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Yeoman Justice: the Robin Hood Ballads and the Appropriation Of YEOMAN JUSTICE: THE ROBIN HOOD BALLADS AND THE APPROPRIATION OF ARISTOCRATIC AND CLERICAL JUSTICE A Dissertation Presented to The Faculty of the Graduate School At the University of Missouri In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree Ph.D in English Literature By MEGAN ELIZABETH WOOSLEY EMMA LIPTON, Dissertation Supervisor JULY 2013 © Copyright by Megan Woosley 2013 All Rights Reserved The undersigned, appointed by the dean of the Graduate School, have examined the Dissertation entitled YEOMAN JUSTICE: THE ROBIN HOOD BALLADS AND THE APPROPRIATION OF ARISTOCRATIC AND CLERICAL JUSTICE Presented by Megan Elizabeth Woosley A candidate for the degree of Ph.D in English Literature And hereby certify that, in their opinion, it is Worthy of acceptance. Emma Lipton Johanna Kramer Anne Myers Megan Moore ___________________________________________________________ Mark Amos DEDICATION This dissertation is dedicated to my parents, Stephen and Candace Woosley, Whose love and support alloWed me to fulfill my Wildest dreams, something every parent hopes his or her child Will one day accomplish. I thank them for reading to me as a child, which fed my imagination; exposing me to history and museums, Which grounded me in fact; and indulging my hunger for various trips to see ruins, hear lectures, study manuscripts, examine artifacts, and visit magical landscapes, Which alloWed me to become the scholar I am today. I also dedicate this dissertation to my husband, Craig Goodman. Without his patience, support, and understanding none of this could have been accomplished. I thank him for running to the library for me When I Was too busy to pick up a book, for cooking dinner When I Was consumed With an idea, and for tolerating my absence When I Was Writing, reading, or Was sWept away to late medieval England. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I thank those that taught me, inspired me, guided me, and helped me achieve the completion of this research project and degree. I thank both Mark Addison Amos and Anita Riedinger, my first academic mentors, who helped awaken the medievalist in me. Particularly, I thank Mark Amos, Whose excitement for late medieval studies in the classroom Was infectious, and Whose assignment to read and present upon Robin Hood and the Guy of Guisborne during my M.A. program began a ten-year long obsession that eventually led to this dissertation. I cannot adequately put into Words the gratitude I have for my advisor, Emma Lipton, Whose guidance, patience, and direction Went above and beyond the calling of an academic mentor. I am grateful to have been led by her expertise, and I am forever thankful for the challenges she extended and the numerous hours of support she lent. I thank the rest of my committee, Johanna Kramer, Megan Moore, Anne Meyers, and Mark Amos for feedback and conversations that helped shape this project. I thank my fellow colleagues Rebecca Mouser, Pete Ramey, Claire Schmidt, Derek Updegraff, and Julie Christenson for reading early versions of my Work and providing an excellent support system of medieval graduate students at the University of Missouri. Lastly, I am grateful to the International Association for Robin Hood Studies and Thomas Hahn at Rochester for sponsoring the Biennial Conference, Where I Was able to debut my Work in front of many prominent Robin Hood scholars. The feedback I received and the conversations I had there helped me rethink many of my early ideas for this project. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS AcknoWledgements ............................................................................................................ ii Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………iv Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 1 Chapter One: The Justice of Religious Poverty ................................................................. 33 Chapter TWo: The Justice of Yeoman FelloWship ............................................................. 75 Chapter Three: The Justice of the Body .......................................................................... 131 Chapter Four: The Justice of God ................................................................................... 173 Bibliography .................................................................................................................... 217 Vita ................................................................................................................................. 226 iii ABSTRACT YEOMAN JUSTICE: THE ROBIN HOOD BALLADS AND THE APPROPRIATION OF ARISTOCRATIC AND CLERICAL JUSTICE Megan Elizabeth Woosley Dr. Emma Lipton, Dissertation Supervisor ABSTRACT This dissertation examines the formation of yeoman identity through the lens of justice in four late medieval English ballads: Robin Hood and the Monk, Robin Hood and the Potter, A Gest of Robyn Hode, and Robin Hood and the Guy of Guisborne. I argue the Robin Hood texts critique common medieval conceptions of justice by creating neW ones through the appropriation of recognizable literary vocabularies related to the first and second estates. Instead of presenting a fully developed portrait of identity, the Robin Hood corpus displays ambivalence, Which is further evidence that identity for the yeoman, and its operating system of justice, is still being Worked out in the text itself. The yeoman is celebrated due to his ability to manipulate and appropriate cultural practices in order to gain Wealth and social prestige. This parallels a broad historical trend of middle strata economic and social mobility in the late Middle Ages and the Early Modern period. iv INTRODUCTION Each Robin Hood production, both literary and cinematic, speaks more clearly to the historical period in Which it Was produced than it attempts to interpret the figure of Robin Hood himself. Robin is a character upon Which We superimpose our desires. As Robin Hood scholars often say, “each generation gets their oWn Robin Hood,” and this is largely true in reference to film adaptations. The legend We are most likely familiar With, that of a dispossessed gentleman fighting against the evil usurper King John, has little in common With its roots in medieval literature. In the six-hundred year history of his popularity, Robin Hood has been featured in literature and film as a knight, a crusading Warrior, a rebellious peasant, and a yeoman trickster. These fluid representations of Robin are not unique to film adaptations; they also apply to his literary history, and specifically in reference to his appearance beyond the Early Modern period, the literary period in Which he is first gentrified. The Early Modern gentrification of Robin is a stretch from his medieval roots as a yeoman. HoWever, this social elevation engages the rising social importance of the yeoman in the latter part of the Middle Ages and transforms the medieval potential for social advancement through the appropriation of aristocratic identity into a literary reality, something the medieval ballads merely fantasize about. Nonetheless, it is neither the intent of this dissertation to look at each successive generational portrayal of Robin Hood, nor to chart hoW the 1 legend changed from the medieval period to the modern.1 I draw attention to this phenomenon for one reason: to point out the Robin Hood legend’s ability to morph and reflect social preoccupations and anxieties, Whether of class, justice, War, or nationalism.2 The medieval legends engage the socio-economic concerns of the period, when burgeoning middle strata tried to make sense of its neW found importance in a social classification system that afforded it neither social space nor identity in the three estates system. The ballads bear Witness to this phenomenon recognizing the anxiety of the aristocracy over cultural appropriation, the Weakened aristocracy, and the localization of government. I Wish to complicate the assumption that the Robin Hood literature morphs into something neW each generation. Instead, I suggest the thematic continuity of Robin Hood literature spanning the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries, which shares similar socio-economic concerns that are evident in the depiction of justice. This dissertation argues that the Robin Hood ballads document an emergent yeoman socio-economic identity by appropriating and manipulating Well-established literary and socially-classed concepts of justice. The yeomen in the Robin Hood ballads look outward to aristocratic, 1 For an overvieW of the legend, Which breaks the character of Robin into several different 2 As evidence of such shifts, I draW attention to the first blockbuster Robin Hood film starring Douglas Fairbanks (1922), three years after the start of World War I. The backdrop of the Crusades, and the usurpation of Richard’s crown by King John serve as political commentary on the rising American nationalism and military engagements With foreign countries. Furthermore, Ridley Scott’s neWest depiction of Robin Hood (2010) returns him to the status of yeoman fighting against poWer hungry and greedy barons during the backdrop of the First Barons’ War. This served as socio-political commentary on American politics. During the Occupy Wall Street movement in 2011, some protestors took on the figure of Robin Hood as a figure of resistance to corporate greed. 2 bourgeois, and religious forms of justice that appear in literature in order to justify the recognition of themselves as socio-economically separate, and in some cases, similar to
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