C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
Gonzalo de Berceo (Thirteenth Century)
Gonzalo de Berceo (gōn-thä’lō dā ber-thā’o). A Spanish poet; born in Berceo about 1196; died at the monastery of San Milan de la Cogolla, about 1270; was parish priest of Berceo, and one of the first rhymesters to write in Castilian. He wrote in rhymed quatrains and we have more than 13,000 of his verses on the lives of obscure Castilian Saints, on the Mass, the Dolors of the Virgin Mary, the Judgment Day, etc. His style is rude and inelegant, but the poet writes out of a full simple heart, and he tells a story well.