The Price Revolution (1)

Question 1

What was the highest inflation rate during the price revolution?

Answer 1

400%

Question 2

Was inflation spread evenly across Spain?

Answer 2

No

Question 3

In what areas were the steepest price rises?

Answer 3

• the necessaries eg. wheat

Question 4

What was the moral reason given by 16th-century writers to explain the price revolution?

Answer 4

• the wickedness of the population

Question 5

How did 16th-century writers blame foreign speculators for the price revolution?

Answer 5

• believed foreign speculators for the increased cost of meat, horses, wool, and cloth ie. they were interfering with Spanish economy

Question 6

Who were the first people to link imports of gold/silver from the New World to the price revolution?

Answer 6

• theologians at Salamanca

Question 7

Who in 1556 attributed rising prices to the fact that currency was losing value due to a large supply being in circulation?

Answer 7

• Azpilcueta

Question 8

What did Mercado’s 1569 work ‘Manuel of Deals and Contracts’ attribute the price revolution to?

Answer 8

• the fact that the New World trade led to increased prices because it created heavy demand for goods
  ie. people were so eager to take their produce abroad that Spanish traders could increase prices

Question 9

What did Hamilton’s 1934 modern explanation say?

Answer 9

• it was based on official registers in Seville

- he agreed with the link between bullion and inflation saying there was an “extremely close correlation”

Question 10

What criticisms of Hamilton do Elliott and Kamen make?

Answer 10

• there was more inflation in the early years before the majority of bullion import
• prices didn’t rise evenly which would have occurred if it was monetary based
• Kamen questioned the accuracy of the records at Seville
• silver didn’t often stay in Spain, it was often re-exported to pay for Spanish imports/ foreign bankers

Question 11

Why did Kamen question the accuracy of records at Seville that Hamilton’s work was based on?

Answer 11

• silver smuggling increased from 10% Hamilton increased?????

Question 12

How could the law of supply and demand explain the price revolution?

Answer 12

• Lynch points out that the increased supply of money without increase in agricultural/ manufacturing output = same produce chasing “more and more money”

Question 13

How could the rising population explain the price revolution?

Answer 13

• more people want things so prices can increase (there was no increased production of necessities, no new technology to increase production eg. in textile production)