No part of European history has been as cruel and bloody as the recurrent persecution of the Jews. Their expulsion from Spain in 1492 is one of the capital moments in this terrible story, and theologians, historians and literary critics are still debating its consequences. In recent years there has been a sustained attempt to reassess the work of Fray Luis in the light of his Jewish family background, as part of a more general trend towards reaching a fresh appreciation of Golden Age Spain by looking back to that older Spain of three faiths and cultures which had been severely damaged by the late fourteenth-century pogroms and dealt a terminal blow by the expulsion. ‘The setting up of the Inquisition in 1478 marked the official transition from a pluralistic and heterodox society to a rigid and closed society bent on enforcing orthodoxy.’ The effect of this on Golden Age religious, intellectual and artistic life remains a matter of controversy. How and in what forms may Judaism have survived till the time of Fray Luis? Did descent from a converso family affect his attitudes and beliefs? To what extent did his study of Hebrew language and thought influence his own literary output, and are there any signs in this of a particular attachment to Jewish traditions?

To answer such questions, we need a wider perspective than sixteenth- century Spain provides. Without it, conclusions may be reached which are unbalanced and misleading.