| This work addresses the role of the English outlaw hero as a champion of justice against the backdrop of a medieval legal system that was often viewed as corrupt. The word "outlaw" suggests that such a person is at odds with concepts of justice, and therefore should be an opponent of society, yet in the literary traditions of medieval England we find that the contrary is often the case, and outlaw figures find themselves among England's most celebrated heroes. This notion, that the outlaw can be someone who serves as a proponent of justice, and why it occurs with such regularity in the literary tradition of medieval England, is at the heart of this study. I discuss in particular the way in which the outlaw hero serves as a champion of traditional justice in a medieval England that is rapidly changing and becoming more bureaucratic in its definition and its administration of law. It is my assertion that with the written codification of law---and the subsequent creation of the legal bureaucrat, or lawyer---a system that allowed for the corruption of justice under the guise of legalism was created. Members of England's population, particularly those of the peasant, yeoman and provincial gentry stations often found themselves the victims of real or perceived injustices that ignored the spirit of the law while perhaps holding to its letter. This work conducts a careful study of the outlaw hero, and demonstrates how the outlaw participates in the legal and cultural situation of medieval England. Alongside the literary research is an investigation of the patterns of legal culture in medieval England, paying close attention to the rise of literacy and the creation of a legal bureaucracy. It should become apparent that the outlaw is widely celebrated as a hero and a proponent of true justice, and is in fact a marker for a sense of cultural identity in medieval England, while the lawyer, as a corruptor of justice through the manipulation of the letter of the law rather than its spirit, has been villainized. |
