Gone Medieval - Legends of Robin Hood

Episode Date: May 16, 2025

Was Robin Hood a symbol of justice? A challenge to authority? Or simply a folk hero offering a fantasy of freedom? Whether or not he truly existed, Robin Hood is one of the most enduring figures from medieval England—so beloved that by the 15th century, churchmen complained their congregations liked stories of the outlaw more than sermons. But how did Robin Hood capture the medieval imagination so powerfully?Matt Lewis is joined by Professor Stephen H. Rigby to explore how Robin Hood’s legend took shape through ballads and dramas from as early as the 14th century, and how these tales evolved to reflect the social struggles, political anxieties, and popular culture of the time.MOREDefending a Castle:https://open.spotify.com/episode/4Ij54WeWRYBbcaIbRjrcVUMovie Knight (Robin Hood):https://open.spotify.com/episode/5uGVOS5S2Iz2Z23rtt3Od4Gone Medieval is presented by Matt Lewis. It was edited by Amy Haddow, the producers are Rob Weinberg and Joseph Knight. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.All music used is courtesy of Epidemic Sounds.Gone Medieval is a History Hit podcast.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. You can take part in our listener survey here: https://insights.historyhit.com/history-hit-podcast-always-on Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From long-loss Viking ships and kings buried in unexpected places to tales of murder, power, faith, and the lives of ordinary people across medieval Europe and beyond. Join me, Matt Lewis, Dr. Eleanor Jarniger, and some of the world's leading historians as we bring history's most fascinating stories to life only on history hit. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries with a brand-new release every week exploring everything from the ancient world,

to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. Hello, I'm Matt Lewis. Welcome to Gone Medieval from History Hit, the podcast that delves into the greatest millennium in human history. We've got the most intriguing mysteries, the gobsmacking details and latest groundbreaking research from the Vikings to the printing press, from kings to popes to the crusades. We cross centuries and continents to delve into rebellions, plots and murders to find the stories big and small that tell us how we got here. Find out who we really were with Gone Medieval. Whether he ever really existed or not, Robin Hood is one of the most important and enduring

characters from medieval England, who also possibly became even more popular in Scotland and Wales. By the 15th century, churchmen were even complaining that their congregations preferred to hear stories about Robin Hood rather than listen to the Word of God. Robin Hood's adventures can be traced to ballads and dramas that reach back as far as the 14th century and perhaps even further. Here's my telling of one such story that was documented around 1450, but maybe from even earlier than that. The forest awakens to the gentle whisper of a May morning, but Robin Hood is heavy-hearted. Devoted to the Virgin Mary, Robin spirit is yearning for the solace of attending mass and matins, but he is a wanted man everywhere.

Suddenly struck with inspiration, he declares his intention to attend a service in Nottingham. Ever cautious, much the Miller's son implores Robin to take a dozen men for protection. But Robin, stubborn and proud, brushes off the warning, setting off through the forest with only little John by his side. As they journey, the companion. companions have a bet with each other. Fate favours Little John and a heated argument erupts. Robin's pride is wounded and he refuses to pay up. Betrayed and furious Little John storms off, leaving Robin to go to Nottingham alone. Undeterred, he enters the hallowed precincts of St Mary's,

his heart swelling with reverence as he kneels in prayer. But this moment of peace is short-lived. A monk, once a victim of Robin's outlawry, spies him and hastily informs the sheriff of Nottingham. In a flurry of activity, a small army is rallied to apprehend the legendary outlaw. Robin is surrounded. Chaos erupts, but with the grace of a dancer and the ferocity of a cornered wolf, Robin takes hold of his two-handed sword. The cries of the wounded ring out as Robin's blade finds its mark again and again. 12 of the sheriff's men fall before his might.

But even legends can falter. As Robin crosses blades with the sheriff himself, his trusty sword shatters. Panic grips him as he dashes into the church, desperately seeking sanctuary. And then, silence. Robin's whereabouts are unknown, presumed, captured. When news of the confrontation reaches his loyal band, shock paralyzes all but Little John. With Steeley resolve, he vows to rescue their leader.

Little John and Mutch the Miller's son ambush a monk and his page, silencing them forever, and head into Nottingham, wearing their clothes. Robin's cell is found and swiftly Little John and Much dispatch the jailer. Robin emerges blinking in disbelief, but his heart swells with gratitude. He offers to serve Little John, but his loyal friend insists their roles remain unchanged. When word reaches the royal court,

the king's fury gives way to reluctant admiration for little John's unwavering loyalty. With a magnanimous gesture, the king lets the matter rest, and the legend of Robin Hood grows ever greater. So, what was the attract? of Robin Hood and his antics to the medieval mind. How did people know about him and spread his stories and how did the different versions reflect the concerns and issues of the time?

To find out, I'm joined by Stephen H. Rigby, Emeritus Professor of Medieval Social and Economic History at the University of Manchester, who edited the book, Historians on Robin Hood, which offers an introduction to a wide range of medieval writings about Robin Hood from different historical perspectives. Welcome to God Medieval, Stephen. Thank you for joining us. Right, yes, it's great to be here. Yeah, I can't wait to try and get to grips with the legend of Robin Hood,

but we're going to steer pretty clear of questioning whether he really existed or not, and we really want to get into the mindset of those who are writing these legends and those who are listening to these stories a little bit more, to understand kind of what Robin Hood meant rather than who he might or might not have been. And I thought we could start off with the book, out some interesting facets of place names that bear the name Robin Hood. So we've got things like Robin Hood's Bay in Yorkshire, Robin Hood's Stoop in Derbyshire. We've got some examples of people who use the name too. Do those place names come before Robin Hood or are they drawn from

the legend of Robin Hood? Probably the first reference to the legend of Robin Hood comes in 1262. We've got a man there who's called William Rob Hood or Rope Hood. These sort of compound surnames made up of a first name and a surname are quite unusual. So people have seen this surname in 1262 as a reference to the legend of Robin Hood already being in existence. After this day, they become quite common these surnames. In 1296 in Sussex, there's a taxpayer he's called Gilbert Robin Hood. So the Robin Hood surnames seem to suggest that the legend is there at quite an early date from the mid-13th century onwards. Robin Hood place names are slightly later, we've got some early 14th century references. The most famous one is Robin Hood's

Bay in Yorkshire. That's definitely in existence by 1377. In the 15th century, we've got a few references as Robin Hood's Stone in Barnsdale in Yorkshire. A couple of places in Nottingham are called Robin Hood's Close, Robin Hood's Well. Most of the Robin Hood's place names are 16th, 17th century onwards. Sometimes there are places called, say in Bradwell in Derbyshire, there's a place called Robbins Cross, which eventually becomes Robin Hood's Cross. Some of the places, we only know very late on. You mentioned Robin Hood Stoop, which is just outside Havisage in Derbyshire. The earliest reference for that is late 19th century. So lots of the surnames exist at an early date. The place names are often later. And with the use of the surname, if people are adopting

this kind of compound surname of Rob Hood or Robin Hood or anything like that, why would someone do that? If it is attached to the legend of this notorious outlaw, why would someone choose to attach that to themselves? Yeah, that isn't clear. David Crook, he's identified what he calls celebrity surnames. And we find people who often have the name of romance heroes or historical heroes. So in the 13th, 14th century, you get people call things like John, Gene. Jesus Christ or John Saladin or Richard Charlemagne. So it seems to fit in with the so-called celebrity surnames. So it probably implies that person had a particular interest because particularly in the 13th century, surnames aren't yet hereditary. Eventually, you do get whole families of

people with Robin Hood as a surname in the 14th century. Has surnames gradually become hereditary? It's been suggested that it might be people who were playing Robin Hood in parish revels and games. The problem is that the first reference to the parish revels and games are 1427, and yet we've got references to Robin Hood surnames as early as 1262. Yeah, an interesting one to try to get to the bottom of. And I guess there are more obvious parallels that are drawn by the time we get to kind of the Wars of the Roses, a kind of bit of medieval history I'm more familiar with, where you get rebels like Robin of Reedsdale emerging in the north,

who are kind of latching onto that Robin name as a kind of anti-establishment, rebelling against the government kind of business. Are they trying to also tap into something like the Robin Hood myths? The most famous example is probably in 1450 where there's a rising in Kent. And one of the leaders of the rising actually calls himself Robin Hood. So there is a very clear link.

I mean, the problem is that Robert at Hall, the diminutive form, Robin, is a very good. common name in medieval England. One interesting link of a name with Robin Hood was found by Andrew Aiton in the Isle of White in 1338. There's a list of soldiers in the garrison in the Isle of White. There's 25 men called Robert, but as it's in Latin, 24 of them are called Robertus. But one man whose surname was HUD, he's referred to in the documents as Robin Hood. It doesn't mean that he was actually Robin Hood, the outlaw, probably the clerk or the archer concern was probably having a laugh. But it does imply again that there is a knowledge by 1338

of the legend. Yeah, and then it means something enough for people to be given that kind of nickname or to have it attached to them either voluntarily or perhaps, you know, as a joke at their expense. But it must have meant something by that point to have been in use. Yeah, it implies of familiarity with stories about the outlaw, yeah. Yeah. So could you talk us through some of the earliest surviving medieval manuscript ballads of Robin Hood? When do they come into existence and what kind of stories do they tell us? Yeah. I've mentioned that probably the legend might be in existence by 1262. In 1377, in the very famous medieval poem, Pierce Plowman by William Langland, there's a character called Sloth. He represents the sin of sloth. And he's a priest. And it's said that he doesn't know the Lord's Prayer, the Patinoster. but he does know the rhymes of Robin Hood. So this is the first explicit reference to rhymes of Robin Hood.

The problem is then that the earliest stories, actual stories we've got of Robin Hood, are mid-15th century Almuts. So there's a very long gap between the legend being in existence, let's say in the mid-13th century, and the actual surviving stories which are mid-15th century. There are three definite medieval stories of Robin Hood. They're called ballads, but they weren't necessarily sung. They could have been chanted or recited.

One of them, Robin Hood and the monk, it refers to itself as a talking. So it's quite likely that these weren't literally sung. There are references to songs of Robin Hood, but song in Middle English could also mean a poem. And so these ballads are in verse, poetic form. So the three medieval ballads, there's Robin Hood and the monk, which is a, story of how Robin Hood goes to Nottingham. He's recognised by a monk as the outlaw, and he's captured by the Sheriff of Nottingham, and eventually Little John comes to his rescue. The second one is Robin Hood and the Potter, which again is probably late 15th century.

It's the story of how Robin disguises himself as a potter. He goes to Nottingham. He ends up having dinner with the Sheriff of Nottingham and his wife. He lures the sheriff into the the Greenwood, but eventually, out of love for the sheriff's wife, he sends the sheriff back to Nottingham, he sends him packing, and the sheriff is greeted by the mocking laughter of his wife. So it's a story there of how the sheriff is humiliated. The most famous one is called the jest of Robin Hood. It doesn't actually survive as a manuscript. There are various printed editions from the 1490s onwards through to the end of the 16th century, and it's quite a complicated story with a number of different plots and subplots. It's basically the story of how Robin comes

to the help of a poor knight who's in debt to the wealthy abbot of St. Mary's in York. Robin lends the knight the money so that the knight can repay the abbot, and the knight offers the Virgin Mary as a surety that he will repay the debt. Eventually, the knight is delayed and he can't repay the debt, but in the means of the time, one of the monks of St Mary's Abbey turns up, and of course Robin then takes the money off him and the Virgin Mary has provided Robin. She's been the surety for the debt. So there's one whole subplot about Robin the knight and the abbot. There's another subplot about Robin and the Sheriff of Nottingham. At one point, little John Luz, the sheriff into the Greenwood,

and they eventually allow him to go if he promises never to harm Robin and his men. But the sheriff then organises an archery contest, and of course it's supposed to be a trap for Robin and his men, eventually Robin returns to Nottingham and the Sheriff of Nottingham is killed. And then eventually King Edward, we're not told which King Edward turns up, and in order to find Robin, he has to disguise himself as a wealthy abbot himself. And eventually his identity is revealed, Robin is pardoned, he goes off to the royal court, he doesn't like life of at the Royal Court, and eventually he returns to the Greenwood and continues for another 20 years. And at the end of the jest, we're briefly referred to the death of Robin Hood, where he goes to

the priory of Kirk Lees, a nunnery, where his kinswoman lets his blood and weakens him, which allows him to be defeated by her lover, Sir Roger of Doncaster. Finally, there's three more ballads, but they all survive in a 17th century manuscript. There's, for instance, Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne. But it's a bit of a problem because they've seen as having 15th century origins, but they only exist in a mid-17th century form in the so-called Percy Folio. So we've got three definite medieval stories and three possible other ones. It's interesting then that we kind of get these different versions of

Robin Hood stories, which by the time they're being set down in sort of mid to late 15th century, have been in existence for a couple hundred years or more, if we rely on the use of the name Robin Hood. And I guess that's suggestive of oral tradition that there were probably lots of these stories of Robin Hood doing the rounds that eventually begin to be set down. So we have odd snippets of that kind of that are captured and frozen in amber forest in those manuscripts. But there might well have been, do you think, lots and lots of of other stories of Robin Hood doing the round for centuries in the medieval period? Yeah, it's very likely.

For instance, I mentioned at the end of the jest of Robin Hood, there's a sort of allusion, a brief allusion, to the death of Robin Hood, but it's just assumed that the audience already know about it, basically. And it's only because of the chance of survival of the mid-17th century ballad of Robin Hood, that we can actually see it. So it's likely that there are far more stories. I've mentioned these ballads of Robin Hood, the other form of existence of the legend is Robin Hood plays and games.

So, for instance, from around 1470, we've got a scripted drama called Robin Hood and the Sheriff of Nottingham, probably linked with the Praston family, the gentry family of Norfolk. And that tells a story of a bounty hunter who comes to look for Robin Hood. It's rather like the story of Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne. So another way that people would have been familiar with Robin Hood, Hood isn't just these ballads, but also with dramas. And linked with the drama are games of Robin Hood in a way like Robin Hood revels. The earliest existence of these is 1427. By the late 15th century, we've got lots of parish church wardens accounts, which mentioned they put on church ails, church

games to raise money. And Robin Hood is often part of these games. And probably there would have been a procession. There would have been perhaps sporting contests. There would have been a feast. So people would have been familiar with Robin Hood through this way as well. It's fascinating. I was going to ask about that connection to the church. So the church is willing to use some of these revels and these plays and these games as a way to raise money to build churches, to maintain churches and things like that. Do they struggle with any idea that this is sort of morally dubious, that you're tapping into the idea of this outlawed criminal and celebrating him? Does Does the church have an attitude to Robin Hood, is I guess what I'm asking?

And it's true. Lots of things about the medieval church is they don't have a single attitude to anything that has lots of different potentials. In the ballads, Robin himself is quite devout. And I mentioned that he's devoted to the Virgin Mary. We're told he won't attack any company which includes women because of his devotion to the Virgin Mary. And we're told at various points when he's in danger that the Virgin Mary comes to his aid.

So he himself is quite sort of orthodox in his devotion. Secondly, as have said, it's quite normal for Robin Hood to be used as a parish fundraiser, particularly people have argued that when there's particular church building project, let's say a new chapel or whatever, but then they turn to Robin Hood that he's successful as a fundraiser. On the other hand, there are the more moralistic writers, I've mentioned Langland already, who disapproves of this priest, who knows the stories of Robin Hood,

even though he doesn't know the Lord's Prayer. And from the 15th century, there's a number of sermon writers, churchmen, who disapprove of Robin Hood. They say, why do people listen to stories of Robin Hood? They should be listening to stories from the Bible or about saints. And he's associated with drunkenness, with lechery.

So there's a whole range of different attitudes. Even Lollard writers in the early 15th century, Lollards are sort of early Protestants, they too took the same attitude to Robin Hood. And in the early 16th century, early Protestant writers also adopt this. They say, why does the church allow people to hear stories of Robin Hood in English? And yet they won't allow people to have access to the Bible in English. So Robin Hood could be used for lots of different purposes. Yeah. Yeah, it was a fascinating facet of his story. So I was going to ask as well, kind of what do we know? about who these stories are being created and eventually written down for? What are they meant to tell an audience? What is an audience meant to get from these stories? Yeah, this has been a controversial issue amongst historians and literary scholars.

Basically, there's two ways of looking at who the ballads were aimed at and what their social message is. One way is to look at the contents of the ballads and then try to deduce who, would have found it attractive. So, for instance, one of the very early interpretations of Robin Hood was that Robin Hood was a sort of peasant hero. He was linked to peasant resistance to landlords, to the peasant's revolt of 1381. And so, for instance, his hostility to the sheriff of Nottingham was said to be linked to the sheriff's role in enforcing peasants to pay rents, to pay their labour services to their lords. Now, the problem is that virtually, every class in medieval England seems to have found sheriffs to be rather unpopular.

There are constant complaints about them. I mentioned the Pestons. John Pestan, he was actually involved in a fight with the local sheriff. One of the sheriff's men stabbed him at one point. He was outlawed. Three years later again, he appeared in the sheriff's court. So it's hard to say that it's particularly aimed at peasants. But interesting then that the Pastons would become linked to a version of a Robin Hood story

when they've kind of got almost their own little Robin Hood story going on of resistance and issues with the sheriff. And it almost looks like they could be trying to justify their own relationship with the sheriff, that the sheriff is the bad guy. Yeah, I've mentioned the play Robin Hood and the Sheriff of Nottingham, which seems to be owned by the Pestons. There's a famous letter from 1473 where John Peston refers to one of his servants who's left his service. And he says that his servant has left him and gone into Barnsdale. Barnsdale was one of the places associated with Robin Hood. So it's quite hard to pin down the ideology of the ballads as being linked to any one class. For instance, people have said, oh, King Edward in the jest of Robin Hood, he's probably supposed to be Edward III.

And Edward III was a great defender of English trade and industry. So this would have been popular with merchants, perhaps it's true. but the king in the ballad of the jest of Robin Hood, he doesn't do anything in relation to trade and industry. So I think lots of these attempts to link it to a particular social group have been challenged by historians and literary scholars. And the emphasis much more now is on how lots of different social groups found attractive. So if we look at the actual people we know who are linked with Robin Hood,

we find Robin Hood at the Royal Court, the Court of Henry VIII, in the early 16th century. We can find the prior of Worcester paying people to do plays with Robin Hood. I've mentioned the manuscript of Robin Hood and the monk that was actually owned by a mid-15th century, a cleric, Gilbert Pilkington. And then Robin Hood is put on in towns

like Exeter Shrewsbury, the sinkports. We find him in small villages. Lots of different groups all seem to have found something attractive about Robin Hood. I think it's easy for us to think think of him being this anti-establishment figure, but it's clear that the establishment were equally happy to use him. You know, if he's appearing in the court, he's being used by the church,

he's being used by parish churches and towns. He's clearly not really that kind of anti-establishment figure that we might have thought of him as. The problem is that the pastons part of the establishment, they're gentry, their landlords, but they themselves might have problems with authority. I think Robin often becomes associated with sort of fellowship, with freedom, with abundance, with resistance to it in justice, well, lots of different classes and groups might find that attractive. As early as 1357, there's an interesting incident. It's not specifically Robin Hood, but in 1357, the French king had been captured after the Battle of Poitiers is brought to England. On route to London, the king lays on a sort of drama in which yeoman

dressed in green appear, and they play out the role of outlaws. The King of France is a bit surprised surprised by this, he says, what's going on? And it's explained, oh, these are sort of a yeoman of the forest here. And so even the royal court itself seems to have adopted these stories. Of course, in the jest of Robin Hood, Robin is said to be loyal to the king. He says, I love no man so much as the king. Although even at the end of the ballad, he ends up defying the king. He leaves the royal court and goes back to our life of crime in the greenwood. Yeah. I was going to come back a little bit to kind of when Robin Hood might have generally been considered. But I wanted to just touch on the supporting cast. We've mentioned a couple of names that people will associate with the Robin Hood legend,

particularly we mentioned the Sheriff of Nottingham, we've mentioned Little John. I wondered when they become attached to the stories of Robin Hood. How many of those familiar figures like Little John are there from the beginning, and how many kind of get tacked on over the centuries that follow? Yeah, Little John is certainly very prominent in the stories. were told in the Jester Robin Hood that Robin Hood had 140 outlaws. It's very unlikely that any robber gang would be 140 strong.

But anyway, he's supposed to have 140 outlaws. Various of them are named. There's Little John, we've mentioned already. There's a character called William Scavalok, who eventually, in the later stories, becomes Will Scarlett. There's a character called Gilbert of the White Hand, who doesn't, probably not so familiar to modern people.

William Scathalock, Gilbert of the White Hand, probably the two most famous ones are Maid Marian and Friottuck. In 1417, there was an actual real-life robber called Friar Tuck in Surrey and Sussex, and it's not clear if Friott took was already part of the Robin Hood story, whether this character had taken the name because he was part of the Robin Hood legend. Certainly by the time of Robin Hood and the Sheriff of Nottingham, the play of 1470, Friar Took is part of that story. And then in, it seems likely that the friar really becomes part of the legend

through these Robin Hood plays and games. We have references to the friars and eventually to Friar took in these parish revels of the early 16th century. Maid Marian is interesting. From the late 12th century in France, there were stories of these rustic lovers, Robin and Marion, but they're nothing to do with the outlaws. They're shepherds and peasants.

John Gower, a contemporary of Chaucer here in the 1370s, he refers to Robin and Marion, but again, there's a rustic lovers. They're not actually outlaws. The earliest reference to Maid Marion comes in 1509 in one of these Robin Hood revels. There's payment for the costume of Maid Marian in the Kingston Churchwarden's accounts,

and it then seems that she becomes central to the legend. It's only in the 17th century. There's a ballad of Robin and Marion, and really she's only become central to the Robin Hood legend in the 19th century in novels, particularly in the 20th century in the films of Robin Hood. In the medieval stories themselves, there's no mention of Maid Marian. Robin's only devotion is to the Virgin Mary rather than to maid Marion. As Catherine Lewis has shown, women have quite a minor role in the ballads. There's the poor knight in the jest. His wife comes to his rescue at one point. She goes to fetch Robin when the knight's captured by the sheriff. There's the sheriff's wife in Robin Hood and

the Potter, and then there's the treacherous prioress of Kirkley's in the death of Robin Hood. So this romance element is a later addition to the story. But fascinating that they might have picked up on an existing sort of Roman romantic older story about characters named Robin and Marion. And so if you're looking for a love interest for Robin, is Marion a good fit? Because somewhere in the medieval consciousness and a little bit later, there is a connection between a Robin and a Marion. Yeah, in a way, I think the name are familiar, but the stories about them were very different. Yeah, yeah. Is the Sheriff of Nottingham always Robin's enemy? Is it specifically Nottingham and its sheriff

that is always his main enemy? Yeah, in nearly all of the ballads. I mean, we think of Robin Hood as robbing from the rich to give to the poor. In some of the stories he does that, particularly the jest, where he comes to the aid of the poor knight. But in lots of the stories, the story is actually about the hostility between Robin and the Sheriff of Nottingham rather than Robin coming to the aid of poor people.

This hostility is never explained. Often in stories about outlaws, at the beginning, of the story, the outlaw will suffer an injustice. And this then makes us sympathize with him, even though he might become a criminal, a robber, even a murderer, were on his side because he suffered an injustice. But in the Robin Hood stories, it's simply taken as a given that he's an outlaw. It's never really explained why he's an outlaw. And the hostility to the sheriff is never explained. There's a problem in the stories in that we now associate Robin with Nottingham and with Sherwood Forest, but in lots of the early stories, particularly the Jest,

Robin is said to be based in Barnsdale in the West Riding of Yorkshire. And certainly the author of the Jest seems to have a knowledge of the local geography. He refers to various places in Barnsdale. I've mentioned in 1422 there was a stone called Robin Hood Stone in Barnsdale. It's this area near Pontifract and Doncaster. By 1306, it was famous as a haunt of robbers. So in the stories, Robin is sometimes based in Sherwood Forest, as Robin Hood and the Monk, sometimes in Barnsdale, and sometimes he seems to flit between the two different places.

One problem is that even when he's based in Barnsdale, which is in Yorkshire, his enemy is the Sheriff of Nottingham rather than the Sheriff of York. So this might perhaps explain different strands of the story which predate the surviving forms of the ballads. Yeah, and I wonder how much there's a temptation for those telling the stories in particular to kind of localise it. You know, everyone wants a local hero or something that they can recognise. So does Robin move around to fit in with sort of local concerns? And is he sort of a local hero wherever you happen to live? Not really because he's only really linked with these two places, Barnsdale and Shoeward.

But what's interesting is that Robin Hood seems to be popular all over the country. particularly these Robin Hood surnames are found in the south of England. The Robin Hood plays and games, they seem to be particularly based in the south of England, particularly southwest and in the Thames Valley as well, although we had more evidence for the south and for the north. It's been suggested that southern audiences might have seen these stories as being about the sort of wild and woolly north, a sort of place of criminality and outlaws. So even though Robin isn't specifically linked with the other places. He is found the legend, and references to the legend are found all over the country.

I mentioned that Pryor O'Wuster in the southwest, Stephen Fathers in Devon, that various parishes have these Robin Hood games in East Anglia, the Pastons. So he does seem to be a national figure. And I guess alongside the question of where Robin Hood might be is the question of when Robin Hood might be. We tend to associate him now in the more modern legends with the reign of Richard I, particularly while he's away on Crusade and issues around King John. You mentioned that we get a non-specific King Edward. Do we get any sense of when the medieval setting was for Robin Hood in terms of his time, or did he move around, or did it not matter what time he existed in? Yeah, most of these stories are not specific to in terms of that period.

which the stories are located. In the jest, we've got this unspecified King Edward. Well, that could be Edward the first, second or third, between 1272, 1377. It's even been suggested that it's a reference to Edward VIII in the 15th century. In Robin Hood and the monk, there is a king, but we're not even told his name. And in the other stories, it's not really specific historically. There were various attempts by medieval writers to link him with a particular historical period. In the In 1480s, there's a document called the Rouse Roll, which is a history of the Earl of Warwick. And there's a mention of the Earl of Warwick from 1298 to 1315, and Rouse suggested that this was the time when Robin Hood was in existence. We've got a chronicle in England from the 1460s.

This refers to Robin Hood in the 1290s. So it's a very different period from the one we associate him with Richard and the Lionheart. There's three Scottish writers, and they all see Robin as a genuine historical figure, but none of them can agree on when Robin was. The first one is Andrew Winton. He links Robin with the early 1280s. He's writing in the 1420s. About 20 years later, Walter Bauer, he said Robin and Little John were followers of Simon

Demontfort, the baronial leader. And after DeMontfort's defeat, his followers become the disinherited. And so Bauer sees Robin and Little John as being amongst the disinherited. Finally, around 1,500, the Scottish scholar John Major or John Mayer, he locates Robin for the first time at the time of the transition from Richard I to King John in that period, around the later 1190's early 13th century. And after that date, it becomes much more. standard to link Robin with Richard the First Absence on Crusade.

In Anthony Mondays, two plays about Robin Hood in the late 16th century, it's this period which becomes the period for Robin Hood. So we now associate Robin with Richard the Lionheart. The actual medieval ballads make no such connection. And fascinating that he can move across such a broad span of time, sort of almost from the reign of Richard I, all the way through the 13th century in Simon de Montfort into one of the three Edwards that follows potentially stretching even to Edward the fourth. And it almost doesn't seem to matter

to the audience precisely when he is. It seems like he fits into moments almost of crisis. So you've got a king absent on Crusade, the transition to John, who will lead on to Magna Carta, Simon de Montfort and his opposition to Henry III. Edward I, the first. You've got the Scottish Wars, Edward the second, obviously the problems that come along with Edward the same. and Edward Vourth, you know, Wars of the Roses. It almost seems like he fits into moments of national crisis. Is that relevant at all? Is he telling a story about a country in crisis?

No, I don't think that it's linked to those specific types of events. The stories are much, hit away, much more moralistic. They're quite vague. They're about lots of them, the opposition between Robin and the sheriff. So the theme is, this is what Stephen Knight has argued, resistance to wrongful authority. At the end of the Jess, it's not just even wrongful authority, it's resistance to authority as Richard defies the king

and goes back to the Greenwood. And in a sense, I think if they were just about one particular period, perhaps they wouldn't be so flexible, they wouldn't appeal to such different audiences across the centuries. Yeah, so there's not really a historical Robin Hood in the early ballads. Later on, of course, it becomes standard to link him with the King's absence in the Crusade, things like Walter Scott's, Ivanhoe, and so on.

What then does the emergence of these Robin Hood stories, their popularity that leads to them being written down in several cases, and also their malleability, the way that they change across time and place and subject matter? What does that tell us about the audiences that they're created for? What are they interested in? What are they concerned by? What are they entertained by? Yeah, I've mentioned that the audience seems to be very varied. socially. An interesting way of thinking about the nature of Robin Hood is Eric Hobsbourne's idea of the social bandit. Hobbsbourne basically created the study of banditry as an academic subject, and he came up with the idea of the social bandit. And the social bandit isn't just a criminal

who might go around killing or robbing. They're a criminal who is in some way admired by the community. They might be supported by the community. or they might see themselves as robbing from the rich and giving to the poor even in some cases. Their deeds might be celebrated in song and stories. Characters like Jesse James, Billy the Kid, often the stories that were told about them were very different from the realities or romanticised stories about them coming to the aid of poor widows or this kind of thing. And Hobbesworn distinguished three types of social bandit.

One he calls the Avenger. and the Avenger is often very sadistic. What you admire about the Avenger is the power and the violence of them. The stories about Brazilian Avengers who make their victims dance with a cactus or eat a barrel of soul, this kind of thing. Secondly, there's what Holmes one calls the Hayducks. It's a Balkan word meaning a robber. And what people admire about the robber is that they've chosen a life of robbery over a life of poverty. But thirdly, the main type of social bandit, always the most popular, is the so-called noble robber.

And they're not necessarily noble in their birth, because in fact we're told Robin Hood in the medieval stories wasn't a nobleman, he was a yeoman. They're noble in their deeds. So, for instance, they write wrongs, as Robin does with the poor knight, or they rob from the rich and give to the poor, were told in the jester Robin Hood, Robin did poor men much good. They're very skilled, martially, they're great archers, great swordsmen. They're basically invulnerable. In Robin Hood and the monk, for instance, Robin kills 12 people before he's eventually captured. He's only captured because his sword breaks in two. Often they're masters of disguise, like when Robin Hood disguises himself as a potter and tricks the sheriff of Nottingham. So in lots of these ways we admire them,

their enemies are often not the central authority, the king or the emperor, but some local figure, like the clergy, like the abbot of St. Mary, the Sheriff of Nottingham. So although Robin or the social bandit might be a criminal, he's not actually a traitor. Eventually, at the end of these stories, the social bandit, the noble robber, is often reintegrated back into society, as Robin is when he's pardoned by the king at the end of the jest. Alternatively, as also happens at the end of the jest, the bandit can be killed, but he's only ever killed by treachery. In Robin's case, he's weakened by having his bloodlet,

and even then he dies a brave death. He manages to kill Sir Roger or Red Roger, as he's also called, before he himself dies. So these kind of stories, they seem to exist in lots of different societies, across lots of different places all over the world, right from antiquity through to the modern day. We still find stories of Robin Hood,

interesting, appealing even now. So I think it's this, in a sense, a very general attraction. In the 18th century, there were stories about pirate ships and pirate communities, and in a sense, the pirates were romanticised.

They were said to represent liberty, equality, fraternity, these 18th century ideals. So Robin Hood, he represents fellowship, freedom, abundance. It's sort of utopian vision of life in the Greenwood, free of responsibility, free of labour, defying authority, who wouldn't find that attractive? Yeah, absolutely. And it's interesting when you talk about the noble criminal and not necessarily coming from a socially noble background, because again, we have this

weird tag on to Robin's story about being Earl of Loxley or potentially Earl of Loxley. So there is at some point an effort to make him a nobleman, But actually the more attractive part of the story is that he's noble, despite not being born a nobleman in the medieval mind. Yeah, from the 16th century, Robin becomes sort of gentrified, or he's made into a nobleman. Often he's said to be the Earl of Huntington, as in those Anthony Mundy plays I mentioned in the late 16th century.

In the medieval stories, they always insist that Robin and the other members of his band, the merry men, are yeoman, as Louisa Faroogee has shown, yeoman means a lot of different things in the Middle Ages. In the context of the stories of Robin Hood, it seems to mean someone who is respectable and virtuous and admirable and yet who isn't actually part of the upper class or of the nobility. We're told that Robin is the most courteous of outlaws

and there's quite a lot of emphasis on his courtesy. Now, in lots of medieval stories, courtesy was associated. with the nobility. In fact, the very word courtesy was linked with the court because at the court, noblemen will want to impress the other noblemen by their virtue, they'll want to emulate their peers and so on. So courtesy could be seen as specifically a noble virtue. What's interesting is that Robin has lots of the attributes of courtesy. Now, courtesy in the Middle Ages had two senses. One is courtesy as we think of it, meaning good manners. So Robin, for instance, knows to doff his hood when he meets the night. He always washes his hands before they have the feast, which was a great ritual part of medieval feasting. So he has these good manners. But in the Middle Ages, courtesy was seen as the basis of virtue itself. All the virtues were embodied in courtesy. So for instance, when the knight goes to the abbot of St. Mary's, he begs for mercy. He says, will you give me longer to repay my debt?

And he says, will you be courteous to me? And similarly, when the knight eventually turns up to repay Robin, although Robin's already been repaid by the Virgin Mary, he says, I'm going to repay you for the courtesy you showed me in giving me the money to repay the abbot. So courtesy has got this wider moral sense. So Robin is courteous in both ways. And there's a great insistence then that he can be courteous even though he's not actually part of the nobility. How close do you think we can get to understanding what Robin Hood really meant to the medieval mind? Because he seems like what I'm getting from what we've been discussing is that he's very much a bucket character. He's like a lucky dip. You know, you can almost take whatever you want

from the story of Robin Hood. He can be the noble criminal. He can be the rough and ready outlaw. He can be this pious man who is doing God's work. He has an enemy in authority, but it's almost entirely the Sheriff of Nottingham, as he said, unspecified reasons. He's courteous. He has this band of men around him. He represents resistance to authority. But he's not always kind of cruel and brutal and that kind of thing.

So is he just someone that you can draw almost anything that you want from a story of Robin Hood? Yeah, Robin is very flexible. We're most familiar with this with how he varies over time. For instance, how he becomes a nobleman or how made Marion becomes part. the story or how, you know, the story of Richard I first and the bad Prince John, so on, that these different aspects are introduced over the time. But what's interesting is that even in the medieval period, Robin's got these different facets. So, for instance, in the story Robin

and Guy of Gisborne, it's quite a violent, dark story as Robin takes his revenge on this bounty hunter. On the other hand, in Robin Hood and the Potter, it's a funny story. Robin becomes there, the trickster. In lots of the stories, it's just Robin versus the sheriff. In the jest of Robin Hood, it's much more about Robin as the noble robber who writes wrongs and who robbed from the rich gives to the poor. So he means lots of different things. We've mentioned as well the revels there where he becomes this sort of a character in the revels. Interestingly, in the revels, although there's mentions of Friott, Little John, Robin Hood, made Marion, there's no reference to the Sheriff of Nottingham in the Revels before 1572.

So it seems there that it's a more sort of, it's the May Games Robin Hood, the pleasant Robin Hood, rather than the anti-authority or violent Robin Hood. So it seems like Robin, well, he becomes all things to all people, as Pollard put it. Yeah, and so there's clearly something in his story or the various stories that exist of him that really appeals to people at a really basic level across time and across societal structures and all of those kinds of things. Robin Hood can mean something to anybody.

Yeah, I mean, he even is perhaps associated with stories for young people. One of very early references to Robin Hood rhymes we've got is from the early 15th century, a manuscript that's now in Lincoln, which seems to be a schoolboy translation exercise from Latin into, well, from English rather, into a Latin. There's four lines about Robin Hood there.

One of the things that the moralists complained about was that stories of Robin Hood corrupt the youth, these stories of someone who's robber, disloyal to the king, who's violent. So it seems that everybody finds something in Robin Hood. I mentioned the jest of Robin Hood, the printed editions. The first owner that we know of this is a woman, called Audrey Holman in the late 16th century. So it seems it could be female audience for Robin Hood as well. So in a sense, because they're quite vague the stories, they're about injustice, they're about

resistance to authority. In a sense, anyone can identify with those ideals. Yeah, yeah. Well, it's been absolutely fascinating to try and get a little bit closer to the origins of the legends and the stories about Robin Hood. And interesting to discover just how malleable he is and and how wide and broad his appeal across the centuries has been, and probably how unfamiliar a medieval audience would be with what we would say is the legend of Robin Hood today. It's obviously changed and maybe we'll continue to change over time, but seems to appeal to something very basic in all of us as human beings.

We have an interest in some aspect of the story. It's been absolutely fascinating. Thank you very much for joining us, Stephen. Right, thanks a lot. If you're keen to find out more, you can get the book Stephen has edited historians on Robin Hood now. We've got episodes in our back catalogs too on the discovery of what amounts to a medieval stand-up routine and an episode on Carlisle Castle called Defending a Castle that has a section on a story not dissimilar to Robin Hood, which we explore

the meanings of. There are new installments of Gone Medieval every Tuesday and Friday, so please come back and join Eleanor and I for more from the greatest millennium in human history. Don't forget to also subscribe or follow us on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts and tell all of your friends and family that you've gone medieval. You can sign up to History Hit to access hundreds of hours of original documentaries with a new release every week and all of History Hits podcasts ad-free. Sign up now at historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. Go on. You know you want to.

Anyway, I better let you go. I've been Matt Lewis and we've just gone medieval with history hit.