Robin Hood: Hero or Villain?

[Marko]

@K.C. Farmer

How do you know what the populace felt at that time? Was this a protest against a system or an invasion? Were the Angles and Saxons free market capitalists? I think not. And who is “we”?

My, aren`t we full of questions?

@K.C. Farmer

You seem to have a limited understanding of the roles and obligations of feudalism.

I have a perfectly fine understanding of feudalism. You just don`t know what property is.

@K.C. Farmer

And how can you assert there was no voluntary exchange?

I explained how already. I see no point in repeating myself.

@K.C. Farmer

Do also you take the position that the capitalist entrepreneur does no work, and therefore has no legitimate claim? The system of manorialism worked in both instances, with the incorporation of money becoming a more efficient method of trade.

What a load of crap. A feudal lord is not an entrepreneur. A capitalist landlord rents out what he has himself built or purchased. A feudal lord rents out land he has stolen, and the people he rents it out to are the very people he has stolen it from.

@K.C. Farmer

The Angles and Saxons invaded England, pillage the lands, killed or drove off the populace, and laid claim to the lands just as the Normans did. You seem to think Normans were just the aristrocrats, when in fact a large number were not (in fact most Normans were definitely not aristocrats - even the ones you may think of as being aristocrats). Those who fought in the Norman conquest were granted lands in the same way the Angles and Saxons had done before them. This is not homesteading on either party, and to suggest that it is ignores history. You also ignore the fact that many Angles and Saxons retained their property and were themselves lords over their own manors. That’s not even considering that the Norman conquest occurred over 200 years before the assumed existence of Robin Hood. Please refer to the Doomsday Book, which was an accounting of all English lands at the time of Edward the Confessor’s death. William the Conquerer came because he was supposedly heir to Edward the Confessor, a claim that was contested. So we have kings abound and you want to claim the Anglo-Saxons as having superior rights because they killed, pillaged and raped before the Normans came. And as a matter of contention, the Anglo-Saxons in England were viewed by some to be part of the wider Danish Empire.

Blah, blah, blah. In 1200 there were two classes in England. The property owners, the serfs. And the squatters, the aristocracy. Robin Hood was an agent of the property owners against the squatters.

Who owns property has nothing to do with who pillaged what. It has to do with who homesteaded the land. The aristocrats did not. The peasant who worked the land did. It just so happened the aristocrats were largely Norman and the serfs were largely Anglo-Saxon. Now who did what in 800 I couldnt give a rats arse about. We are talking about 1200 and that was the situation then.

The situation was that the rightful owners were the people who had been working the land for the past few centuries, the Anglo-Saxon serfs. I couldn`t give a rats arse about the claim of the preceeding Anglo-Saxon aristocracy whatever it was based on, they were not the owners either.

[K.C_Farmer]

We’re talking about a fictional character based on the ballads of entertainers at the time - that time happens to be the 14th century. Each ballad differs, so this is not one homogeneous legend. The message changes over time based on what the storyteller wishes to portray. Perhaps it began loosely based on real individuals, and grew into something wider as time went on. One of the major themes in the stories are the conflict against corrupt abbots - which matches the mood of the populace at the time where there was a movement to produce an English version of the Bible. Taxation themes are more likely about the Poll Taxes of that time period.

The character of Robin Hood is a popular criminal (robber), but I can also see where one might identify him in a positive light due to defiant acts against a state. The following mises.org article addresses this in more detail:

Robin Hood, Friend of Liberty

[Merlin]

@Marko

It was not a massive population movement.

True, my mistake. But I’m afraid that only adds to the villainous nature of the character.