[402] Pellicer, note to Don Quixote, Parte I. c. 13.
[403] Parte I. c. 32.
[404] The abdication of the emperor happened the same year, and prevented this and other petitions of the Cortes from being acted upon. For the laws here referred to, and other proofs of the prevalence and influence of the romances of chivalry down to the time of the appearance of Don Quixote, see Clemencin’s Preface to his edition of that work.
[405] A Spanish Bishop of Barcelona, in the seventh century, was deposed for merely permitting plays with allusions to heathen mythology to be acted in his diocese. Mariana, Hist., Lib. VI. c. 3.
[406] Onésime le Roy, Études sur les Mystères, Paris, 1837, 8vo, Chap. I. De la Rue, Essai sur les Bardes, les Jongleurs, etc., Caen, 1834, 8vo, Vol. I. p. 159. Spence’s Anecdotes, ed. Singer, London, 1820, 8vo, p. 397. The exhibition still annually made, in the church of Ara Cœli, on the Capitol at Rome, of the manger and the scene of the Nativity is, like many similar exhibitions elsewhere, of the same class.
[407] Remains of Roman theatres are found at Seville (Triana), Tarragona, Murviedro (Saguntum), Merida, etc.
[408] Juegos por Escarnio is the phrase in the original. It is obscure; but I have followed the intimation of Martinez de la Rosa, who is a good authority, and who considers it to mean short satirical compositions, from which arose, perhaps, afterwards, Entremeses and Saynetes. (Isabel de Solís, Madrid, 1837, 12mo, Tom. I. p. 225, note 13.) Escarnido, in Don Quixote, (Parte II. c. xxi.,) is used in the sense of “trifled with.”
[409] Partida I. Tít. VI. Ley 34, ed. de la Academia.
[410] He says that his grandfather, Pedro Gonzalez de Mendoza, who lived in the time of Peter the Cruel, wrote scenic poems in the manner of Plautus and Terence, in couplets like Serranas. Sanchez, Poesías Anteriores, Tom. I. p. lix.
[411] Velazquez, Orígenes de la Poesía Castellana, Málaga, 1754, 4to, p. 95. I think it not unlikely that Zurita refers to this play of Villena, when he says, (Anales, Libro XII., Año 1414,) that, at the coronation of Ferdinand, there were “grandes juegos y entremeses.” Otherwise we must suppose there were several different dramatic entertainments, which is possible, but not probable.