religious exhibitions were popular with the public in spain as early as the 13th century. these typically consisted of simple dialogue, presented at christmas, carnival, good friday, or easter during religious festivals. as time progressed, the celebration of the feast day of corpus christi became larger and with that came the desire for drama surrounding the feast day and honoring the eucharist became apparent. the first "autos" were derived from religious material that already existed, but by the beginning of the 16th century, the first true "auto" "sacramental", meaning the theme of the play was the mystery of the eucharist, was presented. it was "el auto de san martin", by gil vicente.