Leonor de Villanueva, who is reported to have confessed to practising
Jewish rites and to have been duly condemned by the Inquisition in
1513 or thereabouts.[6] This does not go to the root of the matter,
for Leonor de Villanueva is alleged to have been Lope de Leon's second
wife. His first wife is stated to have been Leonor Sanchez de
Olivares, a lady of unquestioned orthodoxy, and mother of Gomez de
Leon,[7] the future grandfather of the Luis de Leon with whom we are
concerned here. If this statement be correct,[8] obviously there can
be no ground for asserting that Luis de Leon was of Jewish blood. But
it must in candour be admitted that the point is not wholly clear from
doubt.[9]

It is now established that Luis de Leon was born at Belmonte in the
province of Cuenca: 'Belmonte de la Mancha de Aragon' as he calls
it.[10] When was he born? On his tombstone, he was stated to be
sixty-four years old when he died on August 23, 1591.[11] This is
almost the only scrap of evidence available, for no baptismal
registers dating back to the third decade of the sixteenth century are
preserved at Belmonte.[12] Did the inscription on Luis de Leon's tomb
mean that he had completed his sixty-fourth year, or did it mean that,
at the time of his death, he had entered upon his sixty-fourth year?
According to the answer given to these questions, the date of Luis de
Leon's birth must be fixed either in 1527 or 1528.

Apart from the fact that Luis de Leon was taught singing,[13] as
became the future friend of Salinas, we know next to nothing of his
early youth. From himself we learn that he was taken from Belmonte to
Madrid when he was five or six, that at the age of fourteen he was
entered at Salamanca University, where one of his uncles--Francisco de
Leon--was lecturer on Canon Law, and that shortly afterwards he