BERCEO, GONZALO DE (c. 118o—c. 1246), the earliest Castilian poet whose name is known to us, was born at Verceo, a village in the province of Logrono. In 1221 he became a deacon and was attached, as a secular priest, to the Benedictine mon astery of San Millan de la Cogolla, in the diocese of Calahorra. He wrote upwards of 13,000 verses, all on devotional subjects. His best work is a life of St. Oria; others treat of the life of St. Millan, of St. Dominic of Silos, of the Sacrifice of the Mass, and the Miracles of Our Lady. Berceo uses the cuaderna via (single-rhymed quatrains, each verse being of 14 syllables) ; he lacks imagination and taste, but he combines directness of vision and a power of selection with a passionate devotion that gives him the supremacy over his French contemporary, Gautier de Coinci, from whom most of his legends of the Virgin are borrowed.