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In the old Romance languages the name of prosa was applied generally to all narrative poems, and particularly to the monorhythmic romances. Thus Gonzalo de Bercéo, a Spanish poet of the thirteenth century, begins a poem on the Vida del Glorioso Confessor Santo Domingo de Silos :⁠—

“De un confessor Sancto quiero fer una prosa,

Quiero fer una prosa en roman paladino,

En qual suele el pueblo fablar á su vecino,

Ca non so tan letrado per fer otro Latino.”