Overview	Part One	Part Two	Part Three	Papers

Who was Robin Hood?

1. Introduction
   
   The story as we know it is not the one known to medieval England. This legend began as the creation of ballad writers a century or two after the first stories surfaced; it was later retold by Sir Walter Scott (late 18th century) and finally by Hollywood in the 1930s. These later images included fallen noblemen, wicked sheriffs in cahoots with the evil Prince John and various guys in black hats who plot against good King Richard (late 12th century), and a good deal of robbing from the rich to give to the poor. But earlier versions of the Robin Hood tale included very different and more complicated themes.



2. Key issues
   
   
   1. When did the ballads originate; what was the historical context?
      
      The first reference to Robin Hood appears in Piers Plowman (1377). The first surviving ballad dates from 1450; the first book, The Gest of Robyn Hode, in 1500. But when did the stories which appear in these works actually originate? The answer is based upon internal evidence, i.e. nouns or concepts which anchor the story at some fixed point in time. And the answer is c. 1300, or, roughly the late 13th-early 14th centuries (the reigns of Edward I and II). The language used is that of bastard feudalism, of military relations based on money rather than fealty.
   
   
   
   2. What was the nature of the audience to which the stories appealed?
      
      The ballads were probably first sung in the halls of knights and gentry. Interestingly, there is no mention of barons in the earliest stories. Robin Hood's friends include knights, squires and yeomen, or people who fight with a sword. His enemies are the sheriff, bishops and archbishops.
      
      But then the stories expand--perhaps having been sung at May games--to induce an obvious appeal to peasants: Robin Hood now fights with a staff; and peasants win. Much later on, by the 17th century, the audience shifted in the other direction: Robin turns out to be in reality Robert, Earl of Huntington. This may be the result of the ballads being sung at places like the court of Henry VIII.
      
      Thus what occurred in terms of audience was a progression, from the knight's hall to his servants' kitchen to the local tavern and beyond, ending up in the royal palace. The audience moved downwards, and then--much later--upwards to the higher nobility.
   
   
   
   3. What do the Robin Hood stories tell us about medieval public opinion?
      
      Regardless of audience, all the stories do share similar themes:
      
      
      
      1. illegal hunting in royal forests (notice these as objects of attack in Magna Carta)
      
      
      
      2. harshness and inequity of sheriffs
      
      
      
      3. the wealth, power and worldliness of certain churchmen
      
      
      
      4. a roughly enforced and crudely conceived idea of justice and morality: Robin operates within and without the law, choosing which formal laws to obey and which to ignore in favor of a higher, moral law
      
      
      
      5. a self-imposed code of honesty
      
      
      
      6. a good fight and adventurous chase, or a kind of zest for lawlessness
      
      
      
      7. joking, especially trickery by disguise
      
      
      Everyone (excepting Prince John and the sheriff of Nottingham) could be on Robin's side against the symbols of corrupt authority. Without the opportunity to express disgust at the ballot box, laughing or applauding at a telling of the Robin Hood tale may have been one of very few satisfying ways of getting even with those at the top.
      
      What was missing, however, was a call to rebellion and radical transformation of society. There is nothing here of the great economic issues of the 13th and 14th centuries: rents; wages; the attempt to maintain manorial discipline in the face of massive social change.
      
      The point here is that the tales are safe: people poke fun at their rulers, but at the same time everyone stays in his or her place. Thus most of the lords and their lackeys remain in power, and most of the peasants remain on their knees.
   
   
   
   4. Were any of these real people?
      
      The answer is, of course, yes and no.
      
      
      1. There was a real sheriff of Nottingham who aroused opposition, especially regarding the handling of Sherwood Forest.
      
      
      
      2. There were real outlaws. In various legal documents we can discover Robert Hod, a fugitive in the north of England in 1226; William Robehod, a Berkshire outlaw in 1262; and Gilbert Robynhod, a Sussex robber in 1296. What it looks like is that "Robin Hood" is an alias for a variety of desperados. Except of course for one Robyn Hode who was a bureaucrat of Edward II in 1324 (but then the difference between robbers and bureaucrats may have been as difficult to distinguish then as now).
      
      
      
      3. There was a real resentment against grasping clergy. In 1231-32 there were risings and demonstrations against foreign clerics. One was led by a knight whose first name was Robert. A band of anti-clerical demonstrators went around Kent wearing hoods, seizing the clergy's grain and giving it to the poor.
      
      
      
      
      
      So in the end perhaps everyone in medieval England was Robin Hood. Or, while there was no single individual who exactly fits the elements of all the ballads, "Robin Hood" is an expression of a society desiring change but incapable of fomenting revolution. In the next two weeks we will see how this changed.

   Overview	Part One	Part Two	Part Three	Papers