Berceo, Gonzalo de

Berceo, Gonzalo de (gōnthä`lō thā bārthā`ō), c.1198–1265?, earliest known Spanish medieval poet. He was a religious in a Benedictine monastery who wrote prolifically on saints and other figures important in the history of the church. His devotion to the Virgin is expressed in 25 poems entitled Milagros de Nuestra Señora [miracles of Our Lady] (c.1245–60).

---

Berceo, Gonzalo de 

Born in the late 12th century in Berceo, province of Rioja; died there after 1246. Spanish poet and priest.

Berceo was educated in a monastery. The first representative of “erudite poetry” in Spain, he wrote the collection Miracles of Our Lady, consisting of 25 stories in verse, the poems In Praise of Our Lady and The Sufferings of the Virgin, several lives of saints, and religious poems. An antiascetic element and a folkloric treatment of religious subjects are characteristic of Berceo’s work. Written in unaffected and colloquial language, Berceo’s work is close to folk poetry.

WORKS

Poetas espanñoles: Berceo. Selected, transcribed, and with a prologue by E. Nadal. Barcelona, 1940.

REFERENCES

Corro del Rosario, P. Gonzalo de Berceo: Estúdio crítico literario. Sāo Paulo [1933].
Guerrieri Crocetti, C. Gonzalo de Berceo. Brescia, 1947.