* The Black Legend'
P. E. Russell gives the second of a group of talks
The American historian W. H. Prescott said of sixteenth-century Spain that it was a land shut out from the light.' Opinions like this, widely held abroad, form part of what Spaniards call ' the Black Legend.' P. E. Russell, Professor of Spanish Studies at Oxford, draws attention to 'the legend's effect on Spanish life and letters; and, in an attempt to discover how far it is ttue, he examines some of the main features of the Renaissance in Spain.