#ransoms

I was reading your ACOK Cat 2 essay, and it got me thinking. You mentioned how the Redwynes don't have any men with Renly's army cause Hobber and Horas are "guests" of the king, so I'm curious: if a House isn't able to fulfill their obligations and send men to their liege lord during a war cause the enemy is holding members of that House hostage, would they be punished for it, or would the liege lord basically go, "yeah fair," and overlook it?

As I've written about, the process of getting a vassal to fulfill their feudal obligation to provide military service was always one that involved political negotiation between liege lord and vassal.

So while the Tyrells probably wouldn't be thrilled about the Redwynes holdng back their forces because the heirs to the House are being held captive, it would be seen as an understandable motive - noblemen get taken captive in wars all the time, the custom of hostage-taking is an accepted and legitimate part of feudal politics, and only a madlad (or lassie) would ignore the threat and fight anyway.

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Good question!

It’s a bit tricky, because prices do fluctuate a bit. Let’s say a ransom is equal to the price of a horse and a suit of armor:

Horse prices: in 209 AC, Dunk sells Sweetfoot for three gold plus some silver, whereas 299 AC one gold per horse is the going rate. So let’s go with 1.5 gold on average.

Armor prices: in 209 AC, Dunk buys a set of plain steel armor for 800 silver (~3.8 gold), although this is mail, gorget, greaves, and greathelm rather than a full suit of plate, which one would guess would go for substanially more. The semi-canon RPG books give a price of around 14 gold for a suit of plate. So let’s go with an average of 9 gold. 

So I would say that a tourney ransom is somewhere around 10-11 gold minimum, which means that Ser Humfrey made around 140-154 gold on the first day of the tourney. (Ransoms in times of war are a good deal higher - Brienne’s father offered 300 gold, which Jaime considers a good ransom for a knight - since there’s something of a disincentive to return an enemy combatant to the field.)Now, how much is that worth? Well, given that a good income for a smallfolk works out to between 3.5-5 gold, that would certainly set an adult peasant up for the rest of their life. However, it’s not that extravagant by noble standards.