Wittenberg University Journals

Resko, Michael

English

How the Afghan Opium Business  Grew into a multi-billion dollar  enterprise from 1992-2008

Hunt, Hannah

The Ospedale Degli Innocente: A Microhistory

Wright, Kristin

Power through Punishment: How the Iconoclast Controversy Demonstrated the  Theocratic Power of the Byzantine Emperor

Tomlin, Jacqueline

Scandinavian King Sagas and their Connection  to Thirteenth Century Icelandic Politics

Consolidating French Monarchial Power through Theocratic Kingship

Cengel, Abby

  Vol. XXXL, Spring 2011  •  8
To What Extent Do The Ballads of Robin Hood Reflect The 
Ideals of Political Justice In The Later Middle Ages?
Abby Cengel
 For centuries, the legend of Robin Hood has 
circulated and evolved, shaping and reforming into 
what we know as the “classic” Robin Hood tale 
today. Since the story has had centuries to develop, 
there are several queries that surface about the 
original Robin Hood and the original Robin Hood 
legends. Much speculation surrounds the origins 
of the legends, and the “real-life” Robin Hood that 
existed in the Middle Ages.1 It is virtually impossible 
to know the “true” significance of the Robin Hood 
legends as they were originally understood, but by 
examining the Robin Hood ballads (first printed in 
the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries), one may 
perhaps gain a greater understanding of the legend.2 
Quite a few ballads remain intact from the Middle 
Ages, but the main focus of this essay will be of 
the “Geste of Robin Hood,” which is a wonderfully 
preserved example of the significance of the man 
that Robin Hood was (or was not), and the ideals of 
society that he embodied. However, there is some 
controversy over the insight that the ballads provide. 
Some argue that the Robin Hood ballads can be seen 
as a source of entertainment, but this was not their 
only function; the ballads held a deeper meaning for 
the people of the later Middle Ages. The ballads of 
Robin Hood reflect the peoples’ ideals of political 
justice through the character of Robin Hood as a 
yeoman and “noble robber” and through the theme 
of restorative justice in the ballads, which reflect the 
peoples’ ideal views of justice in society. 
 The historiography of Robin Hood is quite 
extensive, much of which includes speculation about 
the original meaning of the Robin Hood ballads. 
Prominent historians, such as J.C. Holt., have argued 
that, at the time that the ballads were written 
down, the Robin Hood ballads lacked a deeper 
meaning of political justice.3 Holt writes, “What is 
now pure adventure to the young or laudable social 
protest to the radical was at first a glorification of 
violence to young and old alike.”4 At first glance this 
argument seems to be valid, since violence is quite 
a prominent occurrence in the ballads. In the “Geste 
of Robin Hood,” Little John, one of Robin Hood’s 
men, becomes involved in a violent tussle with 
the keeper of the ale and the cook in the sheriff’s 
household, just because they will not let him dine 
until the sheriff has returned.5  According to Holt, 
this shows how violence in the story was accepted 
with a “casual brutality” because violence occurred 
quite frequently in the later Middle Ages.6 This point 
falters, though, when one reads further into the 
ballad and discovers that the cook, deemed a worthy 
opponent by Little John, is asked to come join Robin 
Hood in the forest to use his good fighting skills 
in aiding Robin Hood.7 In “Robin Hood and the 
Monk” as well, the violence used against the sheriff 
is because he has been deemed a “false felon” and 
an evil man by Robin Hood; therefore, the violence 
has purpose.8 Thus, the violence is being put to 
good use, or, as some may argue, serves a higher 
purpose than violence for its own sake. In order to 
enforce and promote justice, later medieval society 
utilized violence, just like in the two ballads shown 
here.9 This seems to be overlooked by Holt, who 
inaccurately dismisses the violence as only a source 
of entertainment.  
 Holt also writes that the Robin Hood ballads 
lack political significance because Robin Hood does 
not “seek to overturn social conventions” through his 
violent actions and presence in the forest; therefore, 
the stories must only be for violent entertainment 
purposes.10 He also argues that there is no evidence 
to suggest that the ballads were linked to agrarian 
discontents in the thirteenth and fourteenth 
centuries, further emphasising his previous point.11 
Once again, this argument holds to a certain degree, 
since the ballads of Robin Hood probably originated 
in the North of England and the major sources of 
the peasant uprisings were in the South. However, 
the ballads do not necessarily have to be linked to 
9  •  The Wittenberg History Journal
major social uprisings to be considered a part of 
the popular culture’s ideals on political justice. One 
does not need to prove the story to be a motivator 
of rebellion in order to examine the deeper meaning 
behind the ballads. It is not certain if Robin Hood 
inspired peasants to revolt in this time period, but 
the ballads can still be used to explore the peoples’ 
views on political justice and its ideals.
 One of the main ways in which the ballads 
reflect the ideals of political justice in the later 
Middle Ages is through Robin Hood’s character as a 
yeoman (and through his men’s statuses as yeomen 
as well). At least three ballads from this time (“The 
Geste of Robin Hood,” “Robin Hood and the Monk” 
and “Robin Hood and the Potter”) specifically make 
Robin and his men out to be yeomen.12 Yeomen 
were men (and women) of the “middling sort” who, 
after the Black Death in the fourteenth century, 
experienced a rise of living standards, particularly 
among “those who were skilled labourers in 
regular employment, tenant farmers, artisans, and 
craftsmen.”13 This is seen in the “Geste,” in which 
Robin is identified as “a good yeoman” of whom 
“much good” has been heard from his activities that 
require the skills of his particular craft (forestry); 
this largely defines his identity, especially as a forest 
yeoman.14 The forest is the place where outlaws 
could be found, so Robin Hood, as a yeoman of 
the forest, was independent and resistant to almost 
all kinds of authority.15 This status, as A.J. Pollard 
argues, “is crucial to the identification of the stories 
with this particular social world,” because yeomen 
comprised a large part of the audience of the 
ballads.16 Thus, Robin Hood, as a yeoman, was a 
character with whom many people could identify 
because of the similarities. 
 One such similarity was that Robin Hood and 
his men were quite familiar with the workings of 
the local government (i.e. relations with the sheriff 
and abbot), like the yeomen of the later Middle 
Ages were.17 The yeomen of the later Middle Ages 
showed their familiarity with the parliamentary 
process in the manifestos that some substantial 
villagers drew up in different areas around England, 
beginning in 1450, which asserted that “the king was 
not above his laws...and that he could not tax his 
subjects at will without the consent of parliament.”18 
Paul Hyams also writes that those involved in local 
politics (i.e. yeomen) tried to keep authority and 
the amount of money paid to the government to a 
minimum.19 This is not unlike Robin Hood, who 
also protested the unjust collection of money in 
the “Geste,” and was able to help a knight deeply 
(and wrongly) in debt by giving him four hundred 
pounds, clothing, a horse, and other goods.20 Thus, 
the ballads of Robin Hood reflect the political ideals 
of the later Middle Ages through Robin Hood’s 
status as a yeoman, who corrected the injustices of 
society as real yeomen attempted to do.
 This tendency to act on a basis for the 
“common weal” (or good) is also a large part of 
Robin Hood’s character, and defines him as a “noble 
robber.”21 Eric Hobsbawm describes the noble 
robber, writing that he or she is the most famous 
and popular type of bandit because he or she rights 
wrongs and restores justice.22 As demonstrated 
previously, the act of seeking justice to “right 
the wrongs” of society was a large part of the 
dedications of yeomen to their political involvement. 
Bernard Lumpkin also writes that the noble robber’s 
community, much like the communities of yeomen 
that sought justice, “enforces a code of conducts, 
values, and beliefs which contains his subversive and 
transgressive power.”23 A code of higher principles 
and standards guided Robin Hood; he always held to 
these principles and standards in the ballads, much 
like the yeomen who also wanted to keep certain 
standards of justice within their communities. Thus, 
Robin Hood’s identity as a noble robber that seeks 
restorative justice in the ballads largely reflects the 
ideals of the society that listened to his story.  
 In the “Geste of Robin Hood” alone, there are 
several instances in which Robin Hood provides 
ways to correct what he sees as injustices of his 
society. He is able to provide a knight “in a sorrowful 
state” with enough money to pay back his debt to a 
cruel abbot, allowing the knight to begin fashioning 
his livelihood again.24 Robin also provides justice for 
society by taking money from the cruel monks who 
held the knight in debt, leaving “but little behind” 
for them, and giving the money back to the knight, 
whom he deemed more worthy of possessing the 
wealth.25 Also, in “Robin Hood and the Butcher,” 
Robin criticises the sheriff of Nottingham for the 
unfair way in which he would “rob a man of all he 
hath,/And send him naked home,” and threatens 
to kill him for this behaviour.26 These instances are 
different from the “classic” version of the Robin 
Hood story in which Robin robs from the rich to 
give to the poor – the original ballads seem to have 
more significance since they show Robin Hood 
robbing the undeserving to give to the deserving, 
regardless of social status.
 Society in the later Middle Ages also desired 
  Vol. XXXL, Spring 2011  •  10
government officials whom they could trust and 
rely upon to provide them with justice (as expressed 
from the aforementioned manifestos). It seems that 
what they could not do to royal officials in reality, 
they projected onto the story, administering justice 
as they saw fit. In addition to punishing the corrupt 
monks, Robin Hood brings an end to the Sheriff 
of Nottingham in the “Geste,” poetically reciting, 
“‘Lie there, proud sheriff,/ Evil, meet thy death./ No 
man could trust you/ While you drew breath.’”27 
He intends to kill the sheriff in other ballads (like in 
the “Potter” and the “Butcher”), but stays his hand 
due to the sheriff’s wife’s hospitality.28 Ideally, to 
the people of the later Middle Ages, corrupt officials 
should be removed from their offices so that they 
could not oppress their subjects any longer, which 
is expressed in the ballads.29 However, Holt would 
possibly argue that Robin killed the sheriff in quite 
a violent (and therefore entertaining) manner (by 
beheading), which makes the story lack political 
significance. The characters did use violence, but, it 
must be remembered that violence was the principal 
means of dispensing justice in the later Middle 
Ages. Pollard writes that “Robin Hood celebrates...
righteous violence to maintain true justice precisely 
when the officers of the law failed,” showing the 
significance of his use of violence to maintain justice 
within his world.30 Even though yeomen at the time 
could not administer justice in this way, their ideals 
of who was deserving of this justice are reflected 
in the ballads of Robin Hood, in which “Robin 
Hood’s greenwood kingdom [was]...a place where 
the impossible [could] happen” and presented “a 
paradigm of society as it should be.”31 
 The ballads of Robin Hood are one of the 
many ways in which the observer may glimpse part 
of the popular culture of later medieval England. 
The people who lived then were not simple to 
define, and doubtless cannot be entirely described 
through the study of  simple ballads, but they seem 
as good a place as any to begin. One cannot truly 
claim to know how the ballads were used or what 
significance they held for the people of the later 
Middle Ages, but it is quite fascinating to speculate. 
The ballads hold a unique and special place in the 
popular culture of this time, and their importance 
to the people that lived then can still be seen today. 
In the words of A.J. Pollard, “We cannot know 
whether those who rose in arms in defence of the 
common weal shared that dream of an ideal order...
It is not inconceivable, however, that they were also 
sustained by the hope of a better world emerging 
from their actions; a better world...which was closer 
to the ideal which found its expression” in the 
ballads of Robin Hood.32 
Bibliography
Dobson, R.B. and J. Taylor, eds. Rymes of Robyn Hood: An 
Introduction to the English Outlaw. London: Heinemann, 
1976. 
Dobson, R.B. “Robin Hood: The Genesis of a Popular 
Hero.” In Robin Hood in Popular Culture: Violence, 
Transgression, and Justice, edited by Thomas Hahn, 61-
100. Woodbridge, Suffolk: D.S. Brewer, 2000. 
Frank, Robert Landis, trans. “The Geste of Robin Hood.” 
California: Painted Arrow Publishing, 1974. http://
web.ics.purdue.edu/~ohlgren/gesttrans.html (accessed 
December 7, 2010). 
Hobsbawm, E.J. Bandits. London: Weidenfeld and 
Nicolson, 1969. 
Holt, J.C. “The Origins and Audience of the Ballads of 
Robin Hood.” Past and Present 18 (November 1960): 
89-110. 
Holt, J.C. Robin Hood. London: Thames and Hudson, 1982. 
Hyams, Paul. “What Did Edwardian Villagers Understand 
by ‘Law’?” In Medieval Society and the Manor Court, 
edited by Zvi Razi and Richard Smith, 69-102. 
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996. 
Lumpkin, Bernard. “The Ties that Bind: Outlaw and 
Community in the Robin Hood Ballads and the 
Romance of Eustace the Monk.” In  Robin Hood in 
Popular Culture: Violence, Transgression, and Justice, 
edited by Thomas Hahn, 141-150. Woodbridge,  
Suffolk: D.S. Brewer, 2000. 
Pollard, A.J. “Idealising Criminality: Robin Hood in 
the Fifteenth Century.” In Pragmatic Utopias: Ideals 
and Communities, 1200-1630, edited by Rosemary 
Horrox and Sarah Rees Jones, 156-173. Cambridge: 
Cambridge University Press, 2001. 
Pollard, A.J. “Political Ideology in the Early Stories of 
Robin Hood.” In Outlaws in Medieval and Early Modern 
England: Crime, Government and Society, c.1066-c.1600, 
edited by John C. Appleby and Paul Dalton, 111-128. 
Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, 2009. 
11  •  The Wittenberg History Journal
1  A.J. Pollard, “Idealising Criminality: Robin Hood in 
the Fifteenth Century,” in Pragmatic Utopias: Ideals and 
Communities, 1200-1630, ed. Rosemary Horrox and Sarah 
Rees Jones (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 
2001), 156.
2  R.B. Dobson, “Robin Hood: The Genesis of a 
Popular Hero,” in Robin Hood in Popular Culture: Violence, 
Transgression, and Justice, ed. Thomas Hahn (Woodbridge, 
Suffolk: D.S. Brewer, 2000), 64.
3  J.C. Holt, Robin Hood (London: Thames and Hudson, 
1982), 10. 
4  Ibid. 
5  Robert Landis Frank, trans., “The Geste of Robin 
Hood” (California: Painted Arrow  Publishing, 
1974), http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~ohlgren/gesttrans.html 
(accessed December 7, 2010). 
6  Holt, Robin Hood , 11. 
7  Frank, trans., “The Geste of Robin Hood.”
8     R.B. Dobson and J. Taylor, eds., Rymes of Robyn Hood: 
An Introduction to the English Outlaw (London:  Heinemann, 
1976), 117-8.
9  Pollard, “Idealising Criminality: Robin Hood in the 
Fifteenth Century,” 161.
10  J.C. Holt, “The Origins and Audience of the Ballads of 
Robin Hood,” Past and Present 18 (November 1960): 89. 
11  Ibid.  
12  Dobson and Taylor, eds., Rymes of Robyn Hood: An 
Introduction to the English Outlaw, 115, 125; Frank, trans., 
“The Geste of Robin Hood.” 
13  A.J. Pollard, “Political Ideology in the Early Stories 
of Robin Hood,” in Outlaws in Medieval and Early Modern 
England: Crime, Government and Society, c.1066-c.1600, 
ed. John C. Appleby and Paul Dalton (Farnham, Surrey: 
Ashgate, 2009), 114. 
14  Frank, trans., “The Geste of Robin Hood.”
15  Pollard, “Idealising Criminality: Robin Hood in the 
Fifteenth Century,” 168. 
16  Pollard, “Political Ideology in the Early Stories of 
Robin Hood,” 115.
17  Ibid., 114-6. 
18  Ibid., 118-9. 
19  Paul Hyams, “What Did Edwardian Villagers 
Understand by ‘Law’?” in Medieval Society and the Manor 
Court, ed. Zvi Razi and Richard Smith (Oxford: Clarendon 
Press, 1996), 1.
20  Frank, trans., “The Geste of Robin Hood.”
21  Pollard, “Political Ideology in the Early Stories of 
Robin Hood,” 122.
22  E.J. Hobsbawm, Bandits (London: Weidenfeld 
and Nicolson, 1969), 42.
23  Bernard Lumpkin, “The Ties that Bind: Outlaw and 
Community in the Robin Hood Ballads and the Romance 
of Eustace the Monk,” in  Robin Hood in Popular Culture: 
Violence, Transgression, and Justice, ed. Thomas Hahn 
(Woodbridge, Suffolk: D.S. Brewer, 2000), 142. 
24  Frank, trans., “The Geste of Robin Hood.”
25  Ibid., 21.
26  Dobson and Taylor, eds., Rymes of Robyn Hood: An 
Introduction to the English Outlaw, 154. 
27  Frank, trans., “The Geste of Robin Hood.”
28  Dobson and Taylor, eds., Rymes of Robyn Hood: An 
Introduction to the English Outlaw, 131, 154. 
29  Pollard, “Political Ideology in the Early Stories of 
Robin Hood,” 126. 
30  Pollard, “Idealising Criminality: Robin Hood in the 
Fifteenth Century,” 161.
31  Pollard, “Political Ideology in the Early Stories of 
Robin Hood,” 126. 
32  Ibid., 128. 
Endnotes


To What Extent Do The Ballads of Robin Hood Reflect The  Ideals of Political Justice In The Later Middle Ages?

Cengel, Abigail

“To Make Others Happy”: The Changing Perspectives on Childhood in the Nineteenth  and Twentieth Centuries

Hedrick, Caitlin

48 The Wittenberg History Journal
Three Perspectives on the Historiography of
Medieval Women
Cait/in Hedrick
When looking at the trajectory of women, it is clear that their history reveals a
very unsteady one as it has not always been seen as marching forward. For example,
taking into account the time from the Middle Ages, to the Renaissance, to now, the
views of women of the past were constantly changing, depending very much on what
was going on in the world during the time in which history was written. In regard to
the role of women during the medieval period, the general attitude toward them is
that they were inferior to men, a position held by a prominent medieval scholar from
the Annales school, Georges Duby. Duby's position is tempting to take for granted,
as general audiences share his same beliefs before digging further down into the lives
of women. However, as we look at gender and historiography, we see that many
historians are using gender as a lens to look at history in a new way. The general idea
that women were submissive and obedient to the men in their lives has been refuted
by many scholars, two of them including Kimberly A. LoPrete and Miriam Shadis.
Thus, despite the fact that Duby was one of the important figures to set the playing
field for the way we view medieval women, taking other sources into account helps
to broaden that field, ultimately allowing us to see the women of the Middle Ages in a
more accurate light.
Setting the stage for the responses of other scholars, Georges Duby states in
the introduction to his book, Women of the Twelfth Century, that what he is "trying to
show is not the lived reality... [but] reflections, what written texts reflect."1 As he
begins with the texts, as a postmodernist does, Duby discusses the lives of Eleanor of
Aquitaine and six others who are deemed to be important during the Middle Ages.
Paying close attention to the perception of these texts, Duby attempts to "reconstruct
a value system and identify within this system the place assigned to women by male
power."2 Here, clear in his introduction, Duby informs us, almost like a warning
label, that the men writing during the time, men of the church such as monks and
clerics, ascribed the positions of the women that he presents in his book. Taking his
sources into account, all of which were ecclesiastical documents and literary sources,
it is no surprise that Duby would illustrate an image of women who are judged and
mistrusted, and whose true reality of the time period is neglected.
With Eleanor of Aquitaine's story, the first to be discussed in the volume, Duby
depicts her with the same skewed image as the priests who were writing about her, as
a scandalous and objectified woman. He made clear that the reader understand how
much Eleanor was talked about, "because her behavior had been a vivid demonstration
of the terrifying powers with which nature had endowed women, who were lustful
and treacherous.., which made it self-evidently essential to keep daughters under the
Vol. XXXVIII, Spring 2009 49
strict control of their fathers and wives under that of their husbands."3 By presenting
this view of Eleanor, Duby indirectly argues that Eleanor contributed to the overall
prejudice that men had against women during the time and basically legitimized the
reasons why men should have been afraid of women and femininity. At the end of
her story, Duby says that he is inclined to pity her for the events that took place in
her life.4 But in turn, Duby uses Eleanor of Aquitaine as a didactic tool to show us an
image of women, thus objectifying her in his own way.
Just as "the hopes and fears of men were projected onto the body of Eleanor,"s
the same goes for Mary Magdalene, the most visible of all women in the Gospels.
Duby depicts Mary as being a model for men during the time. However, acting as a
backwards sort of compliment, Duby states that the female nature is defined in the
texts by "weakness and timidity... [making] it possible to present Mary Magdalene as
an example to men."6 Clearly having a sort of "if a woman can do it then why can't
you?" approach, Duby discusses Mary as being a model for men with a slap in the face
to women.
Illustrating the life of a rebellious and scandalous woman, Eleanor of Aquitaine,
and the saint-like life of another woman, Mary Magdalene, Duby also presents us
with that of Hdl6ise. For her story Duby uses a letter written in 1142 AD, presenting
us with a female voice. Although he questions its authenticity, he states that it is "the
most substantial, and also the most reliabIe, information we have about this woman."7
Duby uses HdlSise's story to act as a composite between the other two women. He
points out that her passionate side is her weakness, but she is also submissive to her
husband and the church, as women should be. Also, he presents us with an example of
medieval marriage with HdliSise's story, demonstrating that at the beginning a man and
a woman may be more on equal footing but once they marry that is no longer true,
thus showing that Duby doesn't think that marriage helps, or should help, the status of
a woman.
Although Georges Duby is writing from a gendered approach, let it not be
confused with a feminist viewpoint. Duby presents powerful women, such as the
three discussed here, yet still considers them secondary. He takes feminist heroes of
the past and displays them in a subjugated, objectified light. His depiction of women
illustrates them in a role where they were expected to be submissive, where it was
a man's duty to discipline them. They had no influence over political or economic
matters, with no individual power but that of which they acquired through men, such
as through marriage, lineage and sex. As a result, Duby's presentation of medieval
women ultimately portrays them as being property of men.
Offering a different view of aristocratic women and "yielding a picture of
women's roles and lives in noble households substantially different from the one
depicted so vividly by Duby,"8 is Kimberly A. LoPrete. Looking at sources not taken
into account before, LoPrete uses Episcopal letters, ecclesiastical charters, necrologies,
narratives by male clerics, and poems as sources for her essay, "Adela of Blois: Familial
Alliances and Female Lordship," in Theodore Evergates' collection Aristocratic Women in
MedievalFrance. Contrary to Duby, LoPrete's sources, consisting mostly of documents
of practice, "reveal that women who embodied the joining of two families through
marriage and childbearing were not merely passive pawns in power relations among
groups of men; rather, they were active participants whose actions could profoundly
50 The Wittenberg History Journal
affect the shape of those relations and the course of politically significant events."9 She
is using these sources to render the real experience of women that these sources reveal,
opposed to giving an idealized version of how women should be, as Duby does. Thus
LoPrete, along with the rest of the authors included in Evergates's book, disputes Duby
in every sense of the word.
Challenging Duby, LoPrete discusses the life of Adela of Blois, the youngest
daughter of William the Conqueror who married Stephen-Henry, count of Blois,
Chartres, Meaux and Troyes.1° Adela was unique because, despite being the youngest
child in her family, she was born after her father had become King of England, which
automatically set her above the rest of her siblings. While married to Stephen, she
became an active participant in her marriage, involving herself in comital rule11 and
participating in decision-making with things such as "judicial affairs and property
transfers of comital followers."12 In addition, it is interesting to see a point of view .
where a medieval "couple appear to have developed a relationship based at least on
trust and mutual respect if not affection,"13 where LoPrete is clearly contradicting
Duby, who depicts medieval marriage as a mere selling off of a woman from father to
husband. The ecclesiastical documents LoPrete uses report "the couple acting publicly
together,"14 involved with the issues that she and her husband had to deal with and
being an important asset while doing so. We also see Stephan acting on Adela's advice
and, with her consent, which LoPrete argues that her husband valued her. In addition,
"the authority-enhancing prestige and literate skills of the high-born and educated
countess impressed contemporaries."15 These are aspects of medieval women that had
not been seen before with Duby.
When Stephen was absent from court, having duties in the Holy Land, one
would think that Adela's responsibilities would have dwindled without her male
counterpart, however we see the opposite. Charters and letters confirm that "Adela
exercised full comital authority"16 while he was away, and "though she was not
accorded the title of regent in any surviving source, Adela's ruling powers were
acknowledged in the dating clause of two charters issued by others."17 Even after her
husbands' death and when her sons came of age, "charters reveal that Adela still acted
with full authority without her son until she retired to a monastery."I8
Clearly, LoPrete is lending an interpretation ofmedieval aristocratic woman that
very much contradicts Duby's arguments and beliefs discussed before. LoPrete does
not present Adela of Blois as a secondary character but as a valued wife and partner
in her and her husband's court. She did not gain her power through a man, as her
"prestige enhanced his own"!9 and "contemporary observers acknowledged that Adela
exercised the same authoritative powers as her male peers."2°Adela possessed a kind of
power that was both private and public, as we see her controlling her son's marriages
and other issues of the home and family, as well as executing public power with
things such as issuing charters and overseeing judicial affairs. Differing from the image
of "passive pawns" that LoPrete gives us when referring to Duby, "Adela's life and
political career show how aristocratic women could play authoritative and decisive
roles in the politics of their day."21 The inclusion of LoPrete's article in Evergates's
collection further exemplifies that she is responding to Duby, by looking at sources
like documents of practice that reveal women's experience of having power in the
public realm, and by giving more insight into the lives of women. In addition, LoPrete
V, ol. XXXVIII, Spring 2009 * 51
indicates that although "Adela was indeed a woman, she was far from being a mere
object of sexual fascination"22 to churchmen and other males around her, an important
detail to be noticed when comparing LoPrete and Duby's arguments with one another.
To go along with scholars who strive to better the image of medieval women,
Miriam Shadis follows LoPrete in using sources to offer an interesting take on the
way women gained and harbored their power. Like,LoPrete, Shadis uses documents
of practice, such as foundation charters and letters, that present us with a fascinating
aspect of the way women cultivated power through patronag in her article, "Piety,
Politics and Power: The Patronage of Leonor of England and Her Daughters Berenguela
of Le6n and Blanche of Castile." Shadis argues that these aristocratic women "were
interested in constructing their own power as well as that of their families,"23 their
goals of patronage were not different from that of men's but the way they went
about it wasY Thus, just as LoPrete discusses Adela of Blois as playing an important
role both publicly and privately as a prominent and influential queen, we see Shadis
building on this idea of women executing public power as well, but through the means
of patronage.
Shadis illustrates that the institution of family was becoming very powerful as
"royal women of medieval France and Castile used patronage as a way to cultivate
political power and authority."2s The four women discussed in her article are Eleanor
of Aquitaine, her daughter Leonor of England and her two granddaughters, Berenguela
of Ledn and Blanche of Castile, all of whom "built and maintained necropolises as
a way to perpetuate their own personal influence indefinitely, gaining power for
themselves as well as for their families."2 Leonor's main act of patronage, the female
Cistercian abbey of Las Huelgas, with that of her husband Alfonso VIII, was modeled
after Fontevrault, her mother's favorite institution. 27 Like Fontevrault's function as a
family burial site, "Las Huelgas was founded specifically as a necropolis for the royalty
of Castile."28 It is interesting though that Leonor wanted it to be established with the
Cistercian order because the Cistercians "actively discouraged the formal association
of women in their order."29 But despite this, the abbey, patronized by women who
placed female abbesses in power, ended up becoming "the head abbey over all female
Cistercian abbeys in Castile and Le6n."3° This attributed an important position for
the royal family that patronized the abbey, for the abbesses in charge and for the
position of women in general. Given that it was the church that played a large role in
the suppression of women during the Middle Ages, finding sources that demonstrate a
woman patronizing the church is important and must have really increased women's
power during that time.
We see an interesting aspect of the abbesses' role at Las Huelgas evident in
Shadis' research of letters, discussing that the abbess was carrying out sacerdotal
duties3 such as "preaching homilies, hearing confessions, and blessing novices."32 Such
behaviors were "particularly unacceptable because the abbesses are women" as one
bishop stated that "even though Mary was more perfect and of greater dignity than the
apostles, it was to them, and not to her, that the keys to the kingdom of heaven were
given."33 In this instance we see the bishop trying to put the women of Las Huelgas in
their place. One historian, Amancio Rodr guez, to whom Shadis responds, attributes
such behaviors of the women to their ignorance.34 However, Shadis is quick to refute
this argument, stating, "It is difficult to believe that the abbess of such a central, royal
52 The Wittenberg History Journal
institution would have been ignorant of the privileges of gender within the church."3
With this small yet powerful argument, Shadis is clearly doing two things; first, she
is standing up for the position of women and the knowledge they had about their
surroundings, politics, and the power patrons had over the status of the abbess, and
second, she is making the important point that women were indeed exercising power
at this Cistercian abbey.
Establishments by these royal women, like the foundations discussed in Shadis's
article, was an effort to "reinforce the continuity of their families' authority and
power," 6 ultimately displaying the influence of family (and women) over determifling
patronage. The fact that "Las Huelgas provided an arena for women to exercise both
power and authority, both internally, as abbesses and nuns, and externally, as royal
patrons,"37 is an extremely important detail to be noted because it is further evidence
of women possessing political power. In addition, Shadis's discussion here parallels
nicely with LoPrete's arguments of women participating in and executing their political
power.
Differing from Duby's image of women having no real power or influence in
society, Shadis states that, "these princesses and queens played an important role
in securing certain rights and privileges for the monastery in the 'outside' world, by
serving as liaisons between the monastery and the royal court..."3s This, again, refutes
Duby and builds on LoPrete's argument of women having political power. In addition,
Berenguela and Blanche's own choice to continue the "patronage of this particularly
masculine order [of the Cistercians] seems to represent a clear expression of female
domination or control in a male arena."39 This is an important factor highlighted by
Shadis. One would assume that their efforts to "dominate a male arena" was a purely 
'
feminist move in spite of men during the time, however, these women's "special
patronage in an order resistant to them does not indicate any feminist sensibilities
on their part, but rather an effort to identify themselves with the power of the order,
as well as their personal ability to control their endowments."4° By "asserting for
themselves a certain amount of power and authority,"41 these women clearly saw
themselves and their family as important figures during their time and, as conveyed m
her article, Shadis proves just that.
Although prescribed not to, as Duby says, women in reality did hold power, and
when comparing his portrait of women with that of LoPrete and Shadis, audiences
can see that women were indeed a visible asset to medieval society. Presenting an
image of women that were faceless and voiceless during medieval period, Duby's
representation proves to be problematic. He uses prescribed sources to talk about how
women were supposed to act and the way people wanted them to be during that
time, as opposed to LoPrete and Shadis who use documents of practice to offer a very
different experience for medieval women. His assessment of women can be attributed
to the specific kind sources he used and the lack of citation in his book, as using texts
written by clerics would allow Duby to present this skewed image of women. LoPrete
and Shadis, on the other hand, were able to dig down deeper because they used
sources such as charters as evidence, giving a more accurate portrayal. As LoPrete says,
if historians look at the right sources, they "will surely discover that women exercised
more acknowledged power than has been assumed and that accounts of medieval
politics are incomplete if they ignore the deeds of female lords."4
Voi. XXXVIII, Spring 2009 53
Bibliography
Duby, Georges. Women of the Twelfth Century: Volume II: Eleanor of Aquitaine and Six Others.
Translated by Jean Birrell. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997.
LoPrete, Kimberly A.."Adela of Blois: Familial Alliances and Female Lordship." In Aristocratic
Women in Medieval France, edited by Theodore Evergates, 7-42. Philadelphia:
The University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999.
Shadis, Miriam. "Piety, Politics and Power: The Patronage of Leonor of England and Her
Daughters Berenguela of Leon and Blanche of Castile. In The CutturalPatronage of Medieval
Women, edited by June Hall McCash. 202-227. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1996.
Endnotes
Georges Duby, Women ofd¢e Twelfth Century (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1997), 2.
a Ibid., 3.
a Ibid., 15. '"
4 Ibid., 20.
Ibid. 22.
6 Ibid., 26.
7 Ibid., 43.
8 Kimber yA.L Prete ``Ade a fB is Fami[ia A iancesandFema1eL rdshi inAdst craticW meninMedieva France
ed. by Theodore Evergates (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999), 2.
9 Ibid., 7.
10 Ibid.
n Ibid., I6.
12 Ibid., 17.
!3 Ibid., 16.
14 Ibid., 18.
is Ibid., 19.
s Ibid., 23.
,7 Ibid., 25.
18 Ibid., 25.
1 Ibid., 17.
;0 Ibid., 27.
21 Ibid., 42.
22 Ibid., 29.
2s Miriam Shadis, "Piety, Politics and Power: The Patronage of Leonor of England and Her Daughters Berenguela of
Le6n and Blanche of Castile," 210.
24 Ibid.
25 Ibid., 202.
26 Ibid., 203.
2z Ihid.
28 Ibid. 204.
29 Ibid.
a0 Ibid., 206.
al Ibid.
32 Ibid.
33 Ibid.
$4 Ibid.
as Ibid, 206- 207.
a6 Ibid., 213.
3z Ibid., 207.
3o Ibid.
a6 Ibid., 213.
4o Ibid.
41 Ibid., 217.
42 Kimberly A. LoPrete, "Adeia of Blois: Familial Alliances and Female Lordship, 43.


Three Perspectives on the Historiography of Medieval Women

Snyder, Elizabeth

Vol. XXXVI, Spring 2007 • 3
"No Japs Allowed":
The Wartime Internment of Mikiso Hane
Elizabeth Snyder
In August of 1942, Mikiso Hane and other Japanese from Hollister, California,
rode a train into the blistering desert of Poston, Arizona to discover their new home.
This was not a joyous occasion, an exciting adventure to look forward to, but instead
a forced evacuation. At its peak, the internment camp at Poston held twenty thousand
Japanese during World War II, under the guise of national security, simply because of
the fact that they were Japanese.
After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, racial tensions skyrocketed,
and Mikiso remembers Japanese being considered "sneaky, treacherous, disloyal,
untrustworthy elements." In 1942, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order No.
9066, allowing the Secretary of War and military commanders to remove and intem
any people they believed necessary: basically, West Coast Japanese. Rumors ran
rampant in Japanese communities about what would happen next, from lynch mobs to
concentration camps with mass executions. The press and government officials often
helped to justify these rumors. Army General John L. De Witt said in 1943, before a
congressional committee, "We will have to worry about the Japs until they are wiped
off the face of the map."2 This included Japanese-Americans like Mikiso.
Soon, towns all along the West Coast began requesting that Japanese either leave
or be removed from their areas because of the threat they posed. Mikiso's hometown
of Hollister was one, claiming that Japanese farmers in their area might sabotage
the war effort by using their farm equipment to "obstruct the movement of troops
or supplies."3 This was the beginning of Mikiso's journey to the internment camp at
Poston.
First, all Japanese living in Hollister were removed to a temporary camp
southwest of Hollister in the town of Salinas for three months, giving up their jobs,
education, and homes. From there they rode a train to their permanent location in
Poston, Arizona. Mikiso's time in Foston consisted of the harsh living conditions of the
camp and the compliant attitudes of his fellow internees. Mikiso says he "struggled
with the heat, the sandstorms, the scorpions, the rattlesnakes, the confusion, the
overcrowded barracks, and the lack of privacy-"4 Even in this severe environment,
watched over by guards, suspicion of the internees ran high. Innocent activities such
as attempting to escape the crushing heat, cooking food, and organizing athletic teams
were irrationally considered subversive. Somehow, everything was thought to be
part of a possible long-range plan for Japanese invasion, despite the fact that almost
all the internees were exceptionally obedient. Japanese-American leaders apparently
thought that the best way to show loyalty to the United States was to be completely
accommodating, accepting even the insult of internment without question. Mikiso
4 " The Wittenberg History Journal
says they were even encouraged, while interned in the camps, to say they were willing
to serve the United States in combat.
In 1943 Mikiso became one of the internees allowed to leave the Poston camp on
the condition that he not return to the West Coast. He found a job on the East Coast
as a tutor and generally was able to continue with his life as normal. However, many
internees were still not permitted to leave until the camps closed toward the end of
World War II, when they were also finally allowed to return to the West Coast. This
did not go smoothly, as many Americans were still exceedingly anti-Japanese in their
feelings. Mikiso recalls his oldest brother attempting to return tO their hometown of
Hollister only to find "'No Japs allowed'" signs wherever he went.s
While Mikiso's experience in the internment camps may have ended well, he, like his fellow internees, should not
have had to waste part of his life because of prejudice. In 1948, Congress approved some monetary compensation
for property loss as a result of internment, but it was not until 1988 that President Reagan signed legislation offering
each internee an official apology and $20,000 for government actions "motivated largely by racial prejudice, wartime
.... . t6hysteria, and a failure of politmal leadership.
Works Cited
"Executive Order 9066: Resulting in the Relocation of Japanese," Our Documents, <http:/!www.
ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=74>.
Hane, Mikiso. "Wartime Internment." Journal of American Histo Vol. 77, No. 2 (Sept., 1990):
569-575.
"Public Law 100-383-Aug. 10, 1988." Internment Archives. <http://www.internmentarchives.
corrdshowdoc.php?docid=00172& search_id=23035 &pagenum=>-
Endnotes
Hane, Mikiso. "Wartime Internment." Journal of American History Vol. 77, No. 2 (Sept., 1990): 569-575, 570.
Ibid.
Ibid, 571.
4 Ibid, 572.
5 Ibid, 575.
"PubllcLaw 100-383-Aug. 10, 1988." Internment Archives. <http://www.internmentarchives.com!showdoc.
php?docid=00172&search id=28035&pagenum 1>.


"No Japs Allowed": The Wartime Internment of Mikiso Hane

Brady, Nicola

False Intentions: The Relationship Between Clark Griffith and the Homestead Grays

Not a member yet

How the Afghan Opium Business Grew into a multi-billion dollar enterprise from 1992-2008

The Ospedale Degli Innocente: A Microhistory

Power through Punishment: How the Iconoclast Controversy Demonstrated the Theocratic Power of the Byzantine Emperor

Scandinavian King Sagas and their Connection to Thirteenth Century Icelandic Politics

Consolidating French Monarchial Power through Theocratic Kingship

To What Extent Do The Ballads of Robin Hood Reflect The Ideals of Political Justice In The Later Middle Ages?

“To Make Others Happy”: The Changing Perspectives on Childhood in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

Three Perspectives on the Historiography of Medieval Women

"No Japs Allowed": The Wartime Internment of Mikiso Hane

False Intentions: The Relationship Between Clark Griffith and the Homestead Grays

224

275