Gonzalo de Berceo

The Spanish author Gonzalo de Berceo (ca. 1195-c1252) wrote narrative religious poems and is considered the foremost poet of the Castilian language in the 13th century.

Gonzalo de Berceo was born in Berceo near Navarre in the wine-rich region of La Rioja, which figures prominently in his works. He was raised and educated in the monastery of San Millán de la Cogolla, an important shrine in that region. It is also possible that he studied in the short-lived institute of Palencia. He joined the priesthood at an unknown date, but by 1221 he was already a deacon in San Millán. Of the six documents known of him, four are dated in San Millán, the last one Dec. 20, 1246. He died after 1252, the date of the death of King Ferdinand III of Castile, which is mentioned in Milagros XXV.

Gonzalo's extant works are all in cuarderna vía (the learned poetic form, imported from France, consisting of 14-syllable verses arranged in quatrains with a single rhyme) and can be divided into three groups: lives of the saints (Vida de San Millán de la Cogolla, Vida de Santo Domingo de Silos, Martirio de San Lorenzo, and Vida de Santa Oria), Marian works (Loores de Nuestra Señora, Milagros de Nuestra Señora, and El duelo que fizo la Virgen), and doctrinal works (El sacrificio de la Misa, Los signos del Dia del Juicio, and Los tres Himnos). The chronology of these works has not been fully established. A few other works have been lost, and the long narrative poem Libro de Alexandre (ca. 1240) has been attributed to him in one of its two extant manuscripts, though the attribution is open to question.

The subject of Gonzalo's poetry is religious and international (lives of the saints and miracles of the Virgin, many of them with known French sources), and traditionally his poems have been considered the lyrical outpourings of a simple soul. But the fact remains that these poems always find a way of centering upon his monastery of San Millán de la Cogolla. Obviously, naiveté was no more a trademark of Gonzalo than it was of the Middle Ages in general. The factor of religious propaganda, therefore, should not be neglected when considering the wellsprings of his poetry, which in fact uses many of the technical traits of the juglares (minstrels), who would be the logical broadcasters of his poems. But his works are remembered, and read, as much more than the religious propaganda so common in his day. His poetic language shows a surprising maturity; his poetic technique is near perfect; and his creative mind gives concrete and plastic reality to his subject.

Further Reading

The most recent and complete English work on Berceo is Brian Dutton's introduction to his edition of Berceo's Vida de San Millán.

Gonzalo de Berceo

Gonzalo de Berceo (ca. 1190– before 1264) was a Spanish poet born in the Riojan village of Berceo, close to the major Benedictine monastery of San Millán de la Cogolla. He is celebrated for his poems on religious subjects, written in a style of verse which has been called Mester de Clerecía, shared with more secular productions such as the Libro de Alexandre, the Libro de Apolonio. He is considered the first Spanish poet known by name.

Gonzalo is recorded as being a deacon in his home parish in the early 1220s, and as a priest from 1237 on. It has been surmised that he may have studied in the nascent university of Palencia, and may have served in the curia of the bishop of Calahorra.

He wrote devotional and theological works. The devotional may be divided into two sub-sections: the Marian (the long Milagros de Nuestra Seňora (Miracles of Our Lady - perhaps influenced by Gautier de Coincy), the Duelo de la Virgen (the Mourning of the Virgin, a dialogue between the Blessed Virgin Mary and Saint Bernard of Clairvaux) and Loores de la Virgen (the Praises of the Virgin, which is a type of salvation history); and the hagiographical (the Vida de San Millán de la Cogolla, Vida de Santo Domingo de Silos and the Vida de Santa Oria: the lives of Aemilian of la Cogolla, Dominic of Silos, and Aurea (Oria)). These three are saints have a strong regional attachment: Aemilian, a Visigothic saint, was patron of the near-by monastery; Dominic, 11th century abbot of Silos and one of the most important saints in thirteenth-century Spain, was born in the town of Cañas, near to Berceo; and Aurea was an anchoress who lived in the monastery of San Millán during the late eleventh century. He also wrote the fragmentary Martirio de San Lorenzo (the Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence, a Roman martyr of the third century), which may be connected to a shrine of Saint Lawrence supposedly built by Aemilian himself, at the top of the mountain below which the monastery of San Millán is situated.

The theological works are the Del sacrificio de la misa (On the Sacrifice of the Mass), a verse-compendium of the significance of the priest's actions during the eucharist; and Los signos del juicio final (the Signs of the Last Judgement), a description of the prodigies that will be witnessed before the return of Christ to judge the living and the dead.

His proximity to San Millán and his composition of hagiographies which seem to support the monastery's interests, have led him to be considered a propagandist for the narrow interests of the monastery of San Millán. This view has been propounded above all by Professor Brian Dutton, editor of Gonzalo de Berceo's collected works, although some critics (notably Fernando Baños and Isabel Uría Maqua) have taken a view which presents the poet as less motivated by his concerns for the monastery; others (particularly Gregory Andrachuk) have linked him to the Lateran reforms.

References

• Capuano, Thomas M. Images of the Here-and-Now in Gonzalo de Bercero's "De los signos que apareceran ante del juicio". Essays in Medieval Studies, Proceedings of the Illinois Medieval Association. (10) 65. 1993.

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