During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Spain's cultural life reached its most glorious stage. This ‘Golden Age’ was distinguished by a great variety of civic ceremonies and religious festivities that were performed in towns and cities. Economic and cultural factors encouraged the development of urban space as a spectacular arena for these rituals. The town became a permanent stage on which the identity of social groups and institutions was displayed. This paper examines the characteristics and development of festivals during this period and also the relative contribution of ‘popular’ and ‘learned’ culture to these celebrations.