Anyone familiar with the story of Robin Hood knows how the story
starts. Actually there are multiple versions, but for now we'll use
one of my favorites. Robin Hood is a young man with a mean knack with
the bow and arrow. He wants to be a Forester and guard the Kings Deer.
So he goes to visit the Foresters and try out. They challenge him to
prove his archery skills. He shows one example of prowess after
another until someone challenges him to shoot a deer that is so far
away that the challenger doesn't think anyone could hit it. Robin
Kills the deer, the foresters change expressions from mirth and poking
fun, to anger. They go to arrest him and he is forced to run for his
life. The penalty for killing (Poaching) the Kings deer is death.
This story has many levels, but here we'll take it on one of its
surface levels as about the subject of the commons. Of course if
common folks are able to hunt unrestricted in the "woods" they will
eventually kill all the game, just as permitting large companies in
rival countries to vie for who can catch all the fish in the world has
destroyed one fishery after another, history demonstrates that this
has been so about forests, woods and common lands. To prevent this the
"king" has often forbidden "commoners" from hunting "his game."
Unfortunately, that is not what was going on in 13th century England.
The King wanted to hunt deer, and didn't want anyone poaching "his
deer" -- this was a matter of control and whose the boss more than a
matter of protecting the environment. The "King" even a "good king"
such as Richard The Lionhearted, was a man who believed he owned the
country as his personal property. Moreover, he was supported by
aristocrats whose own ownership was theoretically derived from his.
Each of them claimed "rule" over lands that were not their direct
possessions but encompassed private property (homes and farms) and
"commons".
Moreover, the origins of "nobility" were not in "virtue" and
"integrity" but in warfare, violence, dispossession, and group rights.
King Richard was a Norman. His ancestors had recently conquered
England in their deep thirst for acquisitions. His was a faction of
nobles who by the time of King Richard were in the process of carving
out holdings from Scotland to Sicily, and from Portugal to what is
now Syria. It was Norman knights who led the Albigenesian crusade in
order to assert claims in the South of France, and helped the Italians
and Spaniards resist the "Saracens" for loot. They were originally
vikings who had settled in Normandy, learned French, intermarried with
the "Franks" and turned a claim gained after a kidnapping into the
throne of England. All the nobles of Europe started in much the same
fashion. King Richard was "away" because he was leading a war party to
a disasterous war in Jerusalem where the knights killed, raped, looted
and burned with religious abandon.
One story has it that Robin Hood was the son of a Saxon Noble who had
lost his lands to the Normans. Who knows it could be true. Many
peasants were simply the people who were the younger brothers, the
ones on the wrong side of the battle, or folks who kept their heads
down and went about the business of survival. Some peasants actually
did rise in rank, but that was not an easy thing. At some points in
history they were treated worse than slaves.
So Robins situation was indeed of the "poor" feeling like they were in
"fly over" (or ride over) country trodden by ambitious and ruthless
knights conducting theft and murder under the cover of "honor" and
"duty." Ever wonder where the Mafia learned their standards? But this
is a modern perspective. The King Richard of the Robin Hood Tales is
a noble sort who knights good Robin when he realizes that he was
really the victim of the evil Prince John, but the real Richard the
Lionhearted was a man who would stoop at nothing to fulfill his
ambitions. It was his wars that the peasants were being taxed to pay.
King John has been done a dirty trick by history because King Richard
was a "war king" who was more interested in crusading in the "Holy Land" and in France. It was King John was left to try to clean up after him.
http://historymedren.about.com/library/who/blwwrichard1.htm
But even Robin Hood probably wasn't able to think of his King in such
an unfilial manner. Confucianism would have been at home in Middle
Ages Europe.
sources: http://www.mythfolklore.net/3043mythfolklore/reading/robin/background.htm
http://www.engl.niu.edu/tlorde/carter/mainrobinhoodpage.html