Mester de Clerecía: Origins, Characteristics, and Key Figures
Mester de Clerecía: An Overview
- Thirteenth to the fourteenth century. Literary school.
- Cultivated by the clergy (who were any educated person with legal and ecclesiastical Latin education).
- Incorporation of the vernacular to reach out to ordinary people.
- Coexisted with mester de juglaría (minstrelsy). Both use the same language, target the same audience, and supply popular topics.
- Think of the illiterate people for whom the writer wrote.
Metric: Poems written in stanzas of Alexandrine verse (14 syllables divided into hemistiches of 7), a single frame via rhyme. Must take into account the errors of the copyists and the differences in pronunciation.
- Strictly respected metric canon.
- Language: Much more careful and selective than the minstrels, though familiar, plain, and simple with colorful expressions.
- Theme: Berceo is the only one who focuses on religious themes. In general, these are scholarly issues, topics taken from the observation of life.
- During the thirteenth century, they remained faithful to the metric. But in the fourteenth century, verses of ten and six syllables sometimes appear.
Gonzalo de Berceo
First Spanish poet known by name, representative of the mester de clerecía, and possibly your instructor. He was born in the late thirteenth century in Berceo (small town of La Rioja). He was educated at the monastery of San Millán de la Cogolla and was added to the monastery as a cleric. He must have died quite old; it is known he lived in 1264.
Berceo was inspired to write a collection of miracles written in Latin.
- All works are religious: 3 lives of saints, 3 poems dedicated to the Virgin, and 3 poems of various religious issues.
3 poems of various religious issues.
Berceo always follows the same structure: A person commits a sin, and the Virgin intervenes to save his life or soul.
The most important: Miracles of Our Lady.
- Miracles of Our Lady:
The most extensive and important work of Berceo. Twenty-five stories are preceded by an allegorical introduction: the Virgin works miracles for her devotees to save their souls or protect them from any harm. It is an allegory of the maternal and protective image that the Virgin offers its devotees who are saved from the torments of hell.
Berceo took from a manuscript that includes 24 of the 25 “miracles.” He did not make up their affairs, just a question of language spread Marian romance stories written in Latin.
The author modifies, amplifies, and enriches their models. Its purpose is to bring the text closer to what matters to ordinary people. It is graphic and family resorts to comparisons practices, rural phrases, names of household items, sayings… He also uses his art to lower the sky to the vulgar and familiar bridge of communication between the listener and his words.
Berceo’s religiosity is not manifested in high theology but a devout familiarity with higher things.
The Archpriest of Hita: Juan Ruiz
His name was Juan Ruiz and was Archpriest of Hita (current province of Guadalajara). It is said he was born in Alcalá de Henares, although it is not certain. Late 13th, early 14th century.