GOTH QUEENS IN THE SPANISH GOLDEN AGE THEATRE

Abstract

In the Golden Age Theatre there are several plays with Goth queens as protagonists or minor characters, as the Queen Ingunda, wife of Saint Hermenegildo, named in some plays as Everinta, her aunt, the Queen Gosvinta, and the wives of Pelayo and Recesvinto, as well as the spouse of Bamba (a fictional queen named by Lope and Cubillo as Sancha). The main purpose of the playwrights recreating these powerful female characters is to seek in the Goth period the deep roots of the Catholicism in Spain and to show the influence of these queens in the religious dimension of the kingdom.