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The Golden Age of Spain, 1474–1598

Gold and silver imports and the debate on inflation

  • 3 things to know
  • Paper 3

Overview

Recall questions on the scale of bullion imports, Potosi, Azpilcueta and Mercado, the School of Salamanca, and how the silver thesis is now assessed.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

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Key term

Which group of Spanish thinkers analysed the causes of inflation?

Key term

What was the Casa de Contratación?

Key term

How do modern historians assess the silver thesis?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    Which group of Spanish thinkers analysed the causes of inflation?

    Model answer

    The economists of the School of Salamanca.

  2. 2

    What New World import is most often blamed for the inflation?

    Model answer

    American silver.

  3. 3

    How much silver reached Spain from the Americas?

    Model answer

    Registered imports rose from a trickle in the 1520s to some 85 million pesos in the decade after 1591, with substantial unrecorded amounts besides.

  4. 4

    Which mines produced the silver?

    Model answer

    Potosí in Upper Peru above all, discovered in 1545, together with Zacatecas in New Spain, worked with mercury amalgamation and forced indigenous labour.

  5. 5

    Who was Martin de Azpilcueta?

    Model answer

    The theologian of the School of Salamanca who argued in 1556 that money was worth less in Spain because it was abundant there, an early statement of the quantity theory.

  6. 6

    What did Tomás de Mercado argue?

    Model answer

    In 1569 he analysed how American silver raised Spanish prices and drove trade and goods abroad, extending the Salamanca analysis to commerce.

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