Talk:Ransom of John II of France

Serious revisions needed

• "Thornton", "Paine", "Wake", "Matthew" and "Weiner" are cited as sources, but no clarification is given as to who they are, or what the actual source is.
• This article is written like a highschool history paper.
• This article is written from a personally invested tone of one accusing the French for their treatment of the Jews.
• This article reads like a story, not an article about a historical event.

The whole article might need to be re-written and sourced, in my opinion. Nswinton 19:42, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

• "a ₤700,000 ransom (today $1,228,366.50 USD)"₤700,000 (today) is worth about $1,228,366.50 USD (today), but not when converting it from 1359 AD to 2007 AD. ₤700,000 in 1359 would be a huge amount of money, and worth well over $1,228,366.50 USD by todays standards--Drummerdean01 05:48, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Cleanup 2009

I'm not familiar with this incident, but this article is a disaster. --Lendorien (talk) 16:22, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

• Needs rewriting
• Major tonal and POV issues
• Needs refocusing on the subject. Current focus seems to be plight of the jews.
• Needs WP added and Catagories
• Needs sourcing
• Needs to be deorphaned

Have taken a stab at a rewrite. I can't find any strong references anywhere the the Jewish contribution to the ransom payments (have tried the online Jewish encyclopedia, etc.) so have removed that emphasis.--Hchc2009 (talk) 09:29, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Ransom amount in today pounds

Does anyone know if the "4 million crowns" initially demanded (in 1359) can be converted using the inflation template? That template claims to be able to handle inflation values all of the way back to the year 1264, so it should be able to handle this case. I am just curious if the "crowns" used back then are these same "crowns" and have a 1-to-1 ratio with modern pound sterling with respect to inflation. If so, then: 4 million crowns = £3.1 billion pounds in today values. If that is a correct conversion, it might be interesting (and useful) to put this amount into perspective using it as a percentage of France's GDP back then, or something similar. Context should justify that "colossal ransom" and "extortionate" statements found in the article. PS: Yes. I have seen Drummerdean01's comment above. --Thorwald (talk) 00:17, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

The inflation template uses the RPI (e.g. comparing the price of loaves of bread), and isn't designed for larger sums, particularly in the medieval period. The best essays on this that I know of are here, and would give you some options and the sense of the difficulty in the conversion. Hchc2009 (talk) 08:35, 9 February 2013 (UTC)