Criminals are fascinating, as any sampling of the latest news headlines will tell you. This fascination extends to fictionalized accounts as well, and the current proliferation of crime dramas on television can rival that of real-life crime reports in the news. This is a book about criminals both real and fictional in contexts that have been relatively ignored. In comparison to the overwhelming emphasis placed by Golden Age scholars on picaresque prose fiction, what has received far less attention are theatrical productions and public spectacles. These can range from humorous musical sketches to solemn executions, in which crime and punishment were used to entertain and instruct mass audiences. Criminality as as theme for performances matched its pervasiveness in society as a whole. Much can be learned about public opinion concerning lawbreaking and peacekeeping by studying how criminals were theatricalized on and off the stage.

Before proceeding to examine the spectacles in question, it is necessary to give a basic definition of the term “criminality” and how it will be used in this study. My methods in this respect are similar to some that I have used before. In a previous book, I defined “humor” in a broad sense without focusing on a single theory or outlining any taxonomies from the start. Only later did the study bring up relevant classifications and theories to illuminate explanations related to specific works. Over the length of that book, the analyses of separate genres and humorous situations therein created a more generalized picture. In this study, I will begin by broadly defining “criminality” as “severe lawbreaking”, with “law” referring to a written statute mostly found in the continually updated Nueva recopilación de las leyes destos reinos, and subsequent “cuadernos” and “pragmáticas”. With some exceptions – such as begging, price-gouging, or defying authority, all cited in Chapter 4 – a lawbreaking act is hereby defined as severe if it leads to grievous bodily harm or the deprivation of property.