Recreation in the Renaissance

The Moral Discourse 65
attention of moralists. While drama theorists consistently referred to
theatre as moral instruction, as well as entertainment, rigorous religious
censors often went as far as wholesale condemnation of the entire theatrical
experience as morally corrupting. In their eyes, drama was even
worse than gambling, the former being incompatible with Christian life
per se, rather than under specific conditions. 38
Juego(s)
The last point may offer the opportunity to say more about national
and regional variations. It goes without saying that, although a
European discourse on recreation was in place during the period under
examination, travelling across the Continent would allow the visitor to
find not merely a varying vocabulary, but also a series of independent,
albeit related, traditions. The cases of some Italian and English pastimes
are discussed elsewhere in this book.
An area which witnessed a particularly significant development, both
in social and cultural terms, is the Iberian peninsula; and its importance
is not simply due to the dominant role of the Spanish Kingdom(s)
in contemporary politics. Religious theatre had a lively tradition there,
and posed moral theologians problems of its own. The most striking
national custom in the field of entertainment, however, was undoubtedly
bullfighting. In response to such specific issues, as well as in
obedience to a general strength of sixteenth- and early-seventeenthcentury
Iberian Catholic theology, a significant number of specific treatises
on the subject of play and games were composed and published in
that part of Europe during the period. 39 Also, one of the vehicles which
gave prominence to the Iberian literature on the subject is the very
important role played by Spanish and Portuguese theologians on the
international scene of Counter-Reformation literature. Manuals for
confessors and penitents such as those by Martin Azpilcueta, and many
others, went through an enormous number of printed editions, both in
Latin and vernacular versions, and made their views well-known in
other countries on the same side of the confessional divide, like France
and Italy.
Three treatises, written at a distance of roughly half a century from
one another by members of different religious orders, may offer a significant
sample of the specific attention paid to the topic by sixteenthcentury
Spanish Catholicism. We have already encountered Pedro
Covarrubias (d. 1530), the author of the treatise whose Iberian flavour,
while discussing hunting, was evident in the preoccupation for exhort-