In "The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood," by Howard Pyle (1883), very first paragraph, a prize of 200 pounds"has been set upon Robin Hood's head."
I could not find online a way to convert old pounds into modern dollars even from 1883, when this book was written, let alone to whenever Robin Hood and his gang populated Sherwood Forest.
Was 200 pounds in Robin Hood's time a lot of money? Do you know its approximate equivalent in today's dollars?
I just googled it.
How much is $100 pounds in 1880 worth today?
£100 in 1880 is worth £15,373.15 today.
So multiply it by 2, and £30,746.30 = $39,663.
Doing some searching, I was able to locate some annual salaries for "College Fellow, Cambridge (£5/annum, 1450)"
Currently, a "College Fellow, at Cambridge pays between $55,000 (~£42,700) to $70,000 (~£54,350) per annum.
Using that as a basis, if the price on Robin Hood's head was in 1450 pounds, it would be range of £1,708,000 to £2,174,000 or between $2.2 and 2.8 million dollars.
Way over on the inflation numbers.
You are figuring on inflation for a period that is 4 times as long as 1883 - 2025. 142 years vs 575 years
You are figuring on inflation for a period that is 4 times as long as 1883 - 2025. 142 years vs 575 years
The value of currency in the era of it entirely being a precious metal was amazingly stable. A 4.5 gram Roman coin a hundred or so years later would get somebody about the same amount of goods as a contemporary coin centuries later.
But for a good rule of thumb, in the medieval era a Pound was worth 20 shillings or 240 pence. And a common laborer was paid 1.5 pence a day, a skilled laborer 3 pence a day.
Adjust over time for wages, and that means a Pound in that era was about 33,500 pounds today. Multiply by 200, that is over 1.2 million Pounds.
A lot of the change in value of coinage actually dates to the 16th century. When the gold and silver mines of the Americas resulted in a large influx of "new metals", and caused inflation as a result.
From the mid-1500s to the early 1600s, Spain suffered through crippling inflation because of all the silver and gold flowing in from their possessions in the Americas.
It set up a cycle for decades until it worked itself out. So much silver and gold flowed in, that even farmers became wealthy. And with all this wealth, many turned to other things to grow to make more, but leaving a deficit in basic food crops. That meant having to import more food, which caused inflation in the countries exporting to Spain.
This is an era before the discovery of the New World, when the currency was amazingly stable for hundreds of years.
But to compare an actual ransom of that era, Duke Leopold of Austria wanted 150,000 marks to release King Richard. The Mark was about the same size and weight as the British Pound (the pound was fractionally larger). And it took England over a year to raise enough money to pay his ransom. Over a year for the nation to collect around 150,000 pounds.
This is a difference between Robin Hood's time and Robin Hood's time.
The book came out in 1883.
The story is sent much earlier than most Robin Hood tales. Most are 13th or 14th century, but The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood is set between 1189 and 1199. We know that because, in the story, Robin and his men are pardoned by King Richard the Lionheart, whose reign was 1189 to 1199.
So, for the author, perhaps $40k.
But, for the characters in the story, that's likely far more than $2.8 million.
Which begs the question: what was Pyle thinking of? My guess is the $40k figure or thereabouts. He was probably giving a figure that would make sense to contemporaries as 'a lot of money', not 'enormously life-changing wealth'.
But, with the story set in 1189-1199, it's not even clear what the pound was. The first pound coins don't appear until nearly 300 years later.
One other way to look at it is that one pound (unit of weight) of the silver coins in 980 would buy you 15 head of cattle. But coinage got much worse, so badly that many makers of money were severely punished for debased coins in 1124. That likely improved matters :) but might not have gotten the 'pound' back to the 980 value.
If you toss out a rough guess of 10 head of cattle, in today's money that's $30,000. 200 is, then, $6,000,000, and we're back to life-changing sums of money.
Which means, again, the author is probably using roughly 1883 pounds, which is a mistake on the author's part but makes the $40k guess more likely to be right than wrong. It could be nearly anything, though.
Even writing in 1980s prices (which I do, since that's where my story is set) is a pain in the butt sometimes. It would be far worse trying to write in real-world prices from hundreds of years ago!
Even writing in 1980s prices (which I do, since that's where my story is set) is a pain in the butt sometimes.
I bought my first New Ford Station Wagon in 1974 for $3600. There were a number in between, but my last was a new 2015 Ford Expedition for $59,500.
It depends on what you use as a standard. (For example, if you use the price of unskilled labor at that time, you will get a different value for the pound than if you use the price of a 1-pound loaf of bread.)
A pound was, officially, 1 Troy pound of sterling silver. (Since the conversion of pounds to ounces depends on what you are measuring, I will point out that a Troy pound is 12 Troy ounces, not 16.) Sterling silver is 11/12 pure, so the pound represents 11 Troy ounces of silver, plus 1 ounce of other metals. Using the current price of silver, which is still measured in Troy ounces, that make 1 pound roughly 400 dollars/euros/pounds.
200 pounds (gold sovereigns) in the 1890s was close to 2.5 years average wages in Britain. Based on then US govt figures of $1.40 per day for average British wages and assuming a 5.5 day working week.
Additionally by the 1890s a Pound contained 3.36 ounces of silver, pennies being copper. At the time of King John / Robin Hood pennies were silver and the Tower Pound contained 10.4 ounces of silver. The worst coin clippers are governments of every type.