Robin Hood is a legendaryheroic outlaw originally depicted inEnglish folklore and subsequently featured in literature, theatre, and cinema. According to legend, he was a highly skilledarcher andswordsman.[1] In some versions of the legend, he is depicted as being of noble birth, and in modern retellings he is sometimes depicted as having fought in theCrusades before returning toEngland to find his lands taken by theSheriff of Nottingham. In the oldest known versions, he is instead a member of theyeoman class. He is traditionally depicted dressed inLincoln green. Today, he is most closely associated with his stance of "robbing the rich to give to the poor".
Through retellings, additions, and variations, a body of familiar characters associated with Robin Hood has been created. These include his lover,Maid Marian; his band of outlaws, theMerry Men; and his chief opponent, the Sheriff of Nottingham. The Sheriff is often depicted as assistingPrince John in usurping the rightful but absentKing Richard, to whom Robin Hood remains loyal. He became a popular folk figure in theLate Middle Ages, and his partisanship of the common people and opposition to the Sheriff are some of the earliest-recorded features of the legend, whereas his political interests and setting during theAngevin era developed in later centuries. The earliest knownballads featuring him are from the 15th century.
There have been numerous variations and adaptations of the story over the subsequent years, and the story continues to be widely represented in literature, film, and television media today. Robin Hood is considered one of the best-known tales of English folklore. In popular culture, the term "Robin Hood" is often used to describe a heroic outlaw or rebel against tyranny.
The origins of the legend as well as the historical context have been debated for centuries. There are numerous references to historical figures with similar names that have been proposed as possible evidence of his existence, some dating back to the late 13th century. At least eight plausible origins to the story have been mooted by historians and folklorists, including suggestions that "Robin Hood" was a stock alias used by or in reference to bandits.
Ballads and tales
The first clear reference to "rhymes of Robin Hood" is from the alliterative poemPiers Plowman, thought to have been composed in the 1370s, followed shortly afterwards by a quotation of a later common proverb,[2] "many men speak of Robin Hood and never shot his bow",[3] inFriar Daw's Reply (c. 1402)[4] and a complaint inDives and Pauper (1405–1410) that people would rather listen to "tales and songs of Robin Hood" than attend Mass.[5] Robin Hood is also mentioned in aLollard tract[6] dated to the first half of the 15th century[7] (thus also possibly predating his other earliest historical mentions)[8] alongside several other folk heroes such asGuy of Warwick,Bevis of Hampton, andSir Lybeaus.[9]
However, the earliest surviving copies of the narrative ballads date to the second half of the 15th century or the first decade of the 16th century. In these early accounts, Robin Hood's partisanship of the lower classes, hisdevotion to the Virgin Mary and associated special regard for women, his outstanding skill as an archer, hisanti-clericalism, and his particular animosity towards theSheriff of Nottingham are already clear.[10]Little John,Much the Miller's Son, andWill Scarlet (as Will "Scarlok" or "Scathelocke") all appear, although not yetMaid Marian orFriar Tuck. Thefriar has been part of the legend since at least the later 15th century, when he is mentioned in a Robin Hood play script.[11]
In modern popular culture, Robin Hood is typically seen as a contemporary and supporter of the late-12th-century KingRichard the Lionheart, Robin being driven to outlawry during the misrule of Richard's brotherJohn while Richard was away at theThird Crusade. This view first gained currency in the 16th century.[12] It is not supported by the earliest ballads. The early compilation,A Gest of Robyn Hode, names the king as 'Edward'; and while it does show Robin Hood accepting the king's pardon, he later repudiates it and returns to the greenwood.[13][14] The oldest surviving ballad,Robin Hood and the Monk, gives even less support to the picture of Robin Hood as a partisan of the true king. The setting of the early ballads is usually attributed by scholars to either the 13th or 14th century, although it is recognised they are not necessarily historically consistent.[15]
The early ballads are also quite clear on Robin Hood's social status: he is ayeoman. While the meaning of this term changed over time, including free retainers of an aristocrat and small landholders, it always referred to commoners. The essence of it in the present context was "neither a knight nor a peasant or 'husbonde' but something in between".[16] Artisans (such as millers) were among those regarded as 'yeomen' in the 14th century.[17] From the 16th century on, there were attempts to elevate Robin Hood to the nobility, such as inRichard Grafton'sChronicle at Large;[18]Anthony Munday presented him at the end of the century as theEarl of Huntingdon in two extremely influential plays, as he is still commonly presented in modern times.[19]
The legend was also transmitted by 'Robin Hood games' or plays that were an important part of the late medieval and early modernMay Day festivities. The first record of a Robin Hood game was in 1426 inExeter, but the reference does not indicate how old or widespread this custom was at the time. The Robin Hood games are known to have flourished in the later 15th and 16th centuries.[20] It is commonly stated as fact that Maid Marian and a jolly friar (at least partly identifiable with Friar Tuck) entered the legend through the May Games.[21]
The earliest surviving text of a Robin Hood ballad is the 15th-century "Robin Hood and the Monk".[22] This is preserved inCambridge University manuscript Ff.5.48. Written after 1450,[23] it contains many of the elements still associated with the legend, from theNottingham setting to the bitter enmity between Robin and thelocal sheriff.
The character of Robin in these first texts is rougher edged than in his later incarnations. In "Robin Hood and the Monk", for example, he is shown as quick tempered and violent, assaulting Little John for defeating him in an archery contest; in the same ballad, Much the Miller's Son casually kills a "littlepage" in the course of rescuing Robin Hood from prison.[29] No extant early ballad actually shows Robin Hood "giving to the poor", although in "A Gest of Robyn Hode" Robin does make a large loan to an unfortunateknight, which he does not in the end require to be repaid;[30] and later in the same ballad Robin Hood states his intention of giving money to the next traveller to come down the road if he happens to be poor.
Of my good he shall haue some, Yf he be a por man.[31]
As it happens the next traveller is not poor, but it seems in context that Robin Hood is stating a general policy. The first explicit statement to the effect that Robin Hood habitually robbed from the rich to give the poor can be found inJohn Stow'sAnnales of England (1592), about a century after the publication ofGest.[32][33] But from the beginning Robin Hood is on the side of the poor;Gest quotes Robin Hood as instructing his men that when they rob:
loke ye do no husbonde harme That tilleth with his ploughe. No more ye shall no gode yeman That walketh by gren-wode shawe; Ne no knyght ne no squyer That wol be a gode felawe.[13][14]
And in its final linesGest sums up:
he was a good outlawe, And dyde pore men moch god.
Within Robin Hood's band, medieval forms of courtesy rather than modern ideals of equality are generally in evidence. In the early ballad, Robin's men usually kneel before him in obedience: inGest, the king even observes that "His men are more at his byddynge/Then my men be at myn." Their social status, as yeomen, is shown by their weapons: they use swords rather thanquarterstaffs.[further explanation needed] The only character to use a quarterstaff in the early ballads is the Potter, and Robin Hood does not take to a staff until the 17th-centuryRobin Hood and Little John.[34]
The political and social assumptions underlying the early Robin Hood ballads have long been controversial.J. C. Holt influentially argued that the Robin Hood legend was cultivated in the households of the gentry, and that it would be mistaken to see in him a figure ofpeasant revolt. He is not a peasant but a yeoman, and his tales make no mention of the complaints of the peasants, such as oppressive taxes.[35] He appears not so much as a revolt against societal standards as an embodiment of them, being generous, pious, and courteous, opposed to stingy, worldly, and churlish foes.[36] Other scholars have by contrast stressed the subversive aspects of the legend, and see in the medieval Robin Hood ballads a plebeian literature hostile to thefeudal order.[37]
Early plays, May Day games, and fairs
By the early 15th century at the latest, Robin Hood had become associated with May Day celebrations, with revellers dressing as Robin or as members of his band for the festivities. This was not common throughout England, but in some regions the custom lasted untilElizabethan times, and during the reign ofHenry VIII was briefly popular atcourt.[38] Henry disguised himself as Robin in January 1510, with eleven courtiers and a Maid Marian to surpriseCatherine of Aragon in her chamber.[39]
Robin was often allocated the role of aMay King, presiding over games and processions, but plays were also performed with the characters in the roles,[40] sometimes performed atchurch ales, a means by which churches raised funds.[41] A complaint of 1492, brought to theStar Chamber, accuses men of acting riotously by coming to a fair as Robin Hood and his men; the accused defended themselves on the grounds that the practice was a long-standing custom to raise money for churches, and they had not acted riotously but peaceably.[42]
Robyn Hod and the Shryff off Notyngham appears to tell the story of Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne.[49] There is also an early playtext appended to a 1560 printed edition ofGest. This includes a dramatic version of the story ofRobin Hood and the Curtal Friar and a version of the first part of the story ofRobin Hood and the Potter. (Neither of these ballads is known to have existed in print at the time, and there is no earlier record known of the "Curtal Friar" story.) The publisher describes the text as a 'playe of Robyn Hood, verye proper to be played in Maye games', but does not seem to be aware that the text actually contains two separate plays.[50] An especial point of interest in the "Friar" play is the appearance of a ribald woman who is unnamed but apparently to be identified with the bawdy Maid Marian of the May Games.[51] She does not appear in extant versions of the ballad.
Early modern stage
In May 1585,James VI of Scotland was entertained by a Robin Hood play atDirleton Castle produced by his favourite theEarl of Arran, while there was plague in Edinburgh.[52] In 1598,Anthony Munday wrote a pair of plays on the Robin Hood legend,The Downfall and The Death of Robert Earl of Huntington (published 1601). These plays drew on a variety of sources, including apparentlyGest, and were influential in fixing the story of Robin Hood to the period of Richard I.Stephen Thomas Knight has suggested that Munday drew heavily onFulk Fitz Warin, a historical 12th century outlawed nobleman and enemy of King John, in creating his Robin Hood.[53] The play identifies Robin Hood as Robert,Earl of Huntingdon, following in Richard Grafton's association of Robin Hood with the gentry,[18] and identifies Maid Marian with "one of the semi-mythical Matildas persecuted by King John".[54] The plays are complex in plot and form, the story of Robin Hood appearing as a play-within-a-play presented at the court ofHenry VIII and written by the poet, priest and courtierJohn Skelton, with Skelton playing Friar Tuck. Some scholars have conjectured that Skelton may have indeed written a lost Robin Hood play for Henry VIII's court, and that this play may have been one of Munday's sources.[55] Henry VIII with eleven of his nobles had impersonated "Robyn Hodes men" as part of his "Maying" in 1510. Robin Hood is known to have appeared in a number of other lost and extantElizabethan plays. In 1599, the playGeorge a Green, the Pinner of Wakefield places Robin Hood in the reign ofEdward IV.[56]Edward I, a play byGeorge Peele first performed in 1590–91, incorporates a Robin Hood game played by the characters.Llywelyn the Great, the last independentPrince of Wales, is presented playing Robin Hood.[57]
Fixing the Robin Hood story to the 1190s had been first proposed byJohn Major in hisHistoria Majoris Britanniæ (1521), (and he also may have been influenced in so doing by the story of FitzWarin);[53] this was the period in which King Richard was absent from the country, fighting in the Third Crusade.[58]
William Shakespeare makes reference to Robin Hood in his late-16th-century playThe Two Gentlemen of Verona. In it, the character Valentine is banished fromMilan and driven out through the forest where he is approached by outlaws who, upon meeting him, desire him as their leader. They comment, "By the bare scalp of Robin Hood's fat friar, This fellow were a king for our wild faction!"[59] Robin Hood is also mentioned inAs You Like It. When asked about the exiled Duke Senior, the character of Charles says that he is "already in the forest of Arden, and a many merry men with him; and there they live like the old Robin Hood of England". Justice Silence sings a line from an unnamed Robin Hood ballad, the line is "Robin Hood, Scarlet, and John" in Act 5 scene 3 ofHenry IV, part 2. InHenry IV part 1 Act 3 scene 3, Falstaff refers to Maid Marian, implying she is a by-word for unwomanly or unchaste behaviour.
Ben Jonson produced the incompletemasqueThe Sad Shepherd, or a Tale of Robin Hood[60] in part as a satire onPuritanism. It is about half finished, and his death in 1637 may have interrupted writing. Jonson's only pastoral drama, it was written in sophisticated verse and included supernatural action and characters.[61] It has had little impact on the Robin Hood tradition but earns mention as the work of a major dramatist.
The 1642London theatre closure by the Puritans interrupted the portrayal of Robin Hood on the stage. The theatres would reopen with theRestoration in 1660. Robin Hood did not appear on the Restoration stage, except for "Robin Hood and his Crew of Souldiers" acted in Nottingham on the day of the coronation ofCharles II in 1661. This short play adapts the story of the king's pardon of Robin Hood to refer to the Restoration.[62] However, Robin Hood appeared on the 18th-century stage in various farces and comic operas.[63]Alfred, Lord Tennyson would write a four-act Robin Hood play at the end of the 19th century, "The Forrestors". It is fundamentally based onGest but follows the traditions of placing Robin Hood as the Earl of Huntingdon in the time of Richard I and making the Sheriff of Nottingham and Prince John rivals with Robin Hood for Maid Marian's hand.[64] The return of King Richard brings a happy ending.
Broadside ballads and garlands
With the advent of printing came the Robin Hoodbroadside ballads. When they displaced the oral tradition of Robin Hood ballads is unknown but the process seems to have been completed by the end of the 16th century. Near the end of the 16th century an unpublished prose life of Robin Hood was written and included in theSloane Manuscript. Largely a paraphrase ofGest, it also contains material revealing that the author was familiar with early versions of a number of the Robin Hood broadside ballads.[65] Not all of the medieval legend was preserved in the broadside ballads; there is no broadside version of "Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne" or ofRobin Hood and the Monk, which did not appear in print until the 18th and 19th centuries respectively. However,Gest was reprinted from time to time throughout the 16th and 17th centuries.
No surviving broadside ballad can be dated with certainty before the 17th century, but during that century, the commercial broadside ballad became the main vehicle for the popular Robin Hood legend.[66] These broadside ballads were in some cases newly fabricated but were mostly adaptations of the older verse narratives. The broadside ballads were fitted to a small repertoire of pre-existing tunes resulting in an increase of "stock formulaic phrases" making them "repetitive and verbose",[67] they commonly feature Robin Hood's contests with artisans: tinkers, tanners, and butchers. Among these ballads is "Robin Hood and Little John," telling the famous story of the quarterstaff fight between the two outlaws.
Dobson and Taylor wrote, 'More generally the Robin of the broadsides is a much less tragic, less heroic and in the last resort less mature figure than his medieval predecessor'.[68] In most of the broadside ballads Robin Hood remains a plebeian figure, a notable exception beingMartin Parker's attempt at an overall life of Robin Hood, "A True Tale of Robin Hood," which also emphasises the theme of Robin Hood's generosity to the poor more than the broadsheet ballads do in general. The 17th century introduced theminstrelAlan-a-Dale. He first appeared in a 17th-century broadside ballad and, unlike many of the characters thus associated, managed to adhere to the legend.[47] The prose life of Robin Hood in Sloane Manuscript contains the substance of the Alan-a-Dale ballad but tells the story about Will Scarlet.
In the 18th century, the stories began to develop a slightly more farcical vein. From this period there are a number of ballads in which Robin is severely 'drubbed' by a succession of tradesmen includinga tanner,a tinker, anda ranger.[58] In fact, the only character who does not get the better of Robin Hood is the luckless Sheriff. Yet even in these ballads Robin is more than a mere simpleton: on the contrary, he often acts with great shrewdness. The tinker, setting out to capture Robin, only manages to fight with him after he has been cheated out of his money and thearrest warrant he is carrying. InRobin Hood's Golden Prize, Robin disguises himself as a friar and cheats two priests out of their cash. Even when Robin is defeated, he usually tricks his foe into letting him sound his horn, summoning the Merry Men to his aid. When his enemies do not fall for this ruse, he persuades them to drink with him instead (seeRobin Hood's Delight).
In the 18th and 19th centuries, the Robin Hood ballads were mostly sold in "Garlands" of 16 to 24 Robin Hood ballads; these were crudely printed chap books aimed at the poor. The garlands added nothing to the substance of the legend but ensured that it continued after the decline of the single broadside ballad.[69] In the 18th century also, Robin Hood frequently appeared in criminal biographies and histories of highwaymen compendia.[70]
In 1795,Joseph Ritson published an enormously influential edition of the Robin Hood balladsRobin Hood: A collection of all the Ancient Poems Songs and Ballads now extant, relative to that celebrated Outlaw.[71][72] 'By providing English poets and novelists with a convenient source book, Ritson gave them the opportunity to recreate Robin Hood in their own imagination,'[73] Ritson's collection includesGest and put the Robin Hood and the Potter ballad in print for the first time. The only significant omission was Robin Hood and the Monk which would eventually be printed in 1806. In all, Ritson printed 33 Robin Hood ballads[74] (and a 34th, now commonly known asRobin Hood and the Prince of Aragon that he included as the second part ofRobin Hood Newly Revived which he had retitled "Robin Hood and the Stranger").[75] Ritson's interpretation of Robin Hood was also influential, having influenced the modern concept of stealing from the rich and giving to the poor as it exists today.[76][77][78][79] Himself a supporter of the principles of theFrench Revolution and admirer ofThomas Paine, Ritson held that Robin Hood was a genuinely historical and heroic character who had stood up against tyranny in the interests of the common people.[73] J. C. Holt has been quick to point out, however, that Ritson "began as aJacobite and ended as aJacobin," and "certainly reconstructed him [Robin] in the image of a radical."[80]
In his preface to the collection, Ritson assembled an account of Robin Hood's life from the various sources available to him and concludes that Robin Hood was born in around 1160, and thus had been active in the reign of Richard I. He thought that Robin was of aristocratic extraction, with at least 'some pretension' to the title of Earl of Huntingdon, that he was born in an unlocated Nottinghamshire village of Locksley and that his original name wasRobert Fitzooth. Ritson gives the date of Robin Hood's death as 18 November 1247, when he would have been around 87 years old. In copious and informative notes Ritson defends every point of his version of Robin Hood's life.[81] In reaching his conclusion Ritson relies or gives weight to a number of unreliable sources, such as the Robin Hood plays of Anthony Munday and the Sloane Manuscript. Nevertheless, Dobson and Taylor credit Ritson with having 'an incalculable effect in promoting the still continuing quest for the man behind the myth', and note that his work remains an 'indispensable handbook to the outlaw legend even now'.[82] Ritson's friendWalter Scott used Ritson's anthology collection as a source for his picture of Robin Hood inIvanhoe, written in 1818,which did much to shape the modern legend.[83]
Child ballads
In the decades following the publication of Ritson's book, other ballad collections would occasionally publish stray Robin Hood ballads Ritson had missed. In 1806,Robert Jamieson published the earliest known Robin Hood ballad,Robin Hood and the Monk in Volume II of hisPopular Ballads and Songs From Tradition. In 1846, thePercy Society includedThe Bold Pedlar and Robin Hood in its collection,Ancient Poems, Ballads, and Songs of the Peasantry of England. In 1850,John Mathew Gutch published his own collection of Robin Hood ballads,Robin Hood Garlands and Ballads, with the tale of the lytell Geste, that in addition to all of Ritson's collection, also includedRobin Hood and the Pedlars andRobin Hood and the Scotchman.
In 1858,Francis James Child published hisEnglish and Scottish Ballads which includes a volume grouping all the Robin Hood ballads in one volume, including all the ballads published by Ritson, the four stray ballads published since then, as well as some ballads that either mentioned Robin Hood by name or featured characters named Robin Hood but were not traditional Robin Hood stories. For his more scholarly work,The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, in his volume dedicated to the Robin Hood ballads, published in 1888, Child removed the ballads from his earlier work that were not traditional Robin Hood stories, gave the ballad Ritson titledRobin Hood and the Stranger back its original published titleRobin Hood Newly Revived, and separated what Ritson had printed as the second part ofRobin Hood and the Stranger as its own separate ballad, Robin Hood and the Prince of Aragon. He also included alternate versions of ballads that had distinct, alternate versions. He numbered these 38 Robin Hood ballads among the 305 ballads in his collection as Child Ballads Nos. 117–154, which is how they are often referenced in scholarly works.
19th century
The title page of an edition ofHoward Pyle's 1883 novel,The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood
In the 19th century, the Robin Hood legend was first specifically adapted for children. Children's editions of the garlands were produced, and in 1820 a children's edition of Ritson'sRobin Hood collection was published. Children's novels began to appear shortly thereafter. It is not that children did not read Robin Hood stories before, but this is the first appearance of a Robin Hood literature specifically aimed at them.[84] A very influential example of these children's novels wasPierce Egan the Younger'sRobin Hood and Little John (1840).[85][86] This was adapted into French byAlexandre Dumas inLe Prince des Voleurs (1872) andRobin Hood Le Proscrit (1873). Egan made Robin Hood of noble birth but raised by the forestor Gilbert Hood.
Another very popular version for children wasHoward Pyle'sThe Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, which influenced accounts of Robin Hood through the 20th century.[87] Pyle's version firmly stamps Robin as a staunch philanthropist, a man who takes from the rich to give to the poor. Nevertheless, the adventures are still more local than national in scope: while King Richard's participation in the Crusades is mentioned in passing, Robin takes no stand against Prince John and plays no part in raising the ransom to free Richard. These developments are part of the 20th-century Robin Hood myth. Pyle's Robin Hood is a yeoman and not an aristocrat.
The idea of Robin Hood as a high-mindedSaxon fightingNorman lords also originates in the 19th century. The most notable contributions to this idea of Robin areJacques Nicolas Augustin Thierry'sHistoire de laConquête de l'Angleterre par les Normands (1825) and SirWalter Scott'sIvanhoe (1819). In this last work in particular, the modern Robin Hood—'King of Outlaws and prince of good fellows!' as Richard the Lionheart calls him—makes his debut.[88]
Forresters Manuscript
In 1993, a previously unknown manuscript of 21 Robin Hood ballads (including two versions of "The Jolly Pinder of Wakefield") turned up in an auction house and eventually wound up in theBritish Library. Called TheForresters Manuscript, after the first and last ballads which are both titled Robin Hood and the Forresters, it was published in 1998 asRobin Hood: The Forresters Manuscript. It appears to have been written in the 1670s.[89] While all the ballads in the manuscript had already been known and published during the 17th and 18th centuries (although most of the ballads in the manuscript have different titles than ones they have listed under the Child Ballads), 13 of the ballads in Forresters are noticeably different from how they appear in the broadsides and garlands. Nine of these ballads are significantly longer and more elaborate than the versions of the same ballads found in the broadsides and garlands. For four of these ballads, the Forresters Manuscript versions are the earliest known versions.
The 20th century grafted still further details on to the original legends. The 1938 filmThe Adventures of Robin Hood, starringErrol Flynn andOlivia de Havilland, portrays Robin as a hero on a national scale, leading the oppressed Saxons in revolt against their Norman overlords while Richard the Lionheart fought in the Crusades; this movie established itself so definitively that many studios resorted to movies about his son (invented for that purpose) rather than compete with the image of this one.[90]
In 1953 a Republican member of the Indiana Textbook Commission called for a ban of Robin Hood from all Indiana school books for its alleged communist connotations.[91] This proposal prompted a short-lived college protest againstMcCarthyism andbook censorship in the United States that was launched on theIndiana University Bloomington campus and within a course of weeks had grown into a nationwide campus movement, known as theGreen Feather Movement.[92]
In the 1973 animatedDisney filmRobin Hood, the title character is portrayed as ananthropomorphic fox voiced byBrian Bedford. Years beforeRobin Hood had even entered production, Disney had considered doing a project onReynard the Fox; however, due to concerns that Reynard was unsuitable as a hero, animatorKen Anderson adapted some elements from Reynard into the Disney characterRobin Hood, making him a fox.[93]
The 1976 British-American filmRobin and Marian, starringSean Connery as Robin Hood andAudrey Hepburn as Maid Marian, portrays the figures in later years after Robin has returned from service with Richard the Lionheart in a foreign crusade and Marian has gone into seclusion in a nunnery. This is the first in popular culture to portray King Richard as less than perfect.
Between 1963 and 1966,French television broadcast a medievalist series entitledThierry La Fronde (Thierry the Sling). This successful series, which was also shown in Canada, Poland (Thierry Śmiałek), Australia (The King's Outlaw), and the Netherlands (Thierry de Slingeraar), transposes the English Robin Hood narrative intolate medieval France during theHundred Years' War.[95] The original ballads and plays, including the early medieval poems and the latter broadside ballads and garlands have been edited and translated for the first time in French in 2017[96] byJonathan Fruoco. Until then, the texts had been unavailable in France.
Historicity
The historicity of Robin Hood has been debated for centuries. A difficulty with any such historical research is that Robert was a very commongiven name inmedieval England, and 'Robin' (or Robyn) was its very commondiminutive, especially in the 13th century;[97] it is a Frenchhypocorism,[98] already mentioned in theRoman de Renart in the 12th century. The surname Hood (by any spelling) was also fairly common because it referred either to a hooder, who was a maker ofhoods, or alternatively to somebody who wore a hood as a head covering. It is therefore unsurprising that medieval records mention a number of people called "Robert Hood" or "Robin Hood", some of whom are known criminals.
Another view on the origin of the name is expressed in the1911Encyclopædia Britannica which remarks that "hood" was a common dialectical form of "wood" (compareDutchhout,hʌut, also meaning "wood"), and that the outlaw's name has been given as "Robin Wood".[99] There are a number of references to Robin Hood as Robin Wood, or Whood, or Whod, from the 16th and 17th centuries. The earliest recorded example, in connection with May games inSomerset, dates from 1518.[100]
The oldest references to Robin Hood are not historical records or even ballads recounting his exploits, but hints and allusions found in various works. From 1261 onward, the names "Robinhood", "Robehod", or "Robbehod" occur in the rolls of several English justices as nicknames or descriptions of malefactors. The majority of these references date from the late 13th century. Between 1261 and 1300, there are at least eight references to "Rabunhod" in various regions across England, fromBerkshire in the south toYork in the north.[26]
Leaving aside the reference to the "rhymes" of Robin Hood in the poemPiers Plowman in the 1370s,[101][102] and the scattered mentions of his "tales and songs" in various religious tracts dating to the early 15th century,[3][5][7] the first mention of a quasi-historical Robin Hood is given inAndrew of Wyntoun'sOrygynale Chronicle, written in about 1420. The following lines occur with little contextualisation under the year 1283:
Lytil Jhon and Robyne Hude Wayth-men ware commendyd gude InYngil-wode and Barnysdale Thai oysyd all this tyme thare trawale.[103]
In a petition presented toParliament in 1439, the name is used to describe an itinerant felon. The petition cites one Piers Venables of Aston, Derbyshire,[a] "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."[104]
The next historical description of Robin Hood is a statement in theScotichronicon, composed byJohn of Fordun between 1377 and 1384 and revised byWalter Bower in about 1440. Among Bower's many interpolations is a passage that directly refers to Robin. It is inserted after Fordun's account of the defeat ofSimon de Montfort and the punishment of his adherents, and is entered under the year 1266 in Bower's account. Robin is represented as a fighter for de Montfort's cause.[105] This was in fact true of the historical outlaw of Sherwood ForestRoger Godberd, whose points of similarity to the Robin Hood of the ballads have often been noted.[106][107]
Then 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.[108]
The word translated here as 'murderer' is the Latinsicarius (literally 'dagger-man' but actually meaning, in classical Latin, 'assassin' or 'murderer'), from the Latinsica for 'dagger', and descends from its use to describe theSicarii, assassins operating inRoman Judea. Bower goes on to relate an anecdote about Robin Hood in which he refuses to flee from his enemies while hearingMass in the greenwood, and then gains a surprise victory over them, apparently as a reward for his piety; the mention of "tragedies" suggests that some form of the tale relating his death, as perA Gest of Robyn Hode, might have been in currency already.[109]
Another reference, discovered by Julian Luxford in 2009, appears in the margin of the "Polychronicon" in theEton College library. Written around 1460 by a monk in Latin, it says:
Around this time [i.e., reign of Edward I], 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.[110]
Following this,John Major mentions Robin Hood within hisHistoria Majoris Britanniæ (1521), casting him in a positive light by mentioning his and his followers' aversion to bloodshed and ethos of only robbing the wealthy; Major also fixed hisfloruit not to the mid-13th century but the reigns of Richard I and his brother John.[53] Richard Grafton in hisChronicle at Large (1569) goes further when discussing Major's description of "Robert Hood", identifying him for the first time as a member of the gentry, albeit possibly "being of a base stock and linaege, was for his manhood and chivalry advanced to the noble dignity of an Earl" and not the yeomanry, foreshadowing Anthony Munday's casting of him as the dispossessed Earl of Huntingdon.[18] The name nevertheless still had a reputation of sedition and treachery in 1605, whenGuy Fawkes and his associates were branded "Robin Hoods" byRobert Cecil. In 1644, juristEdward Coke described Robin Hood as a historical figure who had operated in the reign of King Richard I around Yorkshire; he interpreted the contemporary term "roberdsmen" (outlaws) as meaning followers of Robin Hood.[111]
Robert Hod of York
The earliest known legal records mentioning a person called Robin Hood (Robert Hod) are from 1226, found in the YorkAssizes, when that person's goods, worth 32 shillings and 6 pence, were confiscated and he became an outlaw. Robert Hod owed the money to St. Peter's in York. The following year, he was called "Hobbehod", and also came to known as "Robert Hood". Robert Hod of York is the only early Robin Hood known to have been an outlaw. In 1936, L.V.D. Owen floated the idea that Robin Hood might be identified with an outlawed Robert Hood, or Hod, or Hobbehod, all apparently the same man, referred to in nine successive YorkshirePipe Rolls between 1226 and 1234.[112][113] There is no evidence however that this Robert Hood, although an outlaw, was also a bandit.[114]
Robert and John Deyville
Historian Oscar de Ville discusses the careers of John Deyville and his brother Robert, along with their kinsmen Jocelin and Adam, during theSecond Barons' War, specifically their activities after theBattle of Evesham. John Deyville was granted authority by the faction led bySimon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester overYork Castle and the Northern Forests during the war in which they sought refuge after Evesham. John, along with his relatives, led the remaining rebel faction on theIsle of Ely following theDictum of Kenilworth.[115] De Ville connects their presence there with Bower's mention of "Robert Hood" during the aftermath of Evesham in his annotations to theScotichronicon.
While John was eventually pardoned and continued his career until 1290, his kinsmen are no longer mentioned by historical records after the events surrounding their resistance at Ely, and de Ville speculates that Robert remained an outlaw. Other exploits forming the inspiration for Robin Hood include their properties in Barnsdale, John's settlement of a mortgage worth £400 paralleling Robin Hood's charity of identical value to SirRichard at the Lee, relationship with Sir Richard Foliot, a possible inspiration for the former figure, and ownership of a fortified home at Hood Hill, nearKilburn, North Yorkshire. The last of these is suggested to be the inspiration for Robin Hood's second name as opposed to the more common theory of a head covering.[116] Perhaps not coincidentally, a "Robertus Hod" is mentioned in records among the holdouts at Ely.[117]
Although de Ville does not explicitly connect John and Robert Deyville to Robin Hood, he discusses these parallels in detail and suggests that they formed prototypes for this ideal of heroic outlawry during the tumultuous reign of Henry III's grandson and Edward I's son,Edward II of England.[118]
Roger Godberd
David Baldwin identifies Robin Hood with the historical outlawRoger Godberd, who was a die-hard supporter of Simon de Montfort, which would place Robin Hood around the 1260s.[119][120] There are certainly parallels between Godberd's career and that of Robin Hood as he appears inGest.John Maddicott has called Godberd "that prototype Robin Hood".[121] Some problems with this theory are that there is no evidence that Godberd was ever known as Robin Hood and no sign in the early Robin Hood ballads of the specific concerns of de Montfort's revolt.[122]
Robin Hood of Wakefield
The 19th century antiquarianJoseph Hunter believed that Robin Hood had inhabited the forests of Yorkshire during the early decades of the 14th century. Hunter points to two men whom, believing them to be the same person, he identified with the legendary outlaw:
Robert Hood who is documented as having lived inWakefield at the start of the 14th century.
"Robyn Hode" who is recorded as being employed by Edward II during 1323.
Hunter developed a fairly detailed theory implying that Robert Hood had been an adherent of the rebelEarl of Lancaster, who was defeated by Edward II at theBattle of Boroughbridge in 1322. According to this theory, Robert Hood was thereafter pardoned and employed as a bodyguard by King Edward, and in consequence he appears in the 1323 court roll under the name of "Robyn Hode". Hunter's theory has long been recognised to have serious problems, one of the most serious being that recent research has shown that Hunter's Robyn Hood had been employed by the king before he appeared in the 1323 court roll, thus casting doubt on this Robyn Hood's supposed earlier career as outlaw and rebel.[123]
Alias
It has long been suggested, notably byJohn Maddicott, that "Robin Hood" was astock alias used by thieves.[124] What appears to be the first known example of "Robin Hood" as a stock name for an outlaw dates to 1262 inBerkshire, where the surname "Robehod" was applied to a man apparently because he had been outlawed.[125] This could suggest two main possibilities: either that an early form of the Robin Hood legend was already well established in the mid-13th century; or that the name "Robin Hood" preceded the outlaw hero that we know; so that the "Robin Hood" of legend was so called because that was seen as an appropriate name for an outlaw.
Mythology
There is at present little or no scholarly support for the view that tales of Robin Hood have stemmed from mythology or folklore, from fairies or other mythological origins, any such associations being regarded as later development.[126][127] It was once a popular view, however.[99] The "mythological theory" dates back at least to 1584, whenReginald Scot identified Robin Hood with the Germanic goblin "Hudgin" orHodekin and associated him with the fairyRobin Goodfellow.[128] 21st century historianMaurice Keen[129] provides a brief summary and useful critique of the evidence for the view Robin Hood had mythological origins. While the outlaw often shows great skill in archery, swordplay and disguise, his feats are no more exaggerated than those of characters in other ballads, such asKinmont Willie, which were based on historical events.[130]
Robin Hood has also been claimed for the paganwitch-cult supposed byMargaret Murray to have existed in medieval Europe, and his anti-clericalism andMarianism interpreted in this light.[131] The existence of the witch cult as proposed by Murray is now generally discredited.
The early ballads link Robin Hood to identifiable real places. In popular culture, Robin Hood and his band of Merry Men are portrayed as living inSherwood Forest, inNottinghamshire.[132] Notably, theLincoln Cathedral Manuscript, which is the first officially recorded Robin Hood song (dating from approximately 1420), makes an explicit reference to the outlaw that states that "Robyn hode in scherewode stod".[133] In a similar fashion, a monk ofWitham Priory (1460) suggested that the archer had 'infested shirwode'. His chronicle entry 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'.[134]
Nottinghamshire
Robin Hood has been depicted on Nottinghamshire'scounty flag since 2011.[135]
Specific sites in the county of Nottinghamshire directly linked to the Robin Hood legend includeRobin Hood's Well, near Newstead Abbey (within the boundaries of Sherwood Forest), the Church of St. Mary in the village ofEdwinstowe and most famously of all, theMajor Oak also in the village of Edwinstowe.[136] The Major Oak, which resides in the heart of Sherwood Forest, is popularly believed to have been used by the Merry Men as a hide-out. Dendrologists have contradicted this claim by estimating the tree's true age at around 800 years; it would have been relatively a sapling in Robin's time, at best.[137]
Yorkshire
Nottinghamshire's claim to Robin Hood's heritage is disputed, with Yorkists staking a claim to the outlaw. In demonstrating Yorkshire's Robin Hood heritage, historianJ. C. Holt drew attention to the fact that although Sherwood Forest is mentioned inRobin Hood and the Monk, there is little information about the topography of the region, and thus suggested that Robin Hood was drawn to Nottinghamshire through his interactions with the city's sheriff.[138] Moreover, linguist Lister Matheson has observed that the language ofAGest of Robyn Hode is written in a definite northern dialect, probably that of Yorkshire.[139] In consequence, it seems probable that the Robin Hood legend actually originates from the county of Yorkshire. Robin Hood's Yorkshire origins are generally accepted by historians.[140] The backdrop ofSt Mary's Abbey, York plays a central role inGest as the poor knight whom Robin aids owes money to the abbot.
Barnsdale
Blue Plaque commemorating Wentbridge's Robin Hood connections
A tradition dating back at least to the end of the 16th century gives Robin Hood's birthplace asLoxley,Sheffield, in South Yorkshire. The original ballads set events in the medieval forest ofBarnsdale. Barnsdale was a wooded area covering an expanse of no more than 30 square miles, ranging six miles from north to south, with theRiver Went atWentbridge nearPontefract forming its northern boundary and the villages ofSkelbrooke andHampole forming the southernmost region. From east to west the forest extended about five miles, fromAskern on the east toBadsworth in the west.[141] During the medieval age Wentbridge was sometimes locally referred to by the name of Barnsdale because it was the predominant settlement in the forest.[142] Wentbridge is mentioned inRobin Hood and the Potter, which reads, "Y mete hem bot at Went breg,' syde Lyttyl John". And, while Wentbridge is not directly named inA Gest of Robyn Hode, the poem does appear to make a cryptic reference to the locality by depicting a poor knight explaining to Robin Hood that he 'went at a bridge' where there was wrestling'.[143] A commemorativeblue plaque has been placed on the bridge that crosses the River Went by Wakefield City Council.
TheGest makes a specific reference to the Saylis at Wentbridge. Credit is due to Joseph Hunter, who correctly identified the site of the Saylis.[144] From this location it was once possible to look out over the Went Valley and theGreat North Road. The Saylis is recorded as having contributed towards the aid that was granted toEdward III in 1346–47 for the knighting of theBlack Prince. An acre of landholding is listed within aglebe terrier of 1688 relating toKirk Smeaton, which later came to be called "Sailes Close".[145] Dobson and Taylor indicate that such evidence of continuity makes it virtually certain that the Saylis that was so well known to Robin Hood is preserved today as "Sayles Plantation".[146] It is this location that provides a vital clue to Robin Hood's Yorkshire heritage.
Historian John Paul Davis wrote of Robin's connection to theChurch of Saint Mary Magdalene at Campsall in South Yorkshire.[147]A Gest of Robyn Hode states that the outlaw built a chapel in Barnsdale that he dedicated to Mary Magdalene:
I made a chapel in Bernysdale, That seemly is to se, It is of Mary Magdaleyne, And thereto wolde I be.[148]
Davis indicates that there is only one church dedicated to Mary Magdalene within what one might reasonably consider to have been the medieval forest of Barnsdale, and that is the church at Campsall. The church was built in the early 12th century by Robert de Lacy, the 2nd Baron of Pontefract.[149][150] Local legend suggests that Robin Hood and Maid Marion were married at the church.
AtKirklees Priory in West Yorkshire stands an alleged grave with a spurious inscription, which relates to Robin Hood. The ballads relate that before he died, Robin told Little John where to bury him. He shot an arrow from the priory window, and where the arrow landed was to be the site of his grave.Gest states that the prioress was a relative of Robin's. Robin was ill and staying at the priory where the prioress was supposedly caring for him. However, she betrayed him, his health worsened, and he eventually died there. The inscription on the grave reads,
Hear underneath dis laitl stean Laz robert earl of Huntingtun Ne'er arcir ver as hie sa geud An pipl kauld im robin heud Sick [such] utlawz as he an iz men Vil england nivr si agen Obiit 24 kal: Dekembris, 1247
Despite the unconventional spelling, the verse is inModern English, not theMiddle English of the 13th century. The date is also incorrectly formatted – using theRoman calendar, "24 kal Decembris" would be the 23rd daybefore the beginning of December, that is, 8 November. The tomb probably dates from the late 18th century.[151] The grave with the inscription is within sight of the ruins of the Kirklees Priory, behind the Three Nuns pub inMirfield, West Yorkshire. Though local folklore suggests that Robin is buried in the grounds of Kirklees Priory, this theory has now largely been abandoned by historians.
Another theory is that Robin Hood died at Kirkby, Pontefract.Michael Drayton'sPoly-Olbion Song 28 (67–70), published in 1622, speaks of Robin Hood's death and clearly states that the outlaw died at 'Kirkby'.[152] This is consistent with the view that Robin Hood operated in the Went Valley, located three miles to the southeast of the town of Pontefract. The location is approximately three miles from the site of Robin's robberies at Saylis. In the Anglo-Saxon period, Kirkby was home toAll Saints' Church, Pontefract. All Saints' Church had a priory hospital attached to it. Historian Richard Grafton states that the prioress who murdered Robin Hood buried the outlaw beside the road,
Where he had used to rob and spoyle those that passed that way ... and the cause why she buryed him there was, for that common strangers and travailers, knowing and seeing him there buryed, might more safely and without feare take their journeys that way, which they durst not do in the life of the sayd outlaes.[153]
All Saints' Church is consistent with Grafton's description because a road ran from Wentbridge to the hospital at Kirkby.[154]
Place-name locations
Within close proximity of Wentbridge reside several notable landmarks relating to Robin Hood. One such place-name location occurred in a cartulary deed of 1422 from Monkbretton Priory, which makes direct reference to a landmark named Robin Hood's Stone, which resided upon the eastern side of the Great North Road, a mile south of Barnsdale Bar.[155] Dobson and Taylor suggest that on the opposite side of the road once stood Robin Hood's Well, which has since been relocated six miles north-west of Doncaster, on the south-bound side of the Great North Road. Over the next three centuries, the name popped up all over the place, such as atRobin Hood's Bay near Whitby in Yorkshire, Robin Hood's Butts in Cumbria, and Robin Hood's Walk at Richmond, Surrey.
Robin Hood type place-names occurred particularly everywhere except Sherwood. The first place-name in Sherwood does not appear until 1700.[156] The fact that the earliest Robin Hood type place-names originated in West Yorkshire is deemed to be historically significant because, generally, place-name evidence originates from the locality where legends begin.[157] The overall picture from the surviving early ballads and other early references[158] indicate that Robin Hood was based in the Barnsdale area of what is now South Yorkshire, which borders Nottinghamshire.
The Sheriff of Nottingham also had jurisdiction in Derbyshire that was known as the "Shire of the Deer", and this is where the Royal Forest of the Peak is found, which roughly corresponds to today'sPeak District National Park. The Royal Forest includedBakewell,Tideswell,Castleton,Ladybower and theDerwent Valley near Loxley. The Sheriff of Nottingham possessed property near Loxley, among other places both far and wide including Hazlebadge Hall,Peveril Castle andHaddon Hall.Mercia, to which Nottingham belonged, came to within three miles ofSheffield City Centre. But before the Law of the Normans was the Law of the Danes, TheDanelaw had a similar boundary to that of Mercia but had a population of free peasantry that were known to have resisted the Norman occupation. Many outlaws could have been created by the refusal to recognise Norman Forest Law.[159] The supposed grave of Little John can be found inHathersage, also in the Peak District.
Further indications of the legend's connection with West Yorkshire (and particularly Calderdale) are noted in the fact that there are pubs called the Robin Hood in both nearbyBrighouse and atCragg Vale; higher up in the Pennines beyondHalifax, where Robin Hood Rocks can also be found. Robin Hood Hill is nearOutwood, West Yorkshire, not far fromLofthouse. There is a village in West Yorkshire calledRobin Hood, on theA61 betweenLeeds andWakefield and close toRothwell and Lofthouse. Considering these references to Robin Hood, it is not surprising that the people of both South and West Yorkshire lay some claim to Robin Hood, who, if he existed, could easily have roamed between Nottingham,Lincoln,Doncaster and West Yorkshire.
Ballads dating back to the 15th century are the oldest existing form of the Robin Hood legends, although none of them were recorded at the time of the first allusions to him, and many are from much later. They share many common features, often opening with praise of the greenwood and relying heavily on disguise as aplot device, but include a wide variation in tone and plot.[160] The ballads are sorted into four groups, very roughly according to date of first known free-standing copy. Ballads whose first recorded version appears (usually incomplete) in the Percy Folio may appear in later versions[161] and may be much older than the mid-17th century when the Folio was compiled. Any ballad may be older than the oldest copy that happens to survive, or descended from a lost older ballad. For example, the plot ofRobin Hood's Death, found in the Percy Folio, is summarised inA Gest of Robyn Hode, and it also appears in an 18th-century version.[162]
NB. The first two ballads listed here (the "Death" and "Gisborne"), although preserved in 17th-century copies, are generally agreed to preserve the substance of late medieval ballads. The third (the "Curtal Friar") and the fourth (the "Butcher"), also probably have late medieval origins.[163] An * before a ballad's title indicates there is also a version of this ballad in theForresters Manuscript.
Some ballads, such asErlinton, feature Robin Hood in some variants, where thefolk hero appears to be added to a ballad pre-existing him and in which he does not fit very well.[164] He was added to one variant ofRose Red and the White Lily, apparently on no more connection than that one hero of the other variants is named "Brown Robin".[165]Francis James Child indeed retitledChild ballad 102; though it was titledThe Birth of Robin Hood, its clear lack of connection with the Robin Hood cycle (and connection with other, unrelated ballads) led him to title itWillie and Earl Richard's Daughter in his collection.[166]
^Singmam, 1998,Robin Hood; The Shaping of the Legend p. 62.
^Dobson and Taylor, p. 41. 'It was here [the May Games] that he encountered and assimilated into his own legend the jolly friar and Maid Marian, almost invariably among the performers in the 16th century morris dance,' Dobson and Taylor have suggested that theories on the origin of Friar Tuck often founder on a failure to recognise that 'he was the product of the fusion between two very different friars,' a 'bellicose outlaw', and the May Games figure.
^Ohlgren, Thomas,Robin Hood: The Early Poems, 1465–1560, (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2007),From Script to Print: Robin Hood and the Early Printers, pp. 97–134.
^Child Ballads 117A:210, i.e. "A Gest of Robyn Hode" stanza 210.
^Stephen Thomas Knight 2003Robin Hood: A Mythic Biography p. 43 quoting John Stow, 1592,Annales of England: "poor men's goodes hee spared, aboundantly releeving them with that, which by thefte he gote from Abbeyes and the houses of riche Carles".
^for it being the earliest clear statement see Dobson and Taylor (1997),Rhymes of Robyn Hood p. 290.
^Peter Happé, "Dramatic Genre and the Court of Henry VIII", Thomas Betteridge andSuzannah Lipscomb,Henry VIII and the Court: Arts, Politics and Performance (Ashgate, 2013), p. 274.
^Dobson and Taylor, "Rhymes of Robin Hood", pp. 51–52.
^Basdeo, Stephen (2016). "Robin Hood the Brute: Representations of the Outlaw in Eighteenth Century Criminal Biography".Law, Crime and History.6: 2:54–70.
^Bewick, et al. Robin Hood : a Collection of All the Ancient Poems, Songs, and Ballads, Now Extant Relative to That Celebrated English Outlaw; to Which Are Prefixed Historical Anecdotes of His Life / by Joseph Ritson. 2nd ed., W. Pickering, 1832 via the State Library of New South Wales,DSM/821.04/R/v. 1
^In his table of contents, he separated the longer ballads from the shorter ballads into two parts; Part 1 containing the longer ballads were numbered I-V while the shorter ballads in Part 2 were numbered I-XXVIII
^Ritson,Robin Hood: A collection of all the Ancient Poems Songs and Ballads now extant, relative to that celebrated Outlaw. p. 155, 1820 edition.
^See Richard Utz, "Robin Hood, Frenched", in: Medieval Afterlives in Popular Culture, ed. by Gail Ashton and Daniel T. Kline (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012): 145–58.
^Fruoco, Jonathan (2017).Les Faits et Gestes de Robin des Bois. Poèmes, ballades et saynètes. UGA Editions.ISBN9782377470136.
^Oxford Dictionary of Christian Names, EG Withycombe, 1950.
^Albert Dauzat,Dictionnaire étymologique des noms de familles et prénoms de France, Librairie Larousse, Paris, 1980, Nouvelle édition revue et commentée parMarie-Thérèse Morlet, p. 523b.
^J. R. Maddicott, "Sir Edward the First and the Lessons of Baronial Reform" in Coss and Loyd ed,Thirteenth century England:1 Proceedings of the Newcastle Upon Tyne Conference 1985, Boydell and Brewer, p. 2.
^Maurice Hugh KeenThe Outlaws of Medieval England (1987), Routledge.
^Bower, Walter (1440). Knight, Stephen; Ohlgren, Thomas H. (eds.).Scotichronicon. Vol. III. Translated by Jones, A. I. Medieval Institute Publications (published 1997). p. 41.Archived from the original on 16 May 2019. Retrieved5 May 2020.
^Passage quoted and commented on in Stephen Knights,Robin Hood; A Mythic Biography, Cornell University Press (2003), p. 5.
^Coke, Edward (1644). "90, Against Roberdsmen".The Third Part of the Institutes of the Laws of England.
^Crook, David "The Sheriff of Nottingham and Robin Hood: The Genesis of the Legend?" In Peter R. Coss, S.D. Lloyd, ed.Thirteenth Century England University of Newcastle (1999).
^J.R. Maddicott, "Edward the First and the Lessons of Baronial Reform" in Coss and Loyd ed,Thirteenth century England: 1 Proceedings of the Newcastle Upon Tyne Conference 1985, Boydell and Brewer, p. 2.
^Hunter, Joseph, "Robin Hood", inRobin Hood: An Anthology of Scholarship and Criticism, ed. by Stephen Knight (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1999) pp. 187–96. Holt, pp. 75–76, summarised in Dobson and Taylor, p. xvii.
^Reginald Scot "Discourse upon divels and spirits" Chapter 21, quoted in Charles P. G. Scott "The Devil and His Imps: An Etymological Investigation" p. 129Transactions of the American Philological Association (1869–1896) Vol. 26, (1895), pp. 79–146 Published by: The Johns Hopkins University PressJSTOR2935696 2004,Imagining Robin Hood: The Late-Medieval Stories in Historical Context, RoutledgeISBN0-415-22308-3.
^The Outlaws of Medieval England Appendix 1, 1987, Routledge,ISBN0-7102-1203-8.
^Robert GravesEnglish and Scottish Ballads. London: William Heinemann, 1957; New York: Macmillan, 1957. See, in particular, Graves' notes to his reconstruction ofRobin Hood's Death.
^Matheson, Lister, "The Dialects and Language of Selected Robin Hood Poems", inRobin Hood: The Early Poems, 1465–1560 Texts, Contexts and Ideology ed. by Thomas Ohlgren (Delaware: University of Delaware Press, 2007 pp. 189–210).
^Bellamy, John,Robin Hood: An Historical Enquiry (London: Croom Helm, 1985). Bradbury, Jim,Robin Hood (Stroud: Amberley Publishing: 2010). Dobson, R.B., "The Genesis of a Popular Hero" inRobin Hood in Popular Culture: Violence, Transgression and Justice, ed. byThomas Hahn (Woodbridge: D.S. Brewer, 2000) pp. 61–77. Keen, Maurice,The Outlaws of Medieval Legend, 2nd edn (London and Henley: Routledge and Kegan Paul; Toronto and Buffalo: University of Toronto Press, 1977). Maddicot, J.R., Simon De Montfort (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).
^Joseph Hunter, "The Great Hero of the Ancient Minstrelsy of England",Critical and Historical Tracts, 4 (1852) (pp. 15–16).
^Borthowick Institute of Historical Research, St Anthony's Hall, York: R.III. F I xlvi b; R. III. F.16 xlvi (Kirk Smeaton Glebe Terriers of 7 June 1688 and 10 June 1857).
^Davis, John Paul,Robin Hood: The Unknown Templar (London: Peter Owen Publishers, 2009) See locations associated with Robin Hood below for further details.
^Roberts, Kai (20 March 2010)."Robin Hood's Grave, Kirklees Park".Ghosts and Legends of the Lower Calder Valley.Archived from the original on 1 April 2016. Retrieved13 June 2016.
^David Hepworth, "A Grave Tale", inRobin Hood: Medieval and Post-Medieval, ed. by Helen Phillips (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2005) pp. 91–112 (p. 94.)
^Grafton, Richard,A Chronicle at Large (London: 1569) p. 84 in Early English Books Online.
^La' Chance, A, "The Origins and Development of Robin Hood". Kapelle, William E.,The Norman Conquest of the North: The Region and Its Transformation, 1000–1135 (London: Croom Helm, 1979).
^Monkbretton Priory,Abstracts of the Chartularies of the Priory of Monkbretton, Vol. LXVI, ed. by J.W. Walker (Leeds: The Yorkshire Archaeological Society, 1924) p. 105.
^Dobson and Taylor, p. 18: "On balance therefore these 15th-century references to the Robin Hood legend seem to suggest that during the later Middle Ages the outlaw hero was more closely related to Barnsdale than Sherwood."
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