Religiosidad y comunicación interespacial en la Edad Media. Los viajes celestiales en el Poema de Santa Oria

Abstract

The author discusses Gonzalo de Berceo's Poema de Santa Oria, finished around 1252, and analyzes its concept of heaven, with its stratification and hierarchical divisions according to the degree of sanctity of its inhabitants. He also examines the communication between the celestial and terrestrial worlds via the ascents to and descents from heaven that Santa Oria experiences, who otherwise lived locked up between walls from 1043 to 1070. The Vita of this saint from the región of La Rioja, based on the work of the cleric Muño and used by Berceo as a reliable source, reveals a variegated number of elements, from high as well as popular poetry, that accumulated in layers and bear upon ideas and beliefs about the heavenly world. Other themes that Berceo emphasizes are the importance of trustworthiness in the transmission —both oral and written— of the hagiographic texts used as exempla and the direct Information that the saint gave the biographer.