Maybe a dumb question: so Robin Hood and friends were robbing tax collectors to give money back to the poor, but how did that work?
As I understand it, in pre-modern economies, particularly in medieval Europe, currency wasn't used much. And in general the idea with currency was that taxes had to be paid with coins to force peasants to sell food to armies who paid with coins.
So that would suggest that robbing tax collectors was more about disrupting power relations than easing poverty, per se.
@foolishowl@social.coop i may not remember it clearly, since I read Ivanhoe a long time ago, but Robin Hood in there was taking grains, meat, alcohol etc from those who were collecting taxes to give it back to those from whom they were taken and then robbed guards that were sent after to get weapons etc. Cool guy, my personal highlight of the whole book - i especially liked the drunkard pastor who came out swinging the club at the aristocracy
spoilers for a Theodoros, a Romanian novel
@foolishowl@social.coop In Theodoros, a novel by CΔrtΔrescu, the chef of police is also the robin hood figure. But actually the robin hood figure doesn't really exist, he just did it a couple and keeps making noise about it.
It's fiction, but it's so fun. The whole thing is crazy.
@foolishowl@social.coop
This one is actually interesting. At the time, the concept of "poor" in the sentence had nothing to do with the permanently impoverished peasantry, and instead referred to temporarily impoverished nobility.
In 1188, Salah Al-Din successfully recaptured Jerusalem from the crusaders. In response, the kings of England and France decided they needed to make war to reclaim it. Wars are expense, of course. To pay for it Henry II of England decided on what we would nowadays call a wealth tax: everyone who owned land had to pay a tax of ten percent of their total net worth, in cash, with exceptions for weapons, horses and holy objects. Of course, very few people have that sort of money lying around, and so those who couldn't or didn't pay were punished with imprisonment or land confiscation.
You didn't have to pay if you decided to go on crusade. That was the point: to encourage nobles to to on a crusade. Of course, going on crusade was something you had to self-fund, so that was even more expensive. Either way, a whole lotta nobles got bankrupted by what was called "the Saladin tithe."
@foolishowl@social.coop Back in medieval England, "Robin Hood" was sort of a generic stock alias for bandits. Like if there was a crime committed, and no one knew who did it, they would enter it into the court record as "done by Robin Hood" which is where most historical records of the name come from.
So basically, if the tax collector came to town and everyone had less grain than expected... they might explain it away by saying "Robin Hood stole it." Kinda like a precursor to Ned Ludd.
@foolishowl@social.coop
Henry II died the following year, 1189, and his third son Richard took over as king of England. Richard was a terrible king who had no skill for or interest in ruling. He only liked fighting, hence his nickname "the Lionheart". Over the decade of his rule, Richard treated England as nothing more than a source of cash for endless war.
To put this in perspective, when Richard's more-competent brother chided him for selling off too many crown assets to raise money for his wars, Richard replied "I would sell London if I could find a buyer."
By 1199, England was completely bankrupt, the military nobility of England were even more bankrupt, and there was a class of wealthy people (often minor nobles or even wealthy merchants) who'd bought up those assets for cut prices and were sitting pretty.
FoolishOwl
