(ca. 1196–ca. 1264)
Gonzalo de Berceo is significant as the first Castilian poet whose name we know. He was a priest attached to the Benedictine monastery of San Millán de la Cogolla, probably as notary to the abbott.His extant works include nine devotional poems of some length (about 13,000 verses survive): Four are hagiographies or saints’ lives, two are poems concerned with orthodox doctrine, and three are poems of devotion to the Virgin Mary. One of Berceo’s important contributions is his use of the cuaderna vía (known as the clerical meter), consisting of single-rhymed stanzas of four 14-syllable lines, a form that Berceo helped popularize. Berceo says that he was raised in the monastery of San Millán, and that he was born in San Millán’s hometown of Berceo. He may have studied at the Estudio General in Palencia between 1210 and 1214. By 1221, Berceo had been ordained a deacon, and by 1237 he was a priest.
Berceo’s earliest works, probably written during the 1230s, are two saints’ lives about local Spanish saints.His Vida de San Millán was apparently written to encourage contributions to the monastery. In the text San Millán appears in the sky with Saint James before a battle between Christians and Moors. Once the Christians have secured the victory, the king of León orders that all of his subjects pay alms to St. James at Compostela, while the Castilian hero Fernán Gonzalez decrees that all his countrymen should pay tribute to San Millán. Berceo was probably also familiar with the nearby monastery of Santo Domingo de Silos, and his Vida de Santo Domingo de Silos was a translation of Grimaldus’s 11th-century Latin prose life of the saint. Less successful are Berceo’s two doctrinal studies, written in rhymed prose, the Sacrificio de la Misa (The sacrifice of the mass), which popularized several Latin commentaries on the mass, and the De los Signos que Aparesçeran ante del Juiçio (Visible signs preceeding the Last Judgment), which is largely a translation of a Latin poem.
But Berceo’s best-known work is his Milagres de Nuestra Señora (Miracles of Our Lady), a collection of some 25 miracle tales, all but one from a Latin collection—the other tale, set in Spain, most likely came to Berceo from an oral source.The theme of this text, probably written later in Berceo’s career (ca.1260), seems to be the power of the Virgin to save her devotees from any obstacles or calamities, despite their sins, and to inspire profound devotion to her. Two other Marian texts are the Loores (Praises) de Nuestra Señora, and the Duela de la Virgin (Grief of the Virgin), an account of the crucifixion of Christ from Mary’s point of view.
In his last years Berceo returned to hagiography, producing a Vida de Santa Oria, the life of an 11th-century Spanish recluse, and the Martiro de San Lorenzo, an account of the martyrdom of Saint Lawrence, whom tradition associated with the northeastern Spanish province of Huesca. Ultimately Gonzalo de Berceo’s contribution to literature was his ability to combine the ecclesiasti-cal Latin tradition with the popular conventions of the Castilian minstrels. His style has been called simple and popular, though he clearly was a learned priest. Perhaps his most significant accomplishment is his ability to retell the learned tales in a popular, uncomplicated way.
Bibliography
■ Berceo, Gonzalo de.Miracles of Our Lady. Translated by Richard Terry Mount, and Annette Grant Cash. Lexington: University of Kentucky, 1997.
■ Keller, John Esten. Gonzalo de Berceo. New York: Twayne, 1972.
■ Perry, Theodore Anthony. Art and Meaning in Berceo’s Vida de Santa Oria. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1968.
■ Suszynski, Olivia C. The Hagiographic-Thaumaturgic Art of Gonzalo de Berceo: Vida de Santo Domingo de Silos. Barcelona: Ediciones Hispam, 1976.