CHAP. XII.

RICHARD AND LEWIS.

327

to offer a prospect of obtaining any contribiutions from them. This sum in our presentmoney would amount to £140,000. Other ac-counts make the ransom amount to £200,000,and one to £280,000; but the authority of Ry-mer is undoubtedly to be preferred to that ofany other.

Arnoldus, abbot of Lubec, in his continuationof the Chronicon Sclavicum of Helmoldus, (lib.iii.) says, “that when in January, 1194, KingRichard of England was discharged from hisimprisonment, his ransom was raised with greatdifficulty throughout all his dominions; so thateven the gold and silver cups and other vesselsused in the holy Eucharist were melted for thepurpose; and that over and above that a taxwas laid upon all persons, both ecclesiastical andcivil, of a fourth part of their income for oneyear. Twenty shillings were required on everyknight’s fee ; one year’s clip of wool was bor-rowed of the cistercians ; and the clergy of theking’s dominions in France contributed verylargely to effect the monarch’s deliverance.”

In 1248, during the contentions for the pos-session of the holy land, Lewis, King of France ,was made prisoner in Egypt by the Saracens,and his ransom was effected at the price of littlemore than fifty thousand pounds of our presentmoney.

Near one hundred and twenty years later,