# Putting the Robin in Robbing



## Ursa major (Mar 14, 2009)

> A Scottish expert has uncovered a medieval document suggesting negative attitudes towards Robin Hood.


 



> The story of how Robin and his men stole from the rich to give to the poor has long been part of English folklore.
> 
> However, Julian Luxford of St Andrews University found a dissenting voice in a Latin inscription from about 1460 in a manuscript owned by Eton College.


 


> Dr Luxford said: "The new find places Robin Hood in Edward I's reign, thus supporting the belief that his legend is of 13th Century origin."
> 
> A translation of the short inscription, which contains only 23 words in Latin, reads: "Around this time, according to popular opinion, a certain outlaw named Robin Hood, with his accomplices, infested Sherwood and other law-abiding areas of England with continuous robberies."


BBC NEWS | Scotland | Edinburgh, East and Fife | 'Negative' attitude to Robin Hood ​ 
I suppose we should be grateful that Mel Gibson didn't know that Robin was around during Edward I's reign.


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## Wiglaf (Mar 15, 2009)

I've heard the Edward dating before; the whole John and Richard bit was apparently a later alteration.


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## Peter Graham (Mar 18, 2009)

> I suppose we should be grateful that Mel Gibson didn't know that Robin was around during Edward I's reign.


 
What a horrible prospect. My guess is that in any Mel Gibson remake, Robin Hood would have been a scruffy but lovable Irish renegade who took to the Greenwood after the Evil English killed his entire family for failing to be suitably respectful to the Evil Sheriff of Evil Nottingham. His merrie men would be the usual coterie of wisecracking, sassy action heroes with suspiciously New York accents who would no doubt emerge at the crucial moment to help Wallace's blue-faced hordes to victory, inspired by their shared Love of Freedom and their Hatred of Oppression.

Joking aside, the earliest Robin Hood legends consist of a handful of ballads which had clearly been in circulation long before they were committed to writing. A 12th or 13th century date is quite possible. Most of the early ballads set Robin against the _established_ church as well as the state (although they usually paint him as a religious man), so it is tempting to think that the newly discovered Latin text may well have been written by a churchman or a legal clerk.

The Wakefield Pipe Rolls (legal documents which I think also go back to Edward Longshanks) refer to a "Robert Hodde" who held land in the area, although I do wonder whether "Robin Hood" was actually a fairly common name in those times. 

Interestingly (or not), the early ballads tend to place Robin Hood in Barnsdale, which is just south of Doncaster on the old A1, rather than in Nottinghamshire. My guess is that Sherwood (which just means "Shire Wood"), originally extended up into South Yorkshire and was part of the great Greenwood of which modern Sherwood is a fragment. The Greenwood was a notoriously dangerous place and was thick with outlaws and thieves, so was a highly suitable place to spawn the Robin Hood legends.

Regards,

Peter a' Dale


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## Foxbat (Mar 19, 2009)

Peter Graham said:


> What a horrible prospect. My guess is that in any Mel Gibson remake, Robin Hood would have been a scruffy but lovable Irish renegade who took to the Greenwood after the Evil English killed his entire family for failing to be suitably respectful to the Evil Sheriff of Evil Nottingham. His merrie men would be the usual coterie of wisecracking, sassy action heroes with suspiciously New York accents who would no doubt emerge at the crucial moment to help Wallace's blue-faced hordes to victory, inspired by their shared Love of Freedom and their Hatred of Oppression.


 
Sounds like a movie more suited to Mel Brooks....but then again....so was Braveheart

Seriously though, time distorts everything and we will probably never know the complete truth of either Robin Hood or William Wallace. 

I also recently read an article that shed a different light on Stanley's motives at Bosworth when he betrayed Richard III. Like Hood and Wallace, the truth probably lies somewhere in between what we think we know and what is folklore.


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## River Boy (Jun 25, 2010)

Scottish folklorists have surreptitiously been trying to compare Robin Hood stories with William Wallace folklore for years, attempting to suggest that English storytellers were trying to usurp Scottish heroism for themselves, but if you're going to go down that route then you have to accept the many similarities between Wallace's stories and those of Hereward the Wake (of post 1066 rebellion against the Normans fame). The similarity in storytelling does not mean that Robin Hood never existed.

The fact is that Robin Hood and/or his outlaws fit in with the route of history _and_ folklore. These people were clearly descended from the 'silvatici' - the many Britons who became people of the woods when Norman invaders turned them into 2nd class citizens. Dwelling in woodlands became a way of life for many, possibly even up to some of the major deforestation of the English landscape, certainly still during the time of the Crusades 150 years after the Conquest. The word 'silvatici' remained in use for many years and men of the woods are depicted in much medieval artistry, but they were never allowed to take part in the affairs of the country. We could speculate that the tales of Robin Hood (a slang name for outlaw, probably not an actual name) derive from a brief period of history when the silvatici threatened to become a part of the affairs of the country again, and could even speculate that stories of whatever happened were suppressed by the kings that followed until they had become less specific. The silvatici would have been romantically linked with the Anglo-Saxon line of kings, and the Norman line would have been very aware of the sentiment.

Robin Hood is the greatest English hero to come out of centuries of oppression (from 1066 until the 19th century); and I'm certain he existed, whatever his real name was.


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## Peter Graham (Jul 2, 2010)

An excellent post, RB.




> The similarity in storytelling does not mean that Robin Hood never existed.


 
But it does give cause for suspicion.  You clearly know your stuff, so I'm sure you're aware of the ballads and stories of people like Fulk Fitzwarrene and our very own Adam Bell.  Not to mention those that came before and after the medieval period - King Arthur, Dick Turpin, Kinmont Willie and so on.  

It might be that every one of these people really existed.  But it almost doesn't matter.  Wallace, Hood, Arthur and the rest of them quickly become creatures of folklore - they are the coathooks or skellingtons onto which layers of myth and notions of identity are draped.  They are often forced to become symbols of people who perceive themselves to be oppressed and who need heroes and the prospect, if not of salvation, at least of the odd away goal.

I suspect that the real reason that the ballads and stories of Wallace, Hood etc are so similar is because they were scratching precisely the same itch.  What is more, the basic themes and plots of the stories would already have been in wide circulation in the oral tradition.  You can still see the same thing in modern ghost mythology - a relatively small number of core stories and legends come up time and time again - headless coachmen, screaming skulls, bricked up clergymen and drowned ladies of a floaty persuasion.  Being the first to write them down isn't the same thing as actually inventing them - even if one person could make such a claim.




> Robin Hood is the greatest English hero to come out of centuries of oppression (from 1066 until the 19th century); and I'm certain he existed, whatever his real name was.


 
I'd agree that the Greenwood would have been thick with outlaws and that one or more of them might even have been called Robin Hood.  But I don't necessarily agree that the ballads tell us anything about his real life deeds and beliefs, any more than Malory tells us anything about the real Arthur (assuming there even was one).

Kinmont Willie Armstrong is a good example.  The Ballad of Kinmont Willie concerns his escape from Carlisle Castle in the 1590's.  But the same incident is pretty well recorded in contemporary documents and the differences between the historical account and the mythological account are..erm...pronounced, to say the least.

Regards,

Peter


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## River Boy (Jul 13, 2010)

I'm glad we agree on many points; I've spoken to too many anti-folklorists and the wikipedia page on Robin Hood used to state that he never existed as if it was accepted fact. You're definitely right that the stories 'scratch the same itch', I think perhaps we underestimate our respect for heroism even though the modern world doesn't really make way for that kind of hero.

To be honest I wasn't familiar with Kinmont Willie, which has made me realise that for some reason my interest in history seems to end around the 1400s. Perhaps that's something I should work at changing, as it's clearly an interesting story and I'll see if I can get hold of the ballad.


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## Anne Lyle (Jul 23, 2010)

Peter Graham said:


> The Wakefield Pipe Rolls (legal documents which I think also go back to Edward Longshanks) refer to a "Robert Hodde" who held land in the area, although I do wonder whether "Robin Hood" was actually a fairly common name in those times.



My specialist period is 16th century, but given that approx 5% of the male population in Elizabethan times were called Robert (20+% were named John!) and the name had been around since the conquest, I should think there were a fair few Robert "Robin" Hoods in medieval England!

There's also a surname Robinhood, prevalent in (IIRC) Sussex, but that
came later, probably from men who habitually played him in village pageants.


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## paranoid marvin (Jul 31, 2010)

I doubt there ever was a Robin who did anything like what was proposed he did ; but outlaws getting one over on the local authorities - and maybe handing out a few coins to locals in order that they werent betrayed - are far more likely. It is unsurprising that peasants would have looked up to these men (and women) who stood up against their (usually) overbearing masters.


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## River Boy (Jul 31, 2010)

paranoid marvin said:


> I doubt there ever was a Robin who did anything like what was proposed he did ; but outlaws getting one over on the local authorities - and maybe handing out a few coins to locals in order that they werent betrayed - are far more likely. It is unsurprising that peasants would have looked up to these men (and women) who stood up against their (usually) overbearing masters.


 
Yes but Robin Hood in particular has been embraced as England's most loved folk hero, there has to be an underlying reason further to whatever reality was in place, which could be exactly as you say.

Compare his legend with Princess Diana's popularity. Diana would have always been famous because she was a princess, but for those very many people who idolise her it was because she affected their sensibilities on another level, further to the fame her public figure would attract anyway. There must have been something similar with Robin Hood, some special reason his memory wouldn't die - whereas what you've just described could be something as small as the Raoul Moat saga.


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## The Ace (Jul 31, 2010)

I see what you mean, RB.  One car crash turned Diana from a gold-digging, attention-seeking Hooray Henrietta, into the, 'Queen of Hearts.'


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## Dave (Jul 31, 2010)

Hollywood usually describes him as 'Robin of Locksley', but there is a Loxley near Sheffield which fits with your more Northern Robin. However, I'm now thinking rather than 'Robin of Loxley', if he was Scottish, wouldn't he be 'Robin of Lochsley'?


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## River Boy (Aug 1, 2010)

The Ace said:


> I see what you mean, RB. One car crash turned Diana from a gold-digging, attention-seeking Hooray Henrietta, into the, 'Queen of Hearts.'


 
Indeed, and if there was an apocalyptic war tomorrow and all modern records were destroyed then in 1,000 years time people would still be telling bulshit stories of Princess Diana, that probably wouldn't involve gold-digging or adultery.


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## Ursa major (Aug 1, 2010)

BBC Radio Four's _The Now Show_ had a candidate for a new seriers on Five (now that the TV channel has been bought by the owner of the Daily Express): _CSI - Paris Underpass_


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