It is a revealing coincidence that printing presses were established in several cities in Spain roughly at the same time as theatre started to develop in the peninsula. It did not take too long for the paths of these two novelties to cross. During the first half of the sixteenth century, poets who wrote plays to be performed by amateur actors during specific celebrations for religious or noble patrons saw print as a way to promote their dramatic work and try to obtain further patronage. Some of these authors printed their plays as part of larger collections of literary works. An early dramatist such as Juan del Encina, for example, included his plays in his Cancionero [Songbook], first published in Salamanca in 1496 and augmented with new poems and plays in successive editions. On the other hand, Lucas Fernández, who was master of music at the cathedral of Salamanca, published in 1514 a book entitled Farsas y églogas [Farces and Eclogues], which was devoted exclusively to his dramatic work. The plays of other authors, such as Gil Vicente or Diego Sánchez de Badajoz, remained unprinted during their lifetimes, but their drama was collected and published posthumously by their relatives.

The development of commercial theatre during the second half of the century and the increase in the number of plays that were written by playwrights and performed by the first companies of professional actors did not modify this situation initially. The social, cultural and economic network that developed with the emergence of professional companies in the 1560s and was consolidated by the late 1570s and 1580s did not encourage the printing of plays. These companies formed by professional actors needed constantly to renew their repertoires with new plays to satisfy the ever-increasing audience in cities, towns and villages and relied on buying the texts from poets. Playwrights would sell the original manuscripts of the plays they wrote to the directors of companies, who became the sole legal owners of the texts they bought (playwrights did not even keep a copy of the text for themselves). Playing companies, for their part, were not interested in seeing the plays they owned in print, especially the most successful ones, because it would have diminished the value of their repertoire.