Gonzalo de Berceo was a Spanish

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

 poet

Poet

A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...

 born in the Riojan village of Berceo

Berceo

Berceo is a municipality in La Rioja, Spain. It is located near the monastery of San Millán de la Cogolla and was the birthplace of Gonzalo de Berceo. It has also been proposed as identification of historic Vergegio, named by Braulio of Zaragoza as the birth place of Saint Millán, although...

, close to the major Benedictine monastery of San Millán de la Cogolla

San Millán de la Cogolla, La Rioja

San Millán de la Cogolla is a sparsely populated municipality in La Rioja, . It takes its name from a 6th-century saint who lived here, and from the shape of the surrounding mountains . The village is famous for its twin monasteries, Yuso and Suso, which were declared a World Heritage Site in 1997...

. He is celebrated for his poems on religious subjects, written in a style of verse which has been called Mester de Clerecía

Mester de Clerecía

Mester de Clerecía is a Castilian literature genre that can be understood as an opposition and surpassing of Mester de Juglaría. It was cultivated in the 13th century by Spanish clergymen....

, shared with more secular productions such as the Libro de Alexandre

Libro de Alexandre

The Libro de Alexandre is a medieval Spanish epic poem about Alexander the Great written between 1178 and c. 1250 in the mester de clerecía. It is largely based on the Alexandreis of Walter of Châtillon, but also contains many fantastical elements common to the Alexander romance...

, the Libro de Apolonio. He is considered the first Spanish poet known by name.

Gonzalo is recorded as being a deacon

Deacon

Deacon is a ministry in the Christian Church that is generally associated with service of some kind, but which varies among theological and denominational traditions...

 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

Palencia

Palencia is a city south of Tierra de Campos, in north-northwest Spain, the capital of the province of Palencia in the autonomous community of Castile-Leon...

, 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

Gautier de Coincy

Gautier de Coincy was a French abbot, poet and musical arranger, chiefly known for his devotion to the Virgin Mary.While he served as prior of Vic-sur-Aisne he compiled Les Miracles de Nostre-Dame in which he set poems in praise of the Virgin Mary to popular melodies and songs of his...

), the Duelo de la Virgen (the Mourning of the Virgin, a dialogue between the Blessed Virgin Mary and Saint Bernard of Clairvaux

Bernard of Clairvaux

Bernard of Clairvaux, O.Cist was a French abbot and the primary builder of the reforming Cistercian order.After the death of his mother, Bernard sought admission into the Cistercian order. Three years later, he was sent to found a new abbey at an isolated clearing in a glen known as the Val...

) 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

Dominic of Silos

Saint Dominic of Silos was a Spanish saint, to whom the Monastery of Santo Domingo de Silos is dedicated....

, and Aurea (Oria)

Aurea of San Millán

Saint Aurea was a Benedictine hermit attached to the abbey of San Millán de la Cogolla, La Rioja. She is commemorated on 11 March....

). 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

Silos

Silos is the plural of silo, a farm structure, typically cylindrical, in which fodder or forage is kept.Silos may also refer to:* Santo Domingo de Silos Abbey, famous for Romanesque carvings and recordings of Gregorian chant...

 and one of the most important saints in thirteenth-century Spain, was born in the town of Cañas

Canas

Canas or Cañas may refer to:People:* Alberto Cañas Escalante, Costa Rican politician* Antonio José Cañas, Salvadoran military officer, diplomat and politician* Carlos Cañas, Salvadoran painter...

, 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

Saint Lawrence

Lawrence of Rome was one of the seven deacons of ancient Rome who were martyred during the persecution of Valerian in 258.- Holy Chalice :...

, 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

Hagiography

Hagiography is the study of saints.From the Greek and , it refers literally to writings on the subject of such holy people, and specifically to the biographies of saints and ecclesiastical leaders. The term hagiology, the study of hagiography, is also current in English, though less common...

 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.