But it is not on any of these productions that the reputation of Lope really rests. That was founded on his theatre, and on that it must continue to subsist. There he showed himself master of his art: original, fecund, national, universal, true and spirited, he produced a form of dramatic writing that, to this day, rules the stage of every country of the world. It was with considerable difficulty that the theatre established itself at all in Spain, the church setting itself against theatrical representations. This prejudice has continued even to modern days. No Spanish monarch since Philip IV. has entered a theatre; and Philip V., when he found in Farinelli the solace of his painful distemper, not only never heard him in a theatre, but caused him to give up the public stage, when he was admitted to sing privately before him. In the early day of which we are writing, the clerical outcry was furious, and the drama only became tolerated by making over the theatres to two religious corporations, one a hospital, and the other of flagellants; and the wickedness of the stage was permitted[102] for the sake of the benefits to charity and religion to result therefrom. The sites of the theatres then consisted of two open court yards, _corrales_--corral is the Spanish term for farmyard, or any enclosure for cattle, and long continued to be synonymous with a theatre. The representations took place at first in the open air. Alberto Gavasa, an Italian, who brought over a company of buffoons, was enabled by the greatness of his success to cover his corral with an awning, the court yard itself was paved and provided with movable benches, and called the _patio_, or pit, which no women ever entered. The grandees sat looking out of the windows of the houses that looked into the court yard, which government appropriated and distributed on this occasion. A prince or very great man having a room allotted to him, and minor gentlemen a single window, and this primitive arrangement was we are told the origin of our boxes. In addition, there were several galleries, into some of which women only were admitted. It was called the _cazuela_, and open to all classes.