Gonzalo de Berceo’s Mystical Theology

Abstract

The purpose of this work is to demonstrate that the essential meaning of the Introduction to Our Lady’s Miracles by Gonzalo de Berceo consists in a very short poetical exposition of a special mystical theology, different from mediaeval occidental Christian speculative mysticism of Platonic or Neoplatonic origins and equally different from occidental Christian love mysticism, whose origins are in the Song of Songs and in the ancient and mediaeval commentaries on it, and that this mystical theology of Gonzalo de Berceo is based in Virgin Mary as Mother of God, and on her function of mediacy.