_ratinho_[262] Gonçalo, who loses his hare and capons and his clothes as well, the page of peasant birth ambitious to become a _cavaleiro fidalgo_, the roguish and pretentious palace pages. Side by side with these farces Vicente continued to write religious _autos_ as well as comedies and tragicomedies. The difference between these various pieces is less of kind than of the occasion on which they were produced, the _obras de devação_ on Christmas morning or other solemn day,[263] the _farsas de folgar, comedias_, &c., at the evening parties--those famous _serões_ of King Manuel’s reign to which the courtiers thronged at dusk, and which Sá de Miranda remembered with regret.[264] All provide us with realistic sketches since the background is filled with the common people, the real hero of Gil Vicente’s plays as it is of Fernam Lopez’ chronicles. Thus the _Auto da Mofina Mendes_ (Christmas, 1534), besides its heavenly _gloria_ with the Virgin, Gabriel, Prudence, Poverty, Humility, and Faith, has a very life-like peasant scene in which Mofina Mendes, personifying Misfortune, represents a Portuguese version of _Pierrette et son pot au lait_. The _Auto Pastoril Portugues_ (Christmas, 1523) is a similar scene of peasant life, relating the cross-currents of the shepherds’ loves and the finding of an image of the Virgin on the hills. The _Auto da Feira_, acted before King João at Lisbon in 1527, is a more elaborate Christmas play. Mercury, Time, Rome, and the Devil attend a fair, and this furnishes opportunity for a vigorous attack upon the Church of Rome, with her indulgences for others and her self-indulgence, who has not the kings of the Earth but herself to blame if she is rushing on ruin, ruin that will be inevitable unless she mends her ways. But to the fair also come the peasants Denis and Amancio, as dissatisfied with their wives as their wives are dissatisfied with them (their conversation is most voluble and natural), and market-girls, basket on head, come down singing from the hills. Another Christmas play, the _Auto da Fé_, was acted in the royal chapel at Almeirim in 1510, and consists of a simple conversation between Faith and two shepherds. The _Breve Summario da Historia de Deos_[265] (1527) and the _Auto da Cananea_ (written for the Abbess of Odivellas in 1534) are both based on the Bible; the former, which contains the _vilancete_ sung by Abel (_Adorae montanhas_), outlines the story of the Fall, of Job, and of the New Testament to the Crucifixion, sometimes in passages of great beauty. The latter develops the episode of the woman of Canaan (Matt. xv. 21-8). The great trilogy of _Barcas_, which ranks among Vicente’s most important works, is of earlier date. The first part, _Auto da Barca do Inferno_, was acted before Queen Maria _pera consolação_ as she lay on her death-bed in 1517, the second, _Auto da Barca do Purgatorio_, at Christmas of the following year in Lisbon, and the _Auto da Barca da Gloria_ at Almeirim in 1519.