ramentales, or one-act religious plays,co-
medias nuevas, or new comedies, and
musical shows known aszarzuelas.
In England the first outdoor theater
was established in London in 1576, and
was soon attracting thousands of people,
who paid a pittance to stand among the
“groundlings” or slightly more for seats in
covered sections raised above the stage.
Previously, stages had been set up in pub-
lic squares or marketplaces and were open
to all; the Globe and other theaters of the
late sixteenth century were the first struc-
tures devoted exclusively to public enter-
tainment. Smaller, “private” theaters also
operated, offering spectators an indoor
venue and seating for all.
Thomas Kyd’sThe Spanish Tragedywas
among the most popular plays of the Eliza-
bethan era and set the standard for all later
tragedies. The Renaissance drama reached
the peak of its poetic and dramatic power
in the works of William Shakespeare, as
well as his contemporary Christopher Mar-
lowe. Shakespeare was a masterful poet
and dramatist who worked in many differ-
ent forms, including tragedies, comedies,
and historical plays. After the Elizabethan
era, the English theater entered a period of
slow decline until the Puritan government
closed the theaters in 1642. The leading
dramatist of this “Jacobean” era was the
satirist Ben Jonson, who found humor in
the follies of ordinary people.
SEEALSO: de Vega, Lope; Marlowe, Chris-
topher; Shakespeare, William; Tasso,
Turquato
Thirty Years’ War ..............................
An international conflict taking place in
northern Europe from 1618 to 1648. The
war was fought between Catholics and
Protestants and also drew in the national
armies of France, Sweden, Spain, Den-
mark, and the Habsburg dynasty that ruled
the Holy Roman Empire. The roots of the
conflict lay in the Protestant Reformation
of the sixteenth century. The Reformation,
strongly opposed by the Catholic Hab-
sburgs, brought religious persecution and
civil war to Germany. By the Peace of
Augsburg, concluded in 1555, each Ger-
man prince was free to choose the reli-
gious faith—either Lutheranism or Ca-
tholicism—to be followed in his own
realm.
Religious conflict continued despite the
Peace of Augsburg, complicated by the ter-
ritorial ambitions of the nations surround-
ing Germany, then a patchwork of small
and autonomous duchies, kingdoms, coun-
ties, margravates, and city-states. Sweden
and Denmark, kingdoms to the north,
were seeking new territory in northern
Germany, while France was opposing Hab-
sburg power in Germany and the Low
Countries. Open warfare between Catho-
lics and Protestants broke out in Swabia, a
region of southwestern Germany, in the
early 1600s. Protestant Calvinists formed
the League of Evangelical Union, while
Catholics gathered their forces into the
Catholic League.
In 1619, Ferdinand of Styria became
Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor. His
dedication to Catholicism and determina-
tion to stamp out Protestantism prompted
a revolt in Prague, the capital of Bohemia.
Two of the emperor’s representatives were
attacked and thrown out of a window af-
ter a trial, an act that sparked a general re-
volt against Ferdinand’s authority in Bo-
hemia and Hungary. To quell the rebellion,
Ferdinand asked for help from his nephew,
King Philip IV of Spain. Although Vienna,
the Habsburg capital, came under siege by
a Protestant army, Ferdinand won a vic-
tory against the Protestant Union at theThirty Years’ War