Editorial note — Chapter VI · Christian Europe And Mahometan Asia In The Thirteenth Century.

[Footnote 14: 12,000 livres Parisis, about 1,350,000 francs in modern French money. The French livre (like the English pound) was formerly a pound's weight of silver. Charlemagne ordained that a silver sou should be precisely the twentieth part of twelve ounces of silver, and in this way twenty sous came to be looked upon as a livre. Both weight and value have been very greatly reduced in the course of time. Again, the weight of the livre, and consequently its value, varied in different parts of France. The livre Parisis was the livre of Paris, the livre Tournois (p. 19) the livre of Tours, &c.]