FoolishOwl@foolishowl@social.coop
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.
bananas_pizza@alihan_banan@mastodon.world
@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