“Before the performance the dancers and grotesque figures amuse the public.
“During the representation lights were burned, although it was day and in the open air, while generally other plays are performed in the theatres in the daytime without any artificial light.”
Sufficient has now been said in regard to the history and mode of representation of the autos to enable us to understand the essentially popular character of these plays—a fact very necessary to be kept in mind, and which will explain, if not palliate, the many abuses which gradually were introduced, and which led to their suppression by a royal decree in 1765.
They have, however, left traces of their influence in plays still performed on Corpus Christi in some parts of Spain, and in the sacred plays represented during Lent in all the large cities.[10]
II.
We have seen the primitive condition of the autos when Lope de Vega took possession of the stage. He did for the autos what he did for the secular drama: with his consummate knowledge of the stage and the public, he took the materials already at hand, and remodelled them to the shape most likely to interest and win applause.
The superior poetic genius of Calderon found in the autos the field for its noblest exercise, and it is now admitted that he carried the secular as well as the religious drama to the highest perfection of which it was capable.
It is perhaps not generally remembered that Calderon, in common with many men of letters of that day, took Holy Orders when he was fifty-one years old (1651), and was appointed chaplain at Toledo.
This, however, involved his absence from court, and twelve years later he was made chaplain of honor to the king; other ecclesiastical dignities were added, which he enjoyed until the close of his life, in 1681.