Editing Price revolution (section)

=== Debasement ===
{{See also|The Great Debasement}}
Regardless, Malestroit did put forth several valid claims about the price revolution that continue to hold up today, particularly his argument explaining the different [[price index]]es and why the Spanish prices rose the least and the [[Duchy of Brabant|Brabantine]] the most. Spain, unlike most other European countries of this era, underwent no [[debasement]]s of the gold and silver coinages during most of the period, but that all changed in 1599, when the new Spanish king [[Philip III of Spain|Philip III]] (1598–1621) introduced the purely [[copper]] "vellon" coinage.<ref name=Munro/>

Following [[Henry VIII of England]] and his infamous "[[Great Debasement]]" programme that began 1526, the Spanish King Philip III tried to cement his Spanish legacy through changes in coinage strategy. Previously, Spanish kings (at least from 1471) issued a largely copper fractional coinage called blancas, with a nominal money-of-account value of 0.5 [[maravedí]], but with a very small amount of silver to convince the public that it was indeed precious-metal "money".<ref name=Hamilton/> The blanca issued in 1471 had a silver [[fineness]] of 10 grains or 3.47% (weighing 1.107&nbsp;g).<ref name=Munro/> In 1497, that fineness was reduced to 7 grains (2.43% fine); in 1552, to 5.5 grains (1.909% fine); in 1566, to 4 grains (1.39% fine). By the start of the 17th century, inflation took hold of Spain as the gap between nominal and silver-based prices dramatically shifted. The purely copper coinage had done its damage to Spain. The difference between the silver- and vellon-based price indexes in Spain showed that the purely copper coinage other European countries used made up a much smaller proportion of the total coined money supply (something the Spanish kings had overlooked and Malestroit was able to pinpoint).<ref name=Munro/>