The yeoman question: Hilton, Keen and Holt

Matter of the Greenwood Topic

Summary: Hilton (1958) read the ballads as peasant discontent; Keen (1961) agreed; Holt (1960, and Robin Hood 1982) argued the audience was the households of gentry and crown, and that 'yeoman' in the later Middle Ages spanned prosperous free peasants and middling household officials alike. Keen retracted; Holt's position prevailed by the 1990s. Ohlgren has since shifted the ground again toward urban mercantile audiences.