AUTOS. — This name designates dramatic compositions in one act, on religious subjects, which reached their greatest perfection and success in Spain with Calderón, but were also cultivated by numerous other authors, both known (such as Valdivielso, Lope de Vega, Mira de Amescua, etc.) and unknown.
It is not easy to give a precise definition of these compositions on the basis of their content, nor is it possible, given the use now made of the word a. in Spanish literature, to restore it to its primitive meaning, which appears rather, in the Códice de a. viejos (a famous sixteenth-century anonymous anthology of such compositions), to have been associated with the genre later called comedias a lo divino, whereas those most similar to the type of a. as it is commonly understood are there called farsas; nevertheless, we shall not depart here from established usage, and shall adopt the traditional division into a. del nacimiento and a. sacramentales, on which the present treatment is based. But one thing must first be said: namely, that the a. are a characteristic product of the Spanish theatre, with no equivalent in related European drama, although the a. del nacimiento in particular closely recall our dramatic offices and sacred plays, as well as the French mystères. This, moreover, is natural, since all these compositions arise from a common cultural and religious climate, from a common spiritual need, and are intended—at least the earliest of them—to be performed in the same places (churches, cloisters, squares) or on rough and improvised stages, with the aid of a few suggestive scenic details capable of arousing in the minds of the spectators (a varied and heterogeneous crowd in culture and social condition) a few essential ideas concerning the characters, the development of the action, and so forth.
The first Spanish dramatic work to which the qualification of a. may be applied avant la lettre is that fragment of 147 verses, dating from the end of the twelfth century and dealing with the visit of the Magi, studied and published by Menéndez Pidal under the very title A. de los Reyes Magos. Gaspare, Melchiorre, and Baldassarre first appear in soliloquies and in conversations with one another; then Herod takes his turn, revealing his apprehension in a soliloquy and deciding to summon his wise men in order to learn what is about to happen. The fragment, whose derivation has been much debated, but whose antiquity in any case recommends that it receive special attention, is divided into five scenes that rework and expand, with a certain dramatic liveliness, the corresponding episodes of the Gospel of s. Matteo: one is therefore properly confronted here with an a. del nacimiento, since this category includes those theatrical compositions whose subject is the birth of Jesus and the Gospel episodes most directly connected with it (the Annunciation, the Flight into Egypt, etc.). If, however, one sets aside this first, unconscious sketch of what would become the “genre” so designated, one must proceed to the Vita Christi of fra Iñigo de Mendoza (1482), in which there is inserted, “for the readers’ amusement,” a passage in the form of a dialogue eclogue (its characters are shepherds, the Angel, and Maria S.ma, who swaddles her child) that has a stronger claim to the title a. del nacimiento. Juan del Encina’s eclogues, too, are in this form and were intended for actual performance on the night of the Nativity; they bring the shepherds, the appearance of the Angel, and so forth onto the stage. Alongside Encina, his contemporary and disciple Juan Fernández should be remembered as an author of a. del nacimiento; the Portuguese Gil Vicente wrote an A. dos Reyes Magos, an A. da Visitagam, and other works relating to the Nativity, and may also be regarded as an innovator and renovator of the dramatic works of this cycle. But there can be no doubt that the fame and originality of the Spanish religious theatre rest above all on the compositions of the other cycle, the a. sacramentales. Here there is indeed something characteristic and inimitable: namely, a mentality—in authors and spectators alike—that presupposes an entirely particular religious formation and sensibility.
The a. sacramentales were initially and essentially devoted to the feast of Corpus Domini (proclaimed, as is known, for all Christendom by Pope Urban IV in 1263 and introduced into Spain in 1314); this caused them to take as their natural centre the great drama of the Passion and then, with greater or lesser breadth, the mystery of the Incarnation and the Trinity, and the sacrament of the Eucharist.
Everyone understands the difficulty of bringing such subjects onto the stage and giving them spectacular form; and indeed the a. sacramentales are extremely poor in action and theatrical resources. Yet where real characters or the possibility of developing the drama in direct form are lacking, there appears instead a multitude of symbolic or allegorical characters: personifications of the most unexpected abstractions, from Faith and Hope to Fire, Water, and Earth, from Guilt and Justice to the divine attributes, vices, feelings, senses, and human thoughts. Thus the theological or philosophical subject assumes sensible form, comes alive, and acquires didactic and moral value, when not indeed artistic and poetic value.
Leaving aside the discussions concerning subjects such as those treated by the a. sacramentales and the abstract or symbolic characters who appear in them, it is certain that authors such as the Encina and Fernández already mentioned, or Juan de Timoneda, Lope de Vega, Valdivielso, Tirso de Molina, Mira de Amescua, Calderón, and Francisco de Rojas, enriched the Spanish theatre with a. sacramentales that even today, in several respects, constitute not documents in a museum of cultural or literary curiosities, but rather monuments of an art peculiarly Spanish, yet universal in its value or in its very content.
A fuller examination should now be devoted to that sixteenth-century anthology of a., for the most part anonymous: the Códice de a. viejos.
In it we have proof that originally these compositions were not limited to the two cycles of the Nativity and the Corpus Domini, around which they subsequently came to be concentrated, but that they treated with great freedom the most varied religious subjects, those most dear to popular sensibility, enriching the scant gallery of evangelical personages with numerous other figures, chiefly saints. Gil Vicente had already set the example with an A. de s. Martinho (written in Spanish), intended for performance on the feast of the Corpus, but dealing with the famous episode of the Saint who gives a poor man part of his cloak; now, among the a. viejos, we find several dedicated to St Giovanni Battista, St Paolo, St Giorgio, St Eulalia, St Barbara, and so forth; we also find others that develop episodes from the Old Testament, from Adam’s sin to Cain’s crime, from Abraham’s sacrifice to Agar’s exile, from the story of Samson to that of Nabuchadnezzar; finally, among those drawing their material from profane themes, it is interesting to note the A. de los Triunfos de Petrarca, in which personified abstractions (Love, Fame, Death) appear together with biblical, mythological, historical, and evangelical figures (Adam, David, Solomon, Samson, Absalom, Alexander, Hercules, and so forth). If to this we add the compositions relating to the cycles of the Nativity and the Corpus, as well as those of a more strictly allegorical character, we gain an idea of the importance of this codex, in which, as has rightly been said, the moral history of humanity is synthesized, from original sin to the Redemption. Calderón’s genius would bring the fortunes of these theatrical performances to their apogee (especially the a. sacramentales); after the seventeenth century, with the disciples who were unable to maintain the artistic level attained by their master, and then with the spread of the ideas of French Encyclopedism and the debates raised concerning the character and content of the a., these declined, until they were officially prohibited by royal ordinance of 11 June 1765.
pp. 1-27, 211-64; xxix, there 1868, pp. 105-39, 261-93; xxxviii, there 1877, pp. 397-443; E. De Coussemaker, Drames liturgiques au Moyen âge, Parigi 1878; M. Sepet, Le drame chrétien au Moyen-âge, there 1878; id., Origines catholiques du théâtre moderne, there 1901; K. Young, The Drama of the Medieval Church, Oxford 1933; S. D'Amico, Storia del teatro drammatico, I, Milano 1939. — For the A. or Mistero dei Re Magi, see G. Baist, Das altspanische Dreihönigsspiel, Lipsia 1887; R. Menendez-Pidal, A. de los Reyes Magos, in Revista de Archivos, 4 (1900), pp. 423-62; the Codice de a. viejos was first printed partially, with a prologue by E. González Pedroso, in vol. 28 of the Bibl. de Autores Españoles (Madrid 1865), and then in its entirety in 4 vols. by L. Rouanet, Colección de a. Jarsas y coloquios del siglo XVI, Barcelona-Madrid 1901 (vols. 5, 6, 7, 8 of the Bibliotheca hispanica). In addition to the principal authors of a. and the corresponding bibliographical indications, see M. Cañete, Discurso acerca del drama religioso español ante y después de Lope de Vega, Madrid 1862 (repr. in Memorias de la Acad. Españ., 1 [1870], p. 368 ff.2); F. de P. Canalejas, Sobre los a. sacramentales de Calderón, Madrid 1871; J. Mariscal de Gante, Los a. sacramentales, desde sus orígenes hasta mediados del siglo XVIII, there 1911. Ruggero M. Ruggeri