Conclusion

Summary

During a single “tarde de comedia” [“afternoon at the playhouse”], justifiable criminal activity on stage can take the form of fictionalized singing and dancing pimps and prostitutes, as cited in Chapter 1. On another occasion, the ineffectiveness of controlling “desórdenes públicos” is not attenuated, but rather reinforced, by alguaciles who have time to dress as peacocks and march in a parade, but perhaps not the time to attend to their appointed rounds, according to the environment described in Chapter 2. Criminality as entertainment on stage varies and offers many surprises, as in the case from Chapter 3, when a valentón de comedia's sister abets killing an alguacil and stabbing a corregidor in the name of family honor. The confusion of the Criminal Baroque continues at all levels of society, as expressed in Chapter 4, by which real-life allegorical carts for Corpus Christi are powered by pícaros and contested by city officials who threaten each other with imprisonment and whose conflicts nearly turn deadly later on. Spectacular crime and punishment in a theatricalized world is exemplified in Chapter 5 by a longhaired and soberly dressed Don Rodrigo broadcasting his contrition from the scaffold, turning the fictional spectacles of comedia criminals and spiritually “condemned” preachers alike into a sobering reality. Our final example of King Don Pedro provides us with the pinnacle of Criminal Baroque representation. Studying the figure reveals the tension and heavy overlap between two seemingly irreconcilable characters, the street brawler as habitual lawbreaker and the king as the law unto himself, leaving opinions and social actions in conflict, but the public happily entertained. In early modern Spain, criminals were not necessarily marginalized individuals who stood apart from society. When they appeared on stage in fictional form they represented a heightened version of reality (with more action, more violence, added wordplay) whose verisimilitude the audiences readily accepted. They did so because in cities like Madrid and Seville they were surrounded by lawbreakers as well as corrupt law-enforcement officials, inside the playhouse and on the streets outside. A perusal of the ten-year period leading up to the publication of Josoceria reveals a substantial number of cases in the Inventario de causas criminales that refer to alguaciles and escribanos alone.