Note 8 — PART I SOUTH AMERICAN FIGHTS AND FIGHTERS (continued 2)

The ransom of King John II. of France, taken prisoner by the Black Prince, was three million golden crowns. The value of the ancient ecu de la couronne varied between $1.50 and $1.30, so that the ransom of John was between four and one-half and seven million dollars. Estimating the purchasing power of money in John's time at two and one-half times that of the present, we arrive at a ransom of between eleven and eighteen million dollars. If we split the difference and call the ransom fourteen and a half millions, we still find that the Christian monarch was slightly undervalued as compared with his heathen fellow in misery. However, all this is profitless, because the ransom of John was never paid.