The "father of spanish poetry" versified with ease and correctness, was spontaneous and possessed the essential instinct. Moderate and realist, he showed a great variety of resources. Is delicate, at times sarcastic, mystic and pious. It´s rich melody stands out, within it the style and wisdom unite to give a tale of vividness and animation. The twelve works of Berceo can classified in three groups according to their context: Three Hymns translated from Latin; four hagiographies (Life of San Millán de La Cogolla, Life of Santo Domingo de Silos, Life of Santa Oria and Martyrdom of San Lorenzo) two mystical doctrined works (The Sacrifice of the Mass, The Signs that will appear before the Judgment) and three marian works (Praises to Our Lady, Pain that the Virgin suffered on the day of the Passion of Her Son, and Miracles of Our Lady). The possibility exists that our poet was the author of other pieces that have not survived. The 12th and 13th centuries in europe marked the peak of one of the most interesting christian phenomenons: the cult to the Virgin Mary. Until this era, the devotion to the Virgin had been something of less importance in the church. |
The mariology (in which the Virgin is defined as an ideal figure to interceed between man and God), formed an important part of the medieval spiritual life in the monastery of Yuso - San Millán de La Cogolla -. In the documentation of the monastery is recorded the presence of the relics of San Millán in the main altar of the Virgin. This sanctuary motivated pilgrimages and it is closely bound to the marian work of Berceo, a cleric intimately connected to the monastery. The narrator of the Miracles of Our Lady depicts in an introduction to the work as a traveller of the the Virgin and presents himself as Her pilgrim. Berceo identifies with his readings, facilitating like this the comprehension of his messasge and indirectly encouraging to undertake the pilgrimage. The miracles count for about thirty of the narrations, in his main briefs, distinct favours borrowed from the Virgin are collected. The work risen from a complex social and ideological reality, founding the piety and marian tradition with the pratical necessity of believing one of the works most interesting and revealing of the Spanish life in the 13th century. |
In La Rioja thirteen speakers and more than one hundred participants argued over the figure of Gonzalo de Berceo, during the International Congress "Berceo before the critics", celebrated in the middle of April ´98. The students on the theme tried to "throw some light" on the first poet of the Castilian language, of who there is still much to investigate and discover, professors from distinct Spanish and foreign universities centred their theories in the figure of the riojan. The first to demythologise the figure of Berceo as a personality exclusively attached to the San Millán monastery was the professor from the Complutense Nicasio Salvador University. According to this professor, "the poet was no more than a secular priest, that was well related with the clergymen of San Millán and Cañas, and reached his intellectual maturity between Calahorra and Italy". |
Salvador explains that "the image of a Gonzalo de Berceo engraved in the monastic walls contradicts a plausible reality, and more adequate to the intellectual category of the poet". These pilgrimages to Italy explain the intellectual weight of the riojan as one of the first protectors of Castilian.
The image of Gonzalo de Berceo engraved on the monastic walls contradicts a plausible realty and is more adequate to the intellectual category of the poet. |
Death of Santo Domingo of Silos; as told by Berceo and he was the abbot of San Millán and the Monastery of Silos. |
The texts of Berceo, without to depreciate the aesthetic aspect could well be considered publicities, on account of his hedonistic character. "Berceo taught aspects such as food, drinks and well being, the same as any other person in advertisement nowadays", considers Professor Ruffinato of the Turin University (Italy). Some works, like The Life of Santo Domingo de Silos, were written after those monks from Silos had drafted a letter of brothership to those of San Millán. In exchange for this support, the emilianeneses offered to those at Silos the work of Berceo, dedicated to their saint. In it the riojan poet achieved with this work that the pilgrims of the Way of Santiago diverted towards Silos, furthermore with their spirituality and the wealth that they had. Nevertheless, this vision of "Berceo propagandist" has not to diminish the poetic value of his work nor to contrast with the religiosity of which the monasteries are bearers. Pedro Cátedra, professor at Salamanca University, broke with the image of Gonzalo de Berceo engraved in the walls of his monastery and defined him as a fighter with a close ideology to the refoms proclaimed in the 4th council of Letrán, "A man of his time". The riojan poet denounced the abandonment that had come to some religous and, precisely for it, appeared his pregnant abbess works, drunk monks and clergy that don´t know the mass, realities of the order of the day in those times. According to Cátedra, these revindications of Berceo would be the principle motive that he could not talk of the texts centred on preaching. Some other investigators concluded that the figure of Gonzalo de Berceo has a great importance for the Castilian language, that he is the first great poet of our language. And so it shouldn´t be forgotten his close relation with the emilianense order, from which also came the first traces of romance. |
The congress on Berceo accounted for with an important contribution of riojan professors, Claudio Garcia Turza, Professor of Spanish Filology at the University of La Rioja and Javier Garcia Turza, Professor of Medieval History. The two investigators expelled their study over a miracle written in 1285. It isn´t from Berceo, but like many texts that have arrived to us since as long along as the 13th century, the "miracle" that appears in Codice 31 of the Academy Real of History could help to understand better those times and their writings. It´s radical importance that in this brief account of a miracle happened in SanMillán of Ysuo and this happened some thirty years after the death of Gonzalo de Berceo, but with the same linguistic characteristics of those written by the riojan poet. Berceo transferred common miracles from the european literarture of the era, without place or precise date, but this miracle of Codice 31 has a date and a concrete locality. According to Claudio Garcia Turza the relation of this miracle with Berceo is "a total linguistic link and it is possible that the author had within his possession texts of The Miracles of Our Lady, by Berceo". |
Conference of Claudio and Javier Turza in the first International Congress on Gonzalo de Berceo at the University of La Rioja. |
