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Robin Hood is the archetypal English folk hero; a courteous, pious and swashbuckling outlaw of the medieval era who, in modern versions of the legend, is famous for robbing the rich to feed the poor and fighting against injustice and tyranny. He operates with his "seven score" (140 strong) group of fellow outlawed yeomen – called his "Merry Men".Robin Hood and his band are usually associated with Sherwood Forest, Nottinghamshire. He has been the subject of numerous movies, books, comics and plays.
In many stories Robin"s nemesis is the Sheriff of Nottingham. In the oldest legends, this is merely because a sheriff is an outlaw"s natural enemy,but in later versions, the despotic sheriff gravely abuses his position, appropriating land, levying intolerable taxation, and unfairly persecuting the poor. In some tales the antagonist is Prince John, based on John of England, seen as the unjust usurper of his pious brother Richard. In the oldest versions surviving, Robin Hood is a yeoman, but in some versions he is said to have been a nobleman, the earl of Loxley, who was unjustly deprived of his lands.Sometimes he has served in the crusades, returning to England to find his lands pillaged by the dastardly sheriff. In some tales he is the champion of the people, fighting against corrupt officials and the oppressive order that protects them, while in others he is an arrogant and headstrong rebel, who delights in bloodshed, cruelly slaughtering and beheading his victims.
In point of fact, Robin Hood stories are different in every period of their history. Robin himself is continually reshaped and redrawn, made to exemplify whatever values are deemed important by the storyteller at the time. The figure is less a personage and more of an amalgam of the various ideas his "life" has been structured to support.
From 1227 onwards the names "Robinhood", "Robehod" or "Hobbehod" occur in the rolls of several English justices. The majority of these references date from the late thirteenth century: between 1261 and 1300 there are at least eight references to "Rabunhod" in various regions across England, from Berkshire in the south to York in the north. The term seems to be applied as a form of shorthand to any fugitive or outlaw. Even at this early stage, the name Robin Hood denotes an archetypal criminal. This usage continues throughout the medieval period. In a petition presented to Parliament in 1439, the name is again used to describe an itinerant felon. The petition cites one Piers Venables of Aston, Derbyshire, "who having no liflode, ne sufficeante of goodes, gadered and assembled unto him many misdoers, beynge of his clothynge, and, in manere of insurrection, wente into the wodes in that countrie, like as it hadde be Robyn Hude and his meyne."The name is still used to describe sedition and treachery in 1605, when Guy Fawkes and his associates are branded "Robin Hoods" by Robert Cecil.
The first allusion to a literary tradition of Robin Hood tales occurs in William Langland"s Piers Plowman (c.1362–c.1386) in which Sloth, the lazy priest, confesses: "I kan [know] not parfitly [perfectly] my Paternoster as the preest it singeth,/ But I kan rymes of Robyn Hood".
The first mention of a quasi-historical Robin Hood is given in Andrew of Wyntoun"s Orygynale Chronicle, written about 1420. The following lines occur with little contextualisation under the year 1283:
Lytil Jhon and Robyne Hude
Wayth-men ware commendyd gude
In Yngil-wode and Barnysdale
Thai oysyd all this tyme thare trawale.
The next notice is a statement in the Scotichronicon, composed by John Fordun between 1377 and 1384, and revised by his pupil Walter Bower in about 1440. Among Bower"s many interpolations is a passage which directly refers to Robin. It is inserted after Fordun"s account of the defeat of Simon de Montfort and the punishment of his adherents. Robin is in fact turned into a fighter for de Montfort"s cause, one of his "disinherited" followers:
Then [c.1266 ] arose the famous murderer, Robert Hood, as well as Little John, together with their accomplices from among the disinherited, whom the foolish populace are so inordinately fond of celebrating both in tragedies and comedies, and about whom they are delighted to hear the jesters and minstrels sing above all other ballads.
Despite Bower"s scorn, and demotion of Robin to a savage "murderer", his account is followed by a brief tale in which Robin becomes a symbol of piety, gaining a decisive victory after hearing the Mass. Another interesting, although much later, reference is provided by Thomas Gale, Dean of York (c.1635–1702):
[Robin Hood"s] death is stated by Ritson to have taken place on the 18th of November, 1247, about the eighty-seventh year of his age; but according to the following inscription found among the papers of the Dean of York…the death occurred a month later. In this inscription, which bears evidence of high antiquity, Robin Hood is described as Earl of Huntington — his claim to which title has been as hotly contested as any disputed peerage upon record.
This inscription also appears on a grave in the grounds of Kirklees Priory near Kirklees Hall (see below). Despite appearances, and the author"s assurance of "high antiquity", there is little reason to give the stone any credence. It certainly cannot date from the 13th century; notwithstanding the implausibility of a 13th century funeral monument being composed in English, the language of the inscription is highly suspect. Its orthography does not correspond to the written forms of Middle English at all: there are no inflected "—e"s, the plural accusative pronoun "hi" is used as a singular nominative, and the singular present indicative verb "lais" is formed without the Middle English "—th" ending. Overall, the epitaph more closely resembles modern English written in a deliberately "archaic" style. Furthermore, the reference to Huntingdon is anachronistic: the first recorded mention of the title in the context of Robin Hood occurs in the 1598 play The Downfall of Robert, Earl of Huntington by Anthony Munday. The monument can only be a 17th century forgery.
Therefore, even in the earliest records, Robin is already largely fictional. The Gale note is literally a fiction. The medieval texts do not refer to him directly, but mediate their allusions through a body of accounts and reports: for Langland Robin exists principally in "rimes", for Bower "comedies and tragedies", while for Wyntoun he is "commendyd gude". Even in a legal context, where one would expect to find verifiable references to Robin, he is primarily a symbol, a generalised outlaw-figure rather than an individual. Consequently, in the medieval period itself, Robin Hood already belongs more to literature than to history. In fact, in an anonymous carol of c.1450, he is treated in precisely this manner — as a joke, a figure that the audience will instantly recognise as imaginary: "He that made this songe full good,/ Came of the northe and the sothern blode,/ And somewhat kyne to Robyn Hode".
On the other hand, even though clearly fictitious, Robin does not appear to have stemmed from mythology or folklore. While there are occasional efforts to trace him to fairies (such as Puck under the alias "Robin Goodfellow") or other mythological origins, good evidence for this has not been found, and when Robin Hood has been connected to such folklore, it is a later development. While Robin Hood and his men often show improbable skill in archery, swordplay, and disguise, they are no more exaggerated than those characters in other ballads, such as Kinmont Willie, which were based on historical events. The origin of the legend appears to have stemmed from actual outlaws, or from tales of outlaws, such as Hereward the Wake, Eustace the Monk, and Fulk FitzWarin.
There are many analogues for various Robin Hood tales, featuring both historical and fictitious outlaws. Hereward appears in a ballad much like Robin Hood and the Potter, and as the Hereward ballad is the older, it appears to be the source. The ballad Adam Bell, Clym of the Cloughe and Wyllyam of Cloudeslee runs parallel to Robin Hood and the Monk, but it is not clear whether either one is the source for the other, or whether they merely show that such tales were told of outlaws. Some early Robin Hood stories appear to be unique, such as the story where Robin gives a knight, generally called Richard at the Lee, money to pay off his mortgage to an abbot, but this may merely indicate that no parallels have survived.
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Robin Hood is the archetypal English folk hero; a courteous, pious and swashbuckling outlaw of the medieval era who, in modern versions of the legend, is famous for robbing the rich to feed the poor and fighting against injustice and tyranny. He operates with his "seven score" (140 strong) group of fellow outlawed yeomen – called his "Merry Men". Robin Hood and his band are usually associated with Sherwood Forest, Nottinghamshire. He has been the subject of numerous movies, books, comics and plays.
In many stories Robin"s nemesis is the Sheriff of Nottingham. In the oldest legends, this is merely because a sheriff is an outlaw"s natural enemy, but in later versions, the despotic sheriff gravely abuses his position, appropriating land, levying intolerable taxation, and unfairly persecuting the poor. In some tales the antagonist is Prince John, based on John of England, seen as the unjust usurper of his pious brother Richard. In the oldest versions surviving, Robin Hood is a yeoman, but in some versions he is said to have been a nobleman, the earl of Loxley (Locksley), who was unjustly deprived of his lands. Sometimes he has served in the crusades, returning to England to find his lands pillaged by the dastardly sheriff. In some tales he is the champion of the people, fighting against corrupt officials and the oppressive order that protects them, while in others he is an arrogant and headstrong rebel, who delights in bloodshed, cruelly slaughtering and beheading his victims.
In point of fact, Robin Hood stories are different in every period of their history. Robin himself is continually reshaped and redrawn, made to exemplify whatever values are deemed important by the storyteller at the time. The figure is less a personage and more of an amalgam of the various ideas his "life" has been structured to support.