Peter Spufford, born in Hutton, UK, in 1934. Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge and Litt.D. from the University of Cambridge. Emeritus Professor of European History at the University of Cambridge and Fellow at Queens’ College, Cambridge.
Guest of the Rector (1 April 2005 – 30 june 2005)
THE RISE AND FALL OF FINANCIAL CENTRES
I worked on four different things during my stay at the NIAS as Guest of the Rector from April to June 2005. My principal intended work on “The Survival and Decline of Financial Centres in Europe” from the thirteenth century to the twenty-first has gone very well indeed. I gave the joint NIAS-Antwerp Ortelius Lecture in May entitled, From Antwerp to London. The Decline of Financial Centres in Europe. There is more to do, but the bones of a book on the subject are by now very clear.
In addition I completed a paper on the “Mint Buildings of Medieval Europe” which has been accepted for publication. I also worked on late medieval and early modern bullion flows, and prepared a paper delivered at a conference in July. Finally, I worked on estimates of the gross and net moveable wealth of people of different status and occupation in seventeenth-century England.