I'm reading the chronicles by Froissart and there's this bit about a ransom that confuses me. It's not immediately clear for me whether or not the ransom was high or rather too low but politically inopportune. Because both the Prince of Wales as well as his counsel regret the decision to ransom the knight for 100,000 Francs (or rather, regret ransoming him at all - since he would raise 2000 men at arms). Also, it took Bertrand a month to raise the money from the King of France and the Duke of Anjou. Would this be a long period or were they amazed at how fast his ransom was paid?
The text is kind of ambiguous.
So, what could you buy in 14th-century France for 100,000 francs, the ransom of Betrand du Guesclin? Was it considered large for a ransom? If so, how did the French during the Hundred Years' War pay a large ransom like that?
there wasn't really a "standard" ransom value for knights in the 14th century. there was an old custom that set the minimum level for a "fair" ransom at a year's income of the captured knight, and that 5 or 6 years revenue was considered a loose maximum. exceptions of course did occur, but in general a ransom was commensurate with a captured knight's degree of wealth and fame, hence why when King Jean II was captured at Poitiers in 1356 his freedom was literally worth "a king's ransom" (initially set at 4 million écus or £880,000, later reduced to 3 million écus or £660,000)
it is difficult to give exact values for expected ransoms, but here is a rather broad generalization for the 1350s:
* 1 £ was roughly equal to 6 francs d'or
to put this in some context, an average English knight earned between £15 - £30 per year. an average warhorse cost £10, a fancy destrier upwards of £50. a plow horse was about 10 shillings. pay for an English knight on campaign was 2 shillings a day.
the main reason that a knight's level of wealth largely determined his ransom value was primarily practical--a knight who captured a prisoner would want to extract as large a ransom as possible from his prisoner, but that value had to be within reason for him to expect to ever be paid. a penniless knight who was captured would never be able to raise a huge sum to buy his freedom, and any captor that attempted to charge an exorbitant amount from his prisoners was only hurting his own chances at ever receiving payment. a knight who was unable to raise his ransom was worth less than nothing to his captor, as the captor had to endure the expense of feeding and housing his prisoner until such time as the ransom payment was made. of course the cost of food and housing was often later added to any agreed-upon ransom payment, which was why it was in the captured knight's best interests to secure his freedom as soon as possible. Bertrand du Guesclin's securing his freedom in only a month was fantastically quick for the time--often negotiating and securing ransoms could take many months or even years.
there were various other factors that could impact the cost of a knight's ransom. political and strategic considerations often were taken into account, as were social and familial connections with wealthy and powerful lords. these are the reasons why du Guesclin's 1364 ransom of 100,000 francs (£16,500) was comparatively high compared to du Guesclin's actual level of wealth: the man was a military genius and was highly valuable to the French war effort. this is why the English charged such a high ransom, and also why the French king assisted in paying for it. when du Guesclin was captured again (for the fourth time in his life) later in 1367 following the Battle of Najera his ransom was an even higher £23,000. there were times that a prisoner was so valuable militarily that he would never be released no matter the price. this was the sad fate of Jean de Grailly, the Captal de Buch, who was captured by the French in 1372 and held prisoner in Paris until his death in 1377.
the practice of ransoms was very complex and there are a lot of other factors involved that i didn't go into here, such as the customary "King's Third", that required one-third of all ransom payments to be given to the captor's lord and king. this practice itself was not universal, and there are historians such as Andrew Ayton and Denys Hay that have disputed the particularities of this practice or whether it really ever occurred at all.
sources:
- Ambuhl, Remy. Prisoners of War in the Hundred Years' War: Ransom Culture in the Late Middle Ages, Cambridge Univ. Press, 2013
[Find my answer on my blog, with a nice picture of what a 14th century franc looked like]
This ransom was quite high. Du Guesclin had made quite a name for himself and the more he was captured the higher his ransoms became. Those 100 000 doubloons (not francs!) weighted around 460kg of gold (roughly 1014 pounds), which was a massive fortune.
[Cf. Valérie Toureille (ed.), Guerre et société. 1270-1480. Paris: Atlante, 2013, p. 347.]
We also need to keep in mind that on one hand a substantial amount of gold and silver mines were discovered in the 16th century, meaning that the value of those precious metals went down after that point in time. More gold is needed today than it was in the 13th and 14th century to buy--let's say--a horse or a cow, because gold was much scarcer. Therefore it is almost impossible to really evaluate the value of 100 000 doubloons only by its gold value.
[Cf. E. Fournial, Histoire monétaire de l'occident médiéval. Paris: Nathan, 1970, p. 8.]
On another hand the 14th century saw several monetary crisis because of the Hundred Years War. From 1337 to 1360, the value of gold sunk compared to the value of silver. It is a fact that there was a shortage of silver in France. This shortage resulted in hoarding. Therefore we observe a drastic slowdown in monetary circulation which didn't help the situation. The Kingdom of France yet regained some economical health during the next period (1360-1385) under the rule of Charles V. However, the value of coins had still a lot diminished compared to what it was in 1330. Nonetheless we can still state that a franc in 1364 weighted 3,885g at 24K. In conclusion, Du Guesclin ransom was worth 118 404 francs.
[Ibid., p. 103, 113-114, 117-119; Marc Bompaire, "Compter au XIIIe siècle avec la diversité des monnaies : livres, sous et deniers", in Comptabilité(S) (2015), 7, online.]
Now, we can find a precise account on JStor (links below) of how much Charles V invested in renovating the Louvre between 1364-1368--let's not forget that Du Guesclin was captured at the battle of Najera, in 1367. To give a very rough idea of how elevated Du Guesclin's ransom was, Charles V paid the binding of a single book 20 'sous parisis'. That was barely more than a franc, yet that was already a lot of money since it was for a very precious book! Also, as one of the construction worker died during the renovations of the Louvre, he'd left behind him a poor widow with paralysed limbs. She received only 6 francs as compensation. 6 francs were also the price for 5 sculptures that were put in a new staircase.
[Cf. M. Le Roux de Lincy, "Comptes des dépenses faites par Charles V dans le Château du Louvre, des années 1364 à 1368", in Revue archéologique (1851-1852), 8/2, p. 670-691, 770-772; in particular p. 690, §57; p. 766, §113, §115; online link 1, link 2]
On a side note, we know that Charles V had amassed around 400 000 francs by 1368. It took him a lot of time to hoard it but most of it would be spent by the end of the next year. In that time frame, in a single year, 248 630 francs were used to finance the war and defend the kingdom. Therefore, yes indeed, Du Guesclin's ransom was astronomic. He was only lucky that his king had quite a fortune precisely when he was captured.
[Cf. Raymond Cazelles, "Les Trésors de Charles V", in Comptes rendus des séances de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres (1980), 124/1, p. 214-226; in particular p. 218; online]