Gift and Market in Robin Hood and the Potter

Exchange theory reveals how completely Robin Hood and the Potter celebrates giftgiving over market exchange. Robin gives without calculation, disdains commercial profit, and thrives politically as a result. He humiliates his enemy and gains the good will of another opponent, the potter. Despite his yeoman status, Robin’s politically productive free giving is reminiscent of medieval norms of aristocratic practice. Both yeomanry and outlawry in the poem can be understood ultimately to support these norms to the extent that they idealize them in a form displaced from conspicuous trappings of social hierarchy. Moreover, Robin’s imitation of lordship to the potter develops in a socially inclusive direction, from highway extortion to bond-forming largesse.