(st. 362–481) recounts the origin of the tithe, justifi es
its continuance, and instructs the debtor towns (many
of which he names) to pay the tribute owed to the saint
for his miraculous intervention in battle.
Santo Domingo, based on the late eleventh-century
Vita Beati Dominici by Grimaldus, narrates the life of
another local saint. Once a hermit in San Millán de
Suso as well as a monk and prior of its monastery, the
saint became abbot of the monastery at Silos, which
later (1190) signed a pact of mutual help and coopera-
tion with San Millán; the renewal of this agreement in
1236 may have been the occasion for the composition
of Santo Domingo. While there is no request for tributes
such as that in San Millán, Berceo nonetheless reveals
his desire to attract pilgrims to Silos by urging those
who wish to know more of the saint’s miracles to go to
that monastery (st. 385–386).
Santa Oria, composed in his old age (st. 2 c), deals
with a recluse unknown outside La Rioja but closely
associated with San Millán de Suso; indeed, the poet
gives directions to the saint’s tomb near the monastery
(st. 180–182). The most lyrical and allegorical of the
hagiographic works, Santa Oria relates not the saint’s
miracles but three heavenly visions. “While Berceo
indicates that his poem is based on a narrative by
Oria’s confessor Muño, no source has yet been identi-
fi ed. Although most critics accept the theory of a lost
eleventh-century Vita Beatae Aureae, Walsh, noting
differences from the other hagiographic works, argues
that Santa Oria draws heavily on otherworld literature as
well as saints’ legends and that it is primarily Berceo’s
own creation.
San Lorenzo, Berceo’s only incomplete work, follows
the structure of a passio rather than a vita. The poem
breaks off in the middle of St. Lawrence’s prayer during
his martyrdom, suggesting that it was interrupted by
the poet’s own death. Dutton contends that there was a
cult to the saint at San Millán related to a hermitage on
nearby Pico de San Lorenzo, and he proposes that the
missing portion would have made clear the connection
between the monastery and the hermitage. Although
the source is unknown, Pompilio Tesauro identifi es the
Passio Polychroni as the closest model.
Dutton believes that the Marian poems, like the
saints’ lives, are part of Berceo’s propagandistic work,
arguing that they do not refl ect devotion to a universal
fi gure of the Virgin but to the cult of Our Lady of March
established in the tenth century at San Millán de Yuso.
Dutton thinks that the Marian works, unlike the hagio-
graphic poems, were not meant to attract pilgrims but to
instruct and entertain them once they had arrived.
Some scholars have suggested that Duelo, because of
its dramatic nature, is based on a lost French mystery or
a Latin liturgical drama. Nonetheless, the most probable
source of Duelo (a narrative of the Easter vigil of the Vir-
gin as she tells her sorrows to St. Bernard of Clairvaux)
is an apocryphal sermon of St. Bernard similar to the one
found in Migne’s Patrologia latina. The poem contains
a song (¡Eya velar!) of the Jewish sentries ordered to
guard the sepulchre. This early example of Castilian
lyric, which is not composed in cuaderna vía, has been
the subject of some debate: convinced that the verses are
misordered, several scholars have tried to reconstruct the
song based on parallel structure; others have rejected this
reordering, arguing that the canticle is an imitation of a
liturgical chant and that confusion may be eliminated if
the stanzas are divided into antiphonal parts.
The content of Loores is diverse: lyrical exaltations of
the Virgin at the beginning and end of the poem enclose
a brief narrative of the life of Jesus as well as of various
events from the Old and New Testaments. No source has
been identifi ed for the poem, and it seems likely that it
is based on Berceo’s knowledge of the Bible.
The source of Milagros is a lost collection of mi-
racula similar to Royal Library of Copenhagen MS
Thott 128. Berceo uses twenty four of the twenty eight
miracles found there, adding one (“La iglesia robada”)
which occurs in Spain and may derive from oral tradi-
tions. The miracles fall into three categories (reward
and punishment, forgiveness, conversion or spiritual
crisis), and have as their premise devotion to the Virgin.
The allegorical introduction, apparently an original
composition based on common motifs, ties together the
twenty-fi ve miracles. As Michael Gerli confi rms, the
introduction traces the fall and salvation of mankind,
while the miracles narrate the fall and salvation of indi-
viduals. Thus the introduction and miracles illustrate the
redemptive role of the Virgin: through Her, original sin
(introduction) and actual sin (miracles) are forgiven.
The fi rst of the liturgical-doctrinal works, Sacrifi cio,
is, with the exception of Milagros, Berceo’s most alle-
gorical poem. Dutton identifi es the source of this poem
as National Library of Madrid manuscript 298, which is
a commentary on the mass solidly within the exegetic
tradition. The three Himnos, each seven strophes long,
are vernacular translations of Veni Creator Spiritus, Ave
Maris Stella, and Christe, qui lux est et dies. Signos, a
sermon in verse, treats the common medieval theme
of the fi fteen signs of the Apocalypse. The fi rst twenty
two strophes derive from a Latin poem in cuaderna vía
by St. Jerónimo; the source of the remaining fi fty fi ve
strophes is unknown, but Dutton suggests that they may
be attributed to an extended version of the Latin poem
used by Berceo.
Once portrayed in literary histories as a simple
country priest, Berceo is now viewed as an educated
and complex individual who, desiring to promote his
monastery, skillfully transforms Latin texts (most of
these of special interest to San Millán) into vernacular
poetry intended for oral presentation. In order to reachBERCEO, GONZALO DE