(Ob)literating the Enemy: The Poetics of Exorcism in Vida de San Millán de la Cogolla

Gonzalo de Berceo's poem Vida de San Millán de la Cogolla appears to feature two separate narratives: one a traditional saint's life, and another of the saint's intercession during a violent battle between Christians and Muslims. While possible to see San Millán himself as the sole connecting thread between these two narratives, both also emphasize suffering bodies, providing the poet a stage upon which to dramatize his ideal Christendom. This article argues that Millán's vita serves as a romance that imagines an ideal Christian landscape without Jews and where Muslim power has receded. As such, each episode of satanic or Islamic antagonism is not discrete, but rather works together to form part of a larger narrative arc of defamation that unifies the poem. This exorcism provides a crucial insight into early cuaderna vía's complicity with a discourse of Christian purity uninterested in interreligious cooperation.