIDA,
A Moorish princess, daughter of Benabet, King of Seville, married Alfonso the Sixth, King of Castile and Leon. Zaida is said to have been induced to adopt the Christian faith by a dream, in which St. Isodorus appeared to her and persuaded her to become a convert. Her father, when she acquainted him with the resolution she had formed, made no objections; but fearful it might cause discontent among his subjects, he allowed her to escape to Leon. Thither she fled; the Christian sovereigns instructed her in the new creed, and had her baptized Isabel; or, as some assert, Mary. Zaida subsequently became the third wife of Alfonso, the king; though Pelagius, the Bishop of Oviedo, denies that she was married to that sovereign, asserting she was only his mistress. She bore the king one son, Don Sancho, and died soon afterwards, near the close of the eleventh century.