German Rosicrucianism, as Frances Yates notes in her famous studies, was a historically recognizable style of thought at the beginning of the 17th century, that had its origins in the scientific, mystical and poetic aspirations of the Elizabethan age. As an anti-Catholic movement, opposed by the Jesuits, it was short-lived, but it transmitted to the 18th century its theoretical legacy, which included the idea of the centrality of theatre. In light of this, the radical renewal of theatre that

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... k place in the German-speaking world, starting with Lessing's departure from the French Aristotelian model and making Shakespeare and Nature its banner, can be considered differently, as not in contrast to traditional theatrical historiography.