Even though this last biography was not included in the original textbook, his name was mentioned as an ancestor whose family was related to the Ruedas who settled in San Gil. We include his brief biography since Lope de Rueda is the most famous Rueda of the Spanish world.
Lope de Rueda is one of the rst and greatest comedians in the Spanish Literature and Theater. He was a combination of a Boccacio, Shakespeare, Charles Chaplin, Three Stooges, Laurel and Hardy if there was possible to combine these personages into one.
One of his pupils, Miguel de Cervantes y Saavedra, wrote of Lope de Rueda, in Cervantes’ (123) Prologue to the Reader of Eight Comedies and New One Act Farces :
“I remember having seen the acting of the great Lope de Rueda, a renowned gentleman in representation and understanding. He was born in Seville, a ‘Batihoja’ (A word meaning somebody who could write so well and make a good living out of it, as if he were making golden bread), who could sing admirable peasant poetry. Nobody has matched him. I was a youngster and I learned from his verses which have been engraved in my memory ever since. Now, in my mature age, I nd it true what I have said. If it were not that I would get out of the scope of the prologue, I would write, now, some, to testify to this truth. During the lifetime of this famous Spaniard, all the characteristics of a great writer were accomplished in this one individual, like in a golden box. The comedies or colloquies between two or three shepherds and a shepherdess, a black one, a rufan, a stupid one, a mean one, all these gures would grow like four beards or hairs. He was buried, after his death in the Cordova Cathedral, which is very signicant , because the Catholic Church rejected the disordered life of a comedian actor. If he was accepted for his burial, there, it was because of his great fame”. Rueda’s burial, as described by Cervantes, is a signicant testimony of his grandeur. To compare his burial in importance, the Church considered to bury only famous persons inside a cathedral. Only kings and powerful noblemen had that honor to be buried inside. Even when the mortal remains of Christopher Columbus were brought from Santo Domingo to Spain, they were placed to rest just at the entrance of the Cathedral of Seville, which still was a very high honor. Rueda’s remains were put inside of one the greatest Cathedrals of Christendom, one which has been the greatest Mosque of the Arab World, the Cathedral of Cordova. Rueda’s body had higher honors than Columbus’; Rueda was seen more important as an actor and writer than Columbus was at the time of their deaths. Rueda was the rst one to write a new form of literature, copied by “Shake-speare”, called “El Paso” (The Step), a comic interlude about real life situations using popular language. The actors engaged in witty dialogues. It is difcult to write the life of a man of whom little is known. Beyond records of his troupe’s engagements, a court case, and his children’s baptismal records, little else is known. We have tried to join the fragments to create this: Lope de Rueda was born between 1500 to 1520 in Sevilla, Spain. Nothing is known of his childhood. As a young man, he made gold leaf for a living. Why he left a comfortable trade to become a less-respected actor is unknown. Several possibilities are discussed in The Theater of Lope de Rueda’s Times . Lope de Rueda was performing with his own theater company by 1542. In 1543, he promised to perform for the festival of Corpus Christi in Sevilla. It was a religious play about the Virgin Mary’s Assumption “just like what I did the previous year of Our Lord of 1542, or better if I can, all at my expense, I’m putting the people, clothing, angles, singers, the flaming candles that the apostles carry, and a bed with its curtains, for the price of 26 gold ducats.” With that, Lope de Rueda embarked on a twenty year career, traveling from town to town to perform comedies for the paying audience’s entertainment, religious plays for a holy holiday, or performances for a wealthier, private audience. He performed all over Spain for peasants to princes. (124) A performer named Mariana from the province of Aragon arrived at Cogolludo at the palace of the ailing Duke of Medinaceli in 1545. Mariana sang, danced, and charmed her way to the duke’s heart, and he wanted her to always be by his side. She accepted, and spent six years singing, dancing, and joking in the palace. Medinaceli had Mariana cut her hair short and dressed like a page so she could accompany him everywhere. Around 1550, Lope de Rueda played for the duke and met Mariana. The duke promised to pay her for her services and give a good dowry at her marriage, but he died in 1551, before he could fulll his promise. Once the duke died, the Medinaceli household, who never liked the cross-dressing Mariana, sent her away. Lope de Rueda was now beginning to enjoy the fame for his pasos and comedies. He was getting commissions for court functions and popular festivals to provide plays. In 1551 he moved to Valladolid where he lived until 1559. There, he married Mariana in 1551 or 1552. In 1552, the town council of Valladolid gave Rueda an annual salary as an actor if he would live in Valladolid and would be in charge of theatrical performances, starting with a religious play for Corpus Christi; Rueda agreed. In 1558, he was given permission from the council to erect buildings, and probably built a playhouse in which to perform his comedies.
He sued the heirs of the Duke of Medinaceli in 1554, for the money Mariana never got for her services. In 1557, the Ruedas won the case and the heirs paid 60,000 maravedies (a type of gold coin). This court case of a working class man suing a member of the noble class and winning was unusual for the time. Lope de Rueda performed for royalty several times. He played for Prince Felipe (Philip II) in 1551 and in 1554 when the prince was going to England to marry Queen “Bloody” Mary I. This marriage was arranged by Felipe’s father, Charles V, the absolute and supreme Spanish ruler, Holy Roman Emperor and owner of Europe and America , who wanted to add England to his dominions.
Lope de Rueda’s influence in England must have been larger and more enduring than the consort prince who was going to rule England with Queen Mary I. It can only be speculated how Lope de Rueda’s style influenced the English nobility, in particular, the Lord High Chamberlain of England, Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford (1550 - 1604) who has been alleged to be the real identity of “William Shake- speare”, a pseudonym used by Edward de Vere, who could have appreciated and translated the poetry and plays written by England Queen’s consort prince’s favored poet and playwright, Lope de Rueda. Angel Flores (127) states that Shake-speare’s comedy Cymbeline resembles Lope de Rueda’s Eugenia which may conrm not only Lope de Rueda’s influence on Edward de Vere or Shake-speare’s work but also on the possibility of Shake-speare’s plagiarism of the most famous Philip II’s author, poet, actor and playwright, Lope de Rueda. Eugenia’s universal personality characteristics could be compared, in our times, with those of the late Diana, Princess of Wales, who died with her lover Dodi Fayad in Paris. (Incidentally, the world saw their death produced by a lethal combination of automobile and alcohol induced behaviors with poor judgement such as speeding, driving under the influence and no use of seatbelts. If the paparazzi or celebrity photographers had caused the accident by veering their motorcycles in front of Dodi’s car causing it to crash, then Diana and her ance, Dodi, could have survived by simply not speeding and using seatbealts. The only survivor of the car crash, Mr. Trevor Rees-Jones, used a seatbelt. We can only speculate that Dodi and Diana had celebrated their decision to marry with the nest French champagne, which is an alcoholic beverage, and which could have clouded their judgement during the nal momemts of their lives. Many centuries, perhaps milleniums will pass, before automobiles and alcoholic beverages are eliminated from the face of the earth. Diana’s death prevented the “browning” of the British royal family. Dodi, an African, did not become the stepfather of the future king of England and the father of the half-siblings of Princes William and Harry). Sigmund Freud had similar opinions about the authenticity of “Shake-speare” and the outside influence of his plays. Lope de Rueda’s influence in world literature on Cervantes and all the writers who followed cannot be underestimated. Only amateurs, cranks, dissidents or snobs would deny Lope de Rueda’s due credit. Even the ultra conservative Spanish Church gave due honor to his body. Playwrights, like musicians, are interested in other earlier artists’ works, and in the same way early Greek and Roman authors influenced world literature. So did the earliest European artists like Lope de Rueda, who influenced the giants of Cervantes and Edward de Vere. Seventeen year old Miguel de Cervantes, later author of Don Quixote , saw Lope de Rueda perform in Sevilla in 1564, and was inspired to become a playwright. In 1556, Prince Felipe became King Philip II of Spain. Rueda performed in front of the royal family in Toledo and Madrid in 1561. He even worked for the royal family in 1563, getting 200 reales for two performances from the Queen. Mariana died, and Lope de Rueda moved to Valencia in 1559. He married Angela Rafaela Trilles in 1560. In 1563, he went to Toledo to perform in religious plays for Corpus Christi. There, he baptized a daughter named Catalina on May 12, 1563. His second daughter, Juana Luisa, was baptized in 1564 in Sevilla. After Sevilla, Rueda went to Cordoba, where he stayed until his death.
On March 21, 1565, Lope de Rueda made his will in the house of a schoolmaster in Cordoba. Lope de Rueda was “sound of mind” but too sick to sign the will. He asked to be buried in the Cathedral of Cordoba beside his daughter Juana Luisa. Catalina, who isn’t mentioned in the will, also died in infancy. A life of constant travel from city to city had taken its toll. Rueda had few possessions at death’s door, but had many debts in Toledo and Sevilla. He talked in his will of linen sheets, pillows, tablecloths, clothing, and copper utensils locked away in an innkeeper’s house in Toledo and a friend’s house, and a silver belt worth two ducats pawned in Toledo that he wanted to be retrieved for his wife. After this meager inventory at the end of his life, Lope de Rueda disappeared from history. Lope de Rueda died in Cordoba in 1565 or 1566, and Cervantes said Rueda was buried between the choir stalls in the Cathedral of Cordoba, which was built in the middle of the Great Mosque of Cordoba. The Great Mosque had been built in the eighth century by Abd el Rahman who made Cordoba the leading city of the Moslem world.

LOPE DE RUEDA’S WORK

Modern drama started when Italians rediscovered classic Latin plays and performed them. The rst known performance was in Rome in 1484. Latin plays and their Italian translations became more popular until Italian dramatists started to write their own imitations in Italian. The original and classic plays were imitated by other dramatists in other countries in other languages. The Italians also staged religious and secular pageants with dancing and music inbetween or before them called “intermedii.” These “intermedii” would soon evolve into the paso. The “commedia dell’arte” also developed in Italy. This guild of professional actors improvised brief scenarios with verbal and visual wit. They used character types like “zanni” (clowns, servants), harlequins, etc. Whether Lope de Rueda saw these theatrical performances in Italy is unknown. After Spain had invaded Italy and under the rule of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, King of Spain, Germany and Netherlands and the most powerful King of Christendom, Greek and Latin plays began to be read, and Italian actors began to perform in Spain. In 1538, an Italian named Mutio from the “commedia dell’arte” came to Sevilla to perform. Lope de Rueda may have joined Mutio’s troupe to perform, and may have worked alongside Italian comedians. Spaniards began to surpass these Italians, and the rst Spanish comedies were published in 1517. Lope de Rueda took the primitive Spanish comedy, put in Spanish characters, slang, dialects, and situations, and created a unique “Spanish” theater. No wonder Lope de Rueda is called “the father of Spanish theater.” and It can certainly be assumed, the father of English theater and especially of Edward de Vere, whose pseudonym was “Shake -speare” Lope de Rueda was the rst known Spanish dramatist whose livelihood became performing plays. If he wasn’t funny, the audience wouldn’t pay to see him. Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616), author of Don Quixote , plays, novels, and comedies saw Lope de Rueda in 1564 and became inspired to write plays. Cervantes wrote the only surviving eyewitness account of Rueda’s performance in the prologue of his Eight Comedies and New Interludes (1615): “I, as the oldest one being there, said that I remembered having seen on the stage the great Lope de Rueda, a man distinguished in both acting and understanding. He was a native of Sevilla, and a goldsmith by trade, which means he was one of those that made gold leaf. He was admirable in pastoral poetry; and in this genre neither then nor since has anybody surpassed him.” (125) Cervantes goes on to write of the actual theater: “In the time of this celebrated Spaniard, all of the property of a theater manager was contained in a sack, and consisted of four white skins trimmed with gilded leather, and four beards and wigs, with four staffs, more or less. The plays were colloquies or eclogues (dialogues) between two or three shepherds and a shepherdess; they were set off by two or three entermeses (interludes), either that of the Negress (black woman). the Rufan, the Fool, or the Biscayan, for these four characters and many others the said Lope acted with the greatest skill and propriety one can imagine. At the time there was no stage machinery nor challenges of Moors or Christians either afoot or on horse. There were no gures which arose or seemed to arise from the center of the earth through trapdoors on the stage, which at that time consisted of four benches arranged in a square, with four or ve boards upon them, raised about four spans (about three feet) from the ground, nor did clouds with angels or souls descend from the skies. The adornment of the stage was an old woolen blanket drawn by cords from one side to the other, which covered what is called a dressing room, behind which were the musicians singing some old ballad without the accompaniment of a guitar “ (125) Rueda and his actors performed comedies in so many locations that they had to be adaptable to whether there was a raised stage or not. The longer comedies and pasos mainly took place in the street outside someone’s house, and the pastoral colloquies took place in a shepherd’s hut, with a few branches used to simulate the country. The actors often said “Enter!” or “Exit!” to show when someone came in or left. Despite the shockingly bare stage and scanty costumes, Lope de Rueda and his troupe were able to perform for their audiences the most popular comedies of the times. Lope de Rueda never published his works during his lifetime. In the days before copyright laws, publishing his plays would have given up his rights to them. A play in print meant that anyone could play it as his own, and if Rueda’s plays were performed before he got to a town, then no one would pay to see him, and Rueda would have been nished. Of course, not publishing meant that posterity couldn’t read his works. The only reason why some of Rueda’s works are still among us is due to Juan de Timoneda, Valencian bookseller and Rueda’s friend. After Lope de Rueda’s death, Timoneda gathered, corrected, edited, and published what he could of what remained of Rueda’s plays. Timoneda rst published in 1567 in Valencia The Four Comedies and Two Pastoral Colloquies of the Excellent Poet and Witty Actor Lope de Rueda and El Deleitoso [The Delightful Ones], a collection of seven of Rueda’s pasos. In 1570, Timoneda published Registry of Players which contained three of Rueda’s pasos.