<P> The increased importation of specie to Spain started in Central Europe around the beginning of the sixteenth century . According to Michael North (1994) central European silver output doubled between 1470 and 1520, and increased even more in the 1520s with the new mine of Joachimsthal . Also during this time the Spanish and Portuguese brought a large amount of gold from the New World to Europe . Starting in the 1540s a growing amount of silver was shipped to Europe from mines in Mexico and the Potosi mountain in Peru . The production of the Potosi mine increased greatly in the 1560s after mercury deposits had been discovered in the Andes, as mercury was necessary to process the silver . Based on the records of Earl J. Hamilton (1934), the total imports of specie from the Americas during the 16th century amounted to around 210 million pesos, with 160 million of these pesos being imported in the second half of the 16th century . The total amount of silver imported added up to about 3,915 metric tons of silver . However these numbers underestimate the total amount imported to Spain because Hamilton only counted imports recorded by the official Casa de Contraction in Seville, not including the specie shipped directly to Cadiz by the Dutch and British East India Companies . The influx of these precious metals and the resulting money supply shocks help explain the price increase in Spain during the 16th century . </P> <P> Some accounts emphasize the role of the increase in silver production within Europe itself, which took place at the end of the 15th and beginning of the 16th centuries . </P> <P> The first scholar to make a quantity - theory link between the influx of American "treasure" and the Price Revolution was supposedly the French philosopher Jean Bodin in his 1568 response to a 1566 treatise by the Royal Councilor Jean de Malestroit . Malestroit argued that lower - quality coins were the chief culprit of price influx--similar to the periodic inflations of the 14th and 15th centuries . Bodin dismissed this argument, contending that the growing influx of silver from the Spanish Americas was the primary cause of price inflation . Championed for the quantity theory of money, Bodin was able to demonstrate that the inflation of prices in France was due far more to Spanish - American influx than to any change in coin debasement . </P> <P> Earl Hamilton, a contemporary price revolution theorist, found that no Spanish writer of the 16th century had voiced opinions similar to those of Jean Bodin despite having conducted meticulous research into Spanish treatises, letters, and other documents . This, however, was not true; less well known is an even earlier Spanish publication in a treatise from 1556 by the cleric Azpilcueta Navarra, of the Salamanca School, which made virtually the same claim about the role of Spanish - American silver in the rise of prices . Azpilcueta Navarra, Jean de Malestroit, Jean Bodin, and early debate about the history of the price revolution in many was the reason historians, philosopher, and economist tried to formulate their own explanations to the price revolution . </P>

Who was most adversely affected by the price revolution