AUTOS. - This name designates one-act dramatic compositions on a religious subject, which in Spain reached their period of greatest perfection and success with Calderón, but which 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 that the word a. now has in Spanish literature, to trace it back to its original meaning, which appears rather, in the Códice de a. viejos (a famous sixteenth-century anonymous anthology of such compositions), to be linked to that genre which was later called comedias a lo divino, while those most similar to the type of the a. as it is commonly understood are there called farsas; nevertheless, the now established usage will not be departed from here, and the traditional division into a. del nacimiento and a. sacramentales will be adopted, as the basis of the present treatment. But one thing must first be said, namely that the a. are a production characteristic of the Spanish theater, which finds no counterpart in the related European drama, although especially the a. del nacimiento recall fairly closely our dramatic offices and sacred representations and 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 destined, at least the oldest ones, to be performed in the same places (churches, cloisters, squares) or on rough and improvised stages, with the aid of a few allusive scenic details, capable of arousing in the minds of the spectators (a crowd varied and heterogeneous in culture and social condition) a few essential ideas about the character of the personages, the development of the action, etc.
The first Spanish dramatic work to which the qualification of a. can be given, avant la lettre, is that fragment of 147 verses, belonging to the end of the 12th century and having as its subject the visit of the Magi, studied and published by Menéndez Pidal precisely under the title A. de los Reyes Magos. Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar appear there first in soliloquies and in mutual conversations; then it is the turn of Herod, who in a soliloquy reveals his own apprehension, and decides to summon his wise men to have news of what is about to happen. The fragment, on whose derivation much has been disputed, but whose antiquity in any case recommends it to special attention, is divided into five scenes which rework and expand, with a certain dramatic vividness, the corresponding episodes of the Gospel of St. Matthew: we are therefore faced, properly speaking, with an a. del nacimiento, insofar as those theatrical compositions fall into this category which have as their subject the birth of Jesus and the Gospel episodes most directly connected with it (Annunciation, Flight into Egypt, etc.). If, however, one sets aside this first, unconscious sketch of what will be the "genre" thus designated, one must reach the Vita Christi of fray Iñigo de Mendoza (1482) to find inserted there, "for the amusement of readers," a passage in the form of a dialogue eclogue (its performers are: shepherds, the Angel, the Most Holy Mary who swaddles her child) which deserves all the more the title of a. del nacimiento. Moreover, those of Juan del Encina, which stage the shepherds, the appearance of the Angel, etc., also have the form of eclogues and are destined for actual performance, on the night of the Nativity. Alongside Encina, as an author of a. del nacimiento, one must remember his contemporary and disciple Juan Fernández; author of an A. dos Reyes Magos, of an A. da Visitagam and of others relating to the Nativity is the Portuguese Gil Vicente, who can also be considered an innovator and a renewer of the dramatic works of this cycle; but it is beyond doubt that the fame and originality of the Spanish religious theater are above all founded on the compositions of the other cycle, the a. sacramentales. Here there is truly something characteristic and inimitable; that is, a mentality — in the authors and in the spectators — which presupposes an entirely particular religious formation and sentiment.
The a. sacramentales were initially and essentially dedicated to the feast of Corpus Domini (established, as is known, for all Christendom by Pope Urban IV in 1263 and introduced into Spain in 1314), which meant that they took as their natural center the great drama of the Passion, and then, with a more or less perceptible extension, the mystery of the Incarnation and of the Trinity, the sacrament of the Eucharist.
Everyone understands the difficulty of bringing assumptions of this kind onto the stage and giving them spectacular form, and indeed the a. sacramentales are extremely poor in action and in theatrical resources; yet where real personages or the possibility of developing the drama in direct form are lacking, behold a multitude of symbolic or allegorical personages, behold the personifications of the most unexpected abstractions, from Faith and Hope to Fire, Water, Earth, from Guilt and Justice to the divine attributes, to vices, feelings, senses, human thoughts. Thus the theological or philosophical subject takes sensible form, comes alive, and acquires didactic and moral value, when not outright artistic and poetic value.
Apart from the discussions on subjects such as those treated by the a. sacramentales and the abstract or symbolic personages that appear in them, it is certain that authors such as the already mentioned Encina and Fernández or such as Juan de Timoneda, Lope de Vega, Valdivielso, Tirso de Molina, Mira de Amescua, Calderón, Francisco de Rojas, enriched the Spanish theater with a. sacramentales which even today constitute, on more than one count, not the documents of a museum of cultural or literary curiosities, but rather the monuments of a peculiarly Spanish art, yet one universal in its value or in its very content.
A broader examination now deserves 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 of Corpus Domini, around which they later became polarized, but freely elaborated the most varied religious subjects, those dearest to popular sensibility, enriching the scanty gallery of Gospel characters with numerous other figures, chiefly of saints. Gil Vicente had already set the example with an A. de s. Martinho (written in Spanish) intended for performance on the feast of Corpus, but having as its subject the famous episode of the Saint who gives a poor man part of his cloak; now, among the a. viejos, we find some dedicated to St. John the Baptist, to St. Paul, to St. George, to St. Eulalia, to St. Barbara, etc.; then others that treat events of the Old Testament, from the sin of Adam to the crime of Cain, from the sacrifice of Abraham to the exile of Hagar, from the story of Samson to that of Nebuchadnezzar; finally, among those that draw their material from secular themes, it is interesting to note the A. de los Triunfos de Petrarca, in which personified abstractions appear (Love, Fame, Death) together with biblical, mythological, historical and Gospel characters (Adam, David, Solomon, Samson, Absalom, Alexander, Hercules, etc.). If to this we add the compositions relating to the cycles of the Nativity and of Corpus, as well as those of a more properly allegorical character, we gain an idea of the importance of this codex, in which is synthesized, as has rightly been said, the moral history of humanity, from original sin to the Redemption. The genius of Calderón would bring the fortune of these theatrical representations (especially the a. sacramentales) to its zenith; after the 17th century, with his disciples who were unable to maintain the artistic level reached by the master, and then with the spread of the ideas of French encyclopedism, and with the discussions raised concerning the character and content of the a., these declined, until their official prohibition was reached by royal decree of 11 June 1765.