The legendary Robin Hood was just a Yorkshire lad from Wakefield

Posted in English Literature, Historical articles, History, Legend, Myth on Friday, 15 November 2013

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This edited article about Robin Hood first appeared in Look and Learn issue number 460 published on 7 November 1970.

Robin Hood, picture, image, illustration

Robin Hood with the Sheriff of Nottingham's soldiers in hot pursuit by John Millar Watt

The banqueting room of Nottingham town hall was packed with richly clothed nobles, tearing hunks of roast beef from enormous joints and swilling them down with gulps of wine from glittering silver cups.

At the head of the table sat the sheriff, a rich, powerful and cruel man. A servant banged a gong, and the sheriff rose unsteadily from his throne-like chair and cried out:

“Gentlemen, I give you a toast! To the downfall of Robin Hood, and God bless our Prince John.”

Suddenly, a door banged, followed by the noise of other doors and windows being opened and shut. A tall, handsome man, clothed in green and wearing a forester’s cap, leapt on to the table.

From the other doors and windows emerged a dozen similarly dressed followers, armed with swords or bows.

The sheriff sank back into his chair. “It’s Robin Hood,” he gasped.

The tall man in green smiled. “Turn out your pockets, gentlemen,” he ordered.

Few people have not at some time or other had this sort of image of Robin Hood, the celebrated outlaw of Sherwood Forest, who robbed the rich to give to the poor, who was the implacable enemy of Prince John and the Sheriff of Nottingham.

But did Robin Hood exist and, if so, was he as legend has portrayed him?

The evidence for Robin’s existence is meagre, to say the least. Most of what we know is derived from poems, ballads and plays. Throughout literature, however, there runs a slender thread of historical fact.

Beginning with the poetry, the earliest ballads mentioning Robin’s name were written in the North of England in the Middle Ages.

Additions to the legends were made over the next 200 years, some of which confused details of Robin’s career with those of Hereward the Wake and Sir William Wallace.

If the authenticity of Robin were to rest entirely on the literary references to him, it is easy to see why to some he never existed at all.

There is more evidence than these literary references, however, and some arguments in favour of Robin’s genuine existence are worth considering.

The author of The Vision of Piers Plowman, William Langland, refers to Robin. This book, which has some history in it, was produced during the reign of Edward III (1327-77). It contains a passage in which a priest says that he knows rhymes about Robin Hood and Ranulf, Earl of Chester.

Clearly, Robin was fairly widely known by the middle of the 14th century. Moreover, Ranulf, Earl of Chester, was a genuine historical figure who besieged Nottingham Castle in 1194 on behalf of Richard I.

In the 1340s, a Scottish historian, John Fordun, wrote: “In that time (the reign of Richard I – 1189-1199 – ) arose among the disinherited the famous freebooter Robert Hood, whom the common people are so fond of celebrating by games and plays.”

The suggestions derived from the ballads and plays give two periods of history at which Robin existed in two different districts. Some say that he was a contemporary of Edward II (1307-1327) and came from Wakefield in Yorkshire.

This idea gains some support from the fact that in the Household Accounts of 1323, a Robyn Hode received payment of 3d. a day as one of the valets of the chamber. The payment ran for six months, at the end of which Robin received a gift of 5s. because “he could no longer work.”

But despite this, the name Hood was not uncommon in Yorkshire and several Hoods were actually employed in royal service.

The other suggestion of the literature is that Robin lived in the reign of Richard I and operated in Sherwood Forest. On the strength of available evidence, this placing of Robin is more acceptable. Both Langland and Fordun support it. Many Tudor historians believed it. There is a paper in the British Museum which says that Robin Hood was born in 1160.

In the Pipe Rolls of Henry III (1216-1272) for 1228, 1230 and 1231, there occur entries to the effect that the sheriff of Yorkshire owes 32s. 6d. to the exchequer in respect of chattels of one Robertus Hod, fugitivus (Robin Hood, outlaw). A point worth noting here: Sherwood Forest extended into Yorkshire in this century.

If these dates in Henry III’s reign were the closing years of Robin’s life, they confirm that he was born in the reign of Henry II, and they allow him to have been active in Richard I’s reign. Indeed, they make him a contemporary of Ranulf, Earl of Chester, as Langland asserted.

There is a case, then, for the existence of Robin Hood, and for the suggestion that he was a contemporary of King Richard I and King John. How he really occupied his life is not certain, but, as there were known to be several outlaws bands roaming the wooded districts of England at the time, engaged in lifting the riches of the nobles and distributing them among the poor, there is no reason why Robin should not have been the leader of one of these gangs.

One thing is certain – whether he existed or not the bandit of Sherwood Forest will always remain firmly entrenched in the legends of England.

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