Quick question about tourneys/ransoms as I’m rereading The Hedge Knight. After the first day of the tourney Dunk notes that Ser Humfrey Hardyng had beaten 14 knights over the course of the challenges. In that style tourney, is he getting a ransom from everyone of those knights? If so what would that be equivalent to if you could do the math? Feel like he would have been set for life if he had been able to survive the whole affair!

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. 

In terms of how much it’s worth by today’s money, that’s about $140,000-154,000 U.S dollars, which is quite a sum but not exactly “set for life” money.