The Drama.—The ancient theatre of the Greeks and Romans was continued under some of its grosser and more popular forms at Constantinople, in Italy, and in many other parts of the falling and fallen empire, far into the Middle Ages. But, under whatever disguise it appeared, it was essentially heathenish; for, from first to last, it was mythological, both in tone and in substance. As such, of course, it was rebuked and opposed by the Christian Church, which, favored by the confusion and ignorance of the times, succeeded in overthrowing it, though not without a long contest, and not until its degradation and impurity had rendered it worthy of its fate and of the anathemas pronounced against it by Tertullian and Saint Augustin.[405]
A love for theatrical exhibitions, however, survived the extinction of these poor remains of the classical drama; and the priesthood, careful neither to make itself needlessly odious, nor to neglect any suitable method of increasing its own influence, seems early to have been willing to provide a substitute for the popular amusement it had destroyed. At any rate, a substitute soon appeared; and, coming as it did out of the ceremonies and commemorations of the religion of the times, its appearance was natural and easy. The greater festivals of the Church had for centuries been celebrated with whatever of pomp the rude luxury of ages so troubled could afford, and they now everywhere, from London to Rome, added a dramatic element to their former attractions. Thus, the manger at Bethlehem, with the worship of the shepherds and Magi, was, at a very early period, solemnly exhibited every year by a visible show before the altars of the churches at Christmas, as were the tragical events of the last days of the Saviour’s life during Lent and at the approach of Easter.
Gross abuses, dishonoring alike the priesthood and religion, were, no doubt, afterwards mingled with these representations, both while they were given in dumb show, and when, by the addition of dialogue, they became what were called Mysteries; but, in many parts of Europe, the representations themselves, down to a comparatively late period, were found so well suited to the spirit of the times, that different Popes granted especial indulgences to the persons who frequented them, and they were in fact used openly and successfully, not only as means of amusement, but for the religious edification of an ignorant multitude. In England such shows prevailed for above four hundred years,—a longer period than can be assigned to the English national drama, as we now recognize it; while in Italy and other countries still under the influence of the See of Rome, they have, in some of their forms, been continued, for the edification and amusement of the populace, quite down to our own times.[406]
That all traces of the ancient Roman theatre, except the architectural remains which still bear witness to its splendor,[407] disappeared from Spain in consequence of the occupation of the country by the Arabs, whose national spirit rejected the drama altogether, cannot be reasonably doubted. But the time when the more modern representations were begun on religious subjects, and under ecclesiastical patronage, can no longer be determined. It must, however, have been very early; for, in the middle of the thirteenth century, such performances were not only known, but had been so long practised, that they had already taken various forms, and become disgraced by various abuses. This is apparent from the code of Alfonso the Tenth, which was prepared about 1260; and in which, after forbidding the clergy certain gross indulgences, the law goes on to say: “Neither ought they to be makers of buffoon plays,[408] that people may come to see them; and if other men make them, clergymen should not come to see them, for such men do many things low and unsuitable. Nor, moreover, should such things be done in the churches; but rather we say that they should be cast out in dishonor, without punishment to those engaged in them. For the church of God was made for prayer, and not for buffoonery; as our Lord Jesus Christ declared in the Gospel, that his house was called the House of Prayer, and ought not to be made a den of thieves. But exhibitions there be, that clergymen may make, such as that of the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, which shows how the angel came to the shepherds and how he told them Jesus Christ was born, and, moreover, of his appearance when the Three Kings came to worship him, and of his resurrection, which shows how he was crucified and rose the third day. Such things as these, which move men to do well, may the clergy make, as well as to the end that men may have in remembrance that such things did truly happen. But this must they do decently, and in devotion, and in the great cities where there is an archbishop or bishop, and under their authority, or that of others by them deputed, and not in villages, nor in small places, nor to gain money thereby.”[409]
But though these earliest religious representations in Spain, whether pantomimic or in dialogue, were thus given, not only by churchmen, but by others, certainly before the middle of the thirteenth century, and probably much sooner, and though they were continued for several centuries afterwards, still no fragment of them and no distinct account of them now remain to us. Nor is any thing properly dramatic found even amongst the secular poetry of Spain, till the latter part of the fifteenth century, though it may have existed somewhat earlier, as we may infer from a passage in the Marquis of Santillana’s letter to the Constable of Portugal;[410] from the notice of a moral play by the Marquis of Villena, now lost, which is said to have been represented in 1414, before Ferdinand of Aragon;[411] and from the hint left by the picturesque chronicler of the Constable de Luna concerning the Entremeses[412] or Interludes, which were sometimes arranged by that proud favorite a little later in the same century. These indications, however, are very slight and uncertain.[413]
A nearer approach to the spirit of the drama, and particularly to the form which the secular drama first took in Spain, is to be found in the curious dialogue called “The Couplets of Mingo Revulgo”; a satire thrown into the shape of an eclogue, and given in the free and spirited language of the lower classes of the people, on the deplorable state of public affairs, as they existed in the latter part of the weak reign of Henry the Fourth. It seems to have been written about the year 1472.[414] The interlocutors are two shepherds; one of whom, called Mingo Revulgo,—a name corrupted from Domingo Vulgus,—represents the common people; and the other, called Gil Arribato, or Gil the Elevated, represents the higher classes, and speaks with the authority of a prophet, who, while complaining of the ruinous condition of the state, yet lays no small portion of the blame on the common people, for having, as he says, by their weakness and guilt, brought upon themselves so dissolute and careless a shepherd. It opens with the shouts of Arribato, who sees Revulgo at a distance, on a Sunday morning, ill dressed and with a dispirited air:—
Hollo, Revulgo! Mingo, ho!
Mingo Revulgo! Ho, hollo!
Why, where’s your cloak of blue so bright?
Is it not Sunday’s proper wear?