Robin Hood: A Historiography

NICOiE CARTER

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‘rymes,’‘tales,’‘songs.’‘gests.’or’fablesY Ilowevcr, some may be considered drama, scichas Robin hood and the lilonk. while others remain closet to comedy, such as Robin hood and the Potte,: The earliest extant ballads include—A GesrofRobin Hode(often called simply the Gecr, Robin Hood and the Monk. Robin hood and the Potter, Robin hood and GuvoiGisborne, and Robin hood’s Death. These fivereceive the most historical concern because they come closest to representing the original version of the ballad. They also share several common elements. Robin is always called a yeoman, rather than a dispossessed nobleman—that version of the talc (the ‘gentrification’ of Robin) did not appear until the 159os. In fact, Robin I lood’s reason for being an outlaw remains unstated. Robin’s companions always include Little John, Much the Miller’s Son, and Will Scarlct.° Maid Marian and Friar Tuckwere later additions. The tales also alwaystake place in summer. butwith two locations competing as Robin’s residence: Sherwood Forest in Nottinghamshire or Barnsdale in Yorkshire. The sheriff, however, is always the sheriff of Nottingham. Robin I lood historiography draws tipon analyses of various details and themes within these five ballads, making it useful to begin with a brief synopsis of each.

A GestofRobin Iloocf:

In print around Ioo, the Gestis a long rambling narrative, likelycompiled from several older oral and textual traditions, and contains inconsistencies in style, plot, character, and message.3 A long poem of 456 four-line stanzas, divided into eight cantos or ‘fi,ttcs,’it is both the longest and the most frequently disetissed of the ballads:

Fvne i. In the Barnsdale greenwood with his men, Robin will not dine tintil he has welcomed an unexpected guest to the feast. Little John. Much, and Will are sent otit to the road to capture such a ‘guest.’‘lucy soon encounter a buight who accepts their invitation to dine and enjoys feasting with Robin I lood. After dinner Robin suggests that the knight should pay for the meal. The knight pleads povertyand John verifies his lack of money through a search of his belongings. The knight explains: in order to pay bail for his son. who ha.scommitted homicide. he had to mortgage his estate for 400 potinds to the abbot of St. Mary’s.York. The debt is now due and the knight doesn’t have the moneyto pay it. Robin decides to lend himthe money,with the knight pledging repayment upon the name of the Virgin Mary. W’iththis advance and the provision ala suitable horse and attire, the knight is sent on his way, accompanied by Little John acting as his servant. Fytte 2. In York. the abbot, the sheriff, and the high justice of England (who has been retained under cloth and fee by the abbot) sit relishing the due date and greedily anticipating that the knight will not be able to fulfillhis debt. The knight appears, poorly dressed, and begs each in mm to accept his service

Robin Hood ‘ballads’ are not ballads in the modem sense in that they were intended to be recited rather than sung. Peter Coss, “Aspects of Cultural Diffusion in Medieval England: Robin Hood” in Stephen Knight, ed., Anthologj’, 333. ‘° Also spelled Scarlock or Scathelock. Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire arc bordering counties. 12 This following summary is derived from]. C. Holt Robin Hood, 17-22. ‘ Holt, Robin Hood, 22 and Gray “Robin Hood Poems,” 7.

Ex PosT FACTO Robin Hood: A Historiography of friendship rather than money. Each refuses. i’hc knight then payshis debt much to the disappointment of the abbot. Fyttc 3. Little John takes part in an archery contest and the sheriff, impressed by John’s performance, invites him into his service. John, alias Reynold Greenlefe, accepts out of a determination to get revenge tipon the sheriff. While the sheriff is out hunting, John quarrels with the cook and when they get to fighting, the cook proves so hardy of an adversary that John asks him to join Robin’s band to which the cook agrees. ‘ITheysteal the sheriffs valuables and lure him to Robin in the forest. The sheriff is capnired and, spending a night in the woods, is released after swearing on Robin’s sword never to harm Robin or do other than aid his men. Fytte . In the forest, John. Much and Will again lay in wait for a ‘dinner gucst.’Thev capture a monk by force after his escort flees. The monk turns out to be the high cellarer of Sc Mary’sand Robin decides he has been sent to repay the knight’s debt which was pledged in Mary’sname). The lying cellarer denies all knowledge of any debt and claims to be carrying only twenty marks. John searches his baggage and finds 8oo pounds which the outlaw’s take, receiving repayment twofold. The monk sent on his way. The knight realms to repay Robin’s loan but Robin instead gives him the extra oo pounds. F7uc 5. The sheriff holds an archery contest with a gold and silver arrow’as a prize for the victor, Robin and his men take part and Robin wins. 1 ‘hesheriff betrays his word and raises the hue and cry against them. ‘l’heoutlaws flee btit John is wounded in the knee, forcing them to take refuge in the castle of Sir Richard at the Lee, who is identified as the knight from the previous f,trcs. Fytte 6. The sheriff wages siege on Sir Richard’s castle. Unsuccessful, he goes off to I.ondon to appeal to the king. Robin and John. now recovered, return to the forest. iThe sheriff returns and takes revenge by capturing the knight. Robin receives word via the knight’swife, pursues the sheriff to Nottingham. and kills him by shooting him with arrow and then beheading him. ‘l’heotitlaw’srescue the knight from the sheriffs they (outlaws and knight) take refuge in the forest until Robin can obtain pardons from the king. Fyttc . The king comes to Nottingham, wanting to capture Robin I lood, who has depleted his forest of deer. Unstieccssftil at finding Robin, the king enters the forest with small company disguised as monks and himself disguised as abbot. They are promptly waylaid and entertained in Robin’s tisual manner, After dinner, Robin holds an archery contest in which anyone who misses a shot will be struck on the head. When Robin misses his shot, the ‘abbot’strikes him so forcefully that the otitlaws suddenly recognize him as the king. They drop to their knees and ask for pardons. The king pardons them and then asks them to enter the royal service. The king, impressed with the loyalty of Robin’s men (to Robin), temporarily adopts Robin’s color of Lincoln green. Fyrte 8. ‘Ihe king and the outlaws return to Nottingham and thence to London. The knight is restored to his land, Robin, after a year or more in the king’s service, grows melancholy with longings for his old life. All his men have left him except John and Will and he has exhausted his wealth in the rich world of the court. Robin obtains pemlission to visit a chapel in Barnsdalc. Released from service, he rctinites with his band and lives in the threst for

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twenty two years. In the end, he is slain by treachery. lie visits his relative. the prioress of Kirklees. for medical treatment. She and her lover, Sir Roger of Doncaster. and plot the outlaw’s death. The Gecrends briefly with a prayer for Robin’s soul.

Robin Hood and the Mo,ih’4: Dated around i.o.

Robin I lood wishes to attend chtirch in Nottingham despite his comrades’ advice against it. John accompanies him on the road and the two have an informal shooting match. John wins, but Robin is such a sore loser—hitting John over the head—thatJohn departs in anger, telling Robin to find himself another companion. Alone. Robin is identified b’ a monk at St. Man’s church who calls upon the sheriff to arrest him. Robin fights off and kills twelveof the sheriffs men before his sword hreaI and he is captured. In the woods. Robin’s men hear of his betrayalby the monk. John says he and Much will find the monk and save Robin. Pretending to be yitjj of Robin I loud. they meet the monk, kill him and take his letters (from the sheriff announcing the capture of Robin I lood) on to the king. John receives a warrant from the king to deliver Robin to his (the king’s)custody. On their return to Nottingham on this errand, John and Much are welcomed and entertained by the sheriff, before breaking Robin out of prison at night and returning to Sherwood, John point otir that he has done Robin ‘agode nirne for an cvuyhl’ and Robin offers to make John ‘rnaister...Off all my men and me,’but John declines, preferring a system of fellowship. l3eguiled. the sheriff fears punishment by the king but the king. equally bcgtuled, is forced to acknowledge that John. a faithful servant. ‘istrue to his maister’ and has ‘begyled vs alle.’

Robin hood and rue Potter:

A ‘proud potter’appears. travelingthrough the greenwood. John refuses to accost him since he has fought this potter before and lost. Robin bets on himself against tile newcomer btit the potter wins and is paid. Robin exchanges clothes w’ithhim and goes off to Nottingham in the gurscof a pOflet. In town. Robin sells his pots quickly and well below market value; lie gives the last pots to the sheriffs wife and is invited to dinner, The sheriffs men hold a shooting match. Robin is given a bow, shoots, wins, and is praised by the sheriff. The ‘potter’ says lie has a bow in his cart that Robin I loud gave him, and the sheriff says lie w’ouldgive a htmdred pounds to meet Robin I hood. The next day they head for the forest, though before leaiing Robin gives the sheriffs w’ifea gold ring. In the forest Robin blows his horn. All the outlaws appear, take the sheriffs gold and horse, and send him home on foot. Robin sends the sheriffs wife a white palfrey (a lady’shorse). ‘rue wife laughs when she hears the story and tells the sheriff he has paid for the pots Robin

4 The following summaries of Robin Hood and the Monk, Robin Hood and the Poller, Robin Hood and Guy of Guisborne, and Robin Hood’s Death are derived from Stephen Knight, Complete Study, 52-60.

Ex POST FACTO Robin Hood: A Historiography

gave her. Rack in the forest Robin gives the potter ten pounds for his pots *a large sum) and says he svillalways be welcome in the forest.

Robin hood and Guy olGisborne:

In the greenwood, Robin mentions a dream he has had of impending violence [text damaged]. Robin and John sec another man along the road but they argue about who will accost him. John leaves angrily, goes off to Rarnsdale and is captured by the sheriff. Meanwhile Robin meets the stranger, who introduces himsclfas Guy olGisborne, a houncy-huinterseeking Robin I lood. Robin (not identifying himself) stiggests they share the quest. They stride through the woods amusing themselves with a shooting competition, which Robin wins; then Robin reveals himself and they fight have a duel which last for two hours before Robin succeeds in killing Guy. Robin cuts oft (,us head and sticks iron his bow’send noting that Guy has been a traitor all his life. Robin then disfigures Gtiy’sface so that no one can recognize him and exchanges clothes tvith the dead man. Robin blows Guy’s horn and the sheriff comes to offer’Guy’ a reward for killing Robin. Robin refuses gold but asks to killJohn (whom the sheriff has tJrouightwith him). Instead of killing John, though, he frees him and hands him Guy’sbow. The sheriff runs towards his hotisc in Nottingham but John shoots him in the back cleaving his heart in

Robin hood’s Death:

Robin says he mtist go to Clmrehlees for bloodletting. \\‘ill Scarlet objects. but Robin agrees to take John with him, and they go oft shooting. On the way, Robin receives a warning to not let blood this day. The prioress bleeds Robin too much; John appears; Robin escapes through a window’and yet is stabbed by’Red Roger.’ Robin kills Roger. btit is himself fatallywounded. Robin stops John from taking vengeance by htiming the priory, and tells John to bury him—apparently not in the greenwood.

The historiography of Robin I tood has primarily concerned itself w’iththree questions: \Vas there a real Robin I loud and, if so, who was he? When did the legend of Rohin I loud first develop? Who was the original intended audience of the ballads? I listorians have answered these by looking for correspondences between literature and history—by aligning various internal elements of the stories w’ithexternal elements of social or political history. The first attempt to identiftyRobin I mod as a historical character came from Joseph I lunter, a Yorkshire archivist, in 1852. Noting that the king in the Gesris called ‘Edward, otir comely king,’ I lunter set otit to idcnri’ which of the Edwards this phrase refers to, and by extension, to ascertain the precise time period in w’hichRobin Flood lived. i’aking as a clue the fact that the Edward in the Gcsrmakes a progress through Lancaster, I Itinter used manuscript itineraries of the first three Edwards to deduce that the king in qticstion must he Edward II (r. 1307-1327), who s’as in the north part of the eoulntry, including Lancashire, in late 1323. Edward II, like the king in the Gesr, tbeused on reforming abuses of the forest law. ihough he dismissed the tinkingly action” of Edward dressing in disguuse to meet a notorious bandit as a poetic invention,” I lunter did stippose that by

° Trevor Dean, Crime in Medieval Europe, 145-147.

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some less remarkable device. Robin I lood—likely a follower of the rebelliotis and recently executed Earl of Lancaster.6 hence an otitlaw—carne into the king’spower. In the Gest. the king asks Robin I leod to come to cotirt and enter his service. In a notable discovery, Ihinter found Exchequer documents containing accounts of expenses in the king’s household in which a ‘Robyn I-lode’is recorded several times receiving pay as one of the ‘valdets. porteurs de Iachambre’ of the king. Ills recorded wages date from April to July 1324, dates which correspond closely to the end of Edward Il’s Lancashire progress in I)ecernbcr 1323. The wage reports also record that this Robyn I lode did not attend court to receive pay on several occasions, and by late November had ceased working altogether. I ltrntcr likened these absences, and Robyn’s abniptdepamire, to the Gesr-Robin’s dissatisfaction with lifeat cotirt. “There is in all this,” I lunrer concluded. “perhaps as much correspondency as we can reasonably expect between the record and the ballad.”1 I lunter’s work set a trend in Robin I lood historiographv—tning to match a historically named figure with the literary outlaw. Although 1-lunter’sidentification has drawn criticism among modern Robin I load scholars for its heavy reliance on circumstantial evidence, a weakness that I Iuntcr himself acknowledged. this has not deterred others from identifying their own historical Robin I loads, most of whom prove to actually have had a connection to criminality. ‘fliese other Robin I loads include: a man in York in 1226 called ‘Robert I lood, a fugitive;’Robert I loud, an abbot’s servant who killed a man in Circencester in 1213; and a Robin I load arrested for a breach of a royal forest in Rockingharn in l354. The problem with all these attempts at biographical historicism is that neither ‘Robin’ nor’l loud’ were unique names. Robin. a diminutive of Robert. has been estimated to have been shared by5 to io percent of the male poptilation,9 and I load occurs in multiple spellings and variations (I lode, I bode, ‘hood. Wood, I lobbe, and I lobe). Given the lack of infomiation available abotit each of the individuals, it renlains impossible to determine which of these multiple Robin I load’s was the Robin that first inspired the legend. Most historians have given tip this path of enquiry, being contentwith R II. I lilton’s coneltision that Robin I loud’s “historical significance does not depend on whether he s’as a real person or not.” Questions have been raised instead about who the early Robin I load myth appealed to—who speeilicallv formed the prirnan atidience for the Robin I load ballads? Implicit in this question is also ofa question of timing: When did the legend of Robin I toad first appear and begin to spread? In separate articles published in 1958.1lilton and Maurice Keen ptit forth the idea that the early Robin I load ballads constitute a by-product of an agrarian social struggle over rents. services and social status. which ultimately culminated in the Peasant’s Revoltof 1381.’ Robin I load. they argued. appealed mostly to the peasantry in late medieval England as a hero “whose most endearing activities to his public were the robbery and killing of landowners, in particular church landowners, and the maintenance of guedlla warfare against established atithority represented by the shedff,” In the Gear, when Little John asks Robin who they should ‘bcte and bynde,’ Robin replies:

Thomas Plantagent, 2nd Earl of Lancaster (borne. 1278), was executed March 22, 1322 for treason against Edward II. Joseph Hunter, “Robin Hood” in Stephen Knight, ed., Anthology, 187-194. 8 Knight, “Splitting Time’s Arrow,” 122-123. ° One in four of the male population were called John, William and Thomas had 10-12% each, and 5 to 10% were called Robert. Andrew Ayton, “Military Service and the Development of the Robin Hood Legend in the Fourteenth Century” in Nottingham Medieval Studies (1992), 127 footnote 5. 20 R. H. Hilton, “The Origins of Robin Hood” in Stephen Knight, ed., Audiology, 197. 2i Hilton, “The Origins of Robin Hood,” 197-210 and Maurice Keen, “Robin Hood: A Peasant Hero” in History Today (1991), 20-24 (a reprint of the 1958 article). Keen later expanded his ideas in his book The Outlasvs of Medieval England (1960). Hilton, “The Origins of Robin Hood,” 197.

Ex POST FACTO Robin Hood: A Historiography

Joke ye do no husbonde harme/ ‘l’hat tylleth with his plotighe No more ye shall no gode yeman / That walketh by grene wode shawe; Ne no knyght ne no squyer / That vol be a gode felawe. iisese bisshoppes and these arehebisshoppes/Yc shall them bete and bynde The bye sherif of Notyingham / I lyrn holde ye in your myndc’3 lie thus excludes the peasantry, husbandmen, from his list of victims and foctises solelyon attacking the tipper, landowning classes. The crooked monks of St. Mary’s—robbed in the Gesr,murdered in 1Ionk—rcpresent exemplars of unrelenting landlordism.” The sheriff, Robin I lood’s frcqtient enemy, remained an enemy of the peasantry due to his power to compel tenants to pay rent, perform services, or to dispel or arrest rioters. Moreover, Robin, like the peasants involved in the uprising of 1381, rallied against local injustice, but placed his utmost faith in the king. ‘I love no man in all the worlde/ So well as I do my kynge,’ declared Robin in the Gcs’— even as he struck out at the local agents of the king’sauthority. This pro-agrarian outlook offered hyl lilton and Keen led to an ensuing debate amongst historians. J. C. I bIt has presented the opposite view—that the early Robin I lood ballads were originally the literature, not of a discontented peasantry, but of the gentry.”The chief topics in the Gesr, I Jolt argued, namely ecclesiastical usury and issues over ibrest latv and the sheriffs,were presented in such a way as to appeal more to the gentry than to any other group. The first menace encountered in the Gesreoneerned the gentry—the knight’s nlortgage debt and its repayment, his subsequent loan from Robin and its repayment. Like husbandmen, knights and squires also made Robin’s ‘do not attack’ list. Commenting upon the sheriff theme, I Jolt thund “the attack is directed against the highest ranks of the local administration with whom the knights and gentry were in regular contact and frequent conflict, not against those whom we might expect the peasantry to choose as their chief targets.” The abbot, meanwhile, was derided not for his role as landlord btit for his unChristian greed; anti-clericalism remained widespread among the gentry as well as the peasantry. I bIt traced these developments to the late thirteenth century, which he argtied as the correct time of Robin I bond’sorigination, lie further cited the use of the unusual compound surnames Robynhod’ and 1 obynhoud’ in 1296 and 1332 as evidence of the widespread influence of the Robin I lood legend by this time. Although primarily designed for a gentle audience and disseminated from the manorial hall, I Jolt continued, Robin I loud stories extended beyond this audience:

For such a convivial and socially mixed audience as a household the ballads brought together a number of attractive and well-worn themes: a roughly enforced and crudely conceived idea of justice and morality; a code of honesty; a good fight, an adventurous chase; thejoke of trickery by disgtuse; the King incognito. These formed a common denominator, independent of class, which made tip the basic Robin I lood.

I’rom this mixed bag of themes, there developed two strands: an ‘aristocratic’strand which came to be embodied in the gentrifleadon of the Victorian era plays, and a ‘plebeian’strand, represented by the Robin I lood plays and games associated w’ithMay Day.’ Specifically refuting the connections made by I lilton and Keen between the Robin I lood ballads and the Peasant’s Revolt, I bIt fotind no significant links between the two. The evidence, he

23 j, B. Dobson and John Taylor, Rymes of Robin Hood, 80. 24 Dobson and Taylor, Rymes of Robin Hood, 107. 25 Jc• Holt, “The Origins and Audience of the Ballads of Robin Hood,” in Stephen Knight, ed., Anthology, 211-232.

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argued. simply wasn’t there: the Peasant’s Revolt did not have“anyspechdsignificancc in this [Robin I lood] context unless it can be shown that the ballads were mrncukrrlj’enjoycd by the particular peasants ot types of peasant who rcvoited.”’ Keen, after a debate with I bit, retracted his previous assertions by conceding that I loft’s ideas were “much closer to the truth,” and that his own prior work would not stand up to scrutiny.’7 Other scholars, however, continued to qtiestion I bit’s findings by challenging his dating of the material and his claim of a gentry audience. J. R. Madicott took issue with I bit’s dating of the Gcstto tire late thirteenth cennin’. arguing instead for its genesis during the first half of the fourteenth cenrun. Examining the socio-politicai context of the Gcs Madicort found that the ballad “speaks the language of bastard feudalisrrr’ and it is the language of the fourteenth century rather than of the thirteenth.” ‘lire use of liveries and fees exhibited in tire Gesr—the abbot retains the justice ‘with clothe and fee’to deprive the knight of his land; the sheriff offers zo marks to retain Little John—constitute characteristics of the early fourteenth century. Other factors dated to the thirteenth century by I bIt, including the distraint of knighthood, a corrupt sheriff, and the business of the forest, could belong just as easilyto the fourteenth century. Madicott included other historical and literary evidence as well, The memory of two famous and successful outlaw gangs, the Folvilles and the Coterels, who operated in the north midlands between 1334 and 1339.may have played a role in enhancing the reptitation of outlaws during a time of unstable political circumstances.’9 ‘tire Gestalso Fits into tire genre ofcontemporary fourteenth cenwn protest literature. The 1338 ‘Song against the King’staxes,’for instance, complains against profiteering by tax collectors. Madicon thus argued for a dating of the Gesrand of Robin’s origin that lay not more than a generation or two before the first recorded reference to Rol,in I loud in 1377. which conctirred with I lunter’s proposed time period. I bowever. he did not claim that I ttinter’s man was tire real Robin I tood. David Crook iras convincingly strengthened I bit’s dating of Robin I food to tire late tirirteenrlr century with an additional archival discovery from an Exelrcqtier pipe roll. In April rz6z an abbot was pardoned for seizing tire cirattels of a fugitive nanred ‘Willianr Robehod’ witirotit a warrant. Aitirotigir Viiiiairr’s proper nairreirad been given earlier in tire record as ‘\Viiliairrson of Robert Ic Fevere,’ Irissurnanreirad been altered by an unkirown clerk to Robehod. denronstratirrg an already active awareness of tire Robin I lood legend as earf as tire iztios.3 With tire issue of dating apparently settled, critiques again focused on tire question of audience. R. 13.Dobson and Joirn ‘I’avIoroffered a few’pointed critiqtles concenring tire ballads’ original intention for an aristocratic audience, and tire gentry Irouseiroids stanis as tire prinrarv setting for tireir dissemination. Considering tire diversified profession of nrinstrelsy. and tire fact that livened nrinstrels attached to great liouseirolds would only be required to be physicallypresent in tire great iralls at tire principal feasts of tire year, it nraybe possible to argue tirat “most nrinstreis spent irrucirof tlreir time perfornring before audiences even larger than tirose afforded by tire aristocratic

26 Holt, “Some Comments” in R. H. Hilton, ed., Peasants, Knights, and Heretics, 267-269. Maurice Keen. “Robin Hood—Peasant or Gentleman?” in R. H. Hilton, ed, Peasants, Knights, and Heretics, 266. Keen’s retraction was in 1976. a Bastard feudalism: Men were bound together by periodic payments of money rather than grants of land. “It could be a positive mechanism for stability, order, and justice but paradoxically, it could, in the wrong hands, lead to the perversion ofjustice, criminal feuds, and anarclry.” Thomas Olhgren, “Edwardus Redivivus in A Gest of Robyn Hode” in Journal of English and Germanic Philology, 15 29 A baronial rebellion against Edward II. ° J. R, Madicott, “The Birth and Setting of the Ballads of Robin Hood” in Stephen Knight, ed., Anthology, 233-256. ‘ David Crook, “Some further Evidence Concerning the Dating of the Origins of the Legend of Robin Hood” in Stephen Kniglrt, cd, Anthology, 257-262.

EX POST FACTO Robin Hood: A Historiography household—the audiences provided by fairs and the larger English towns.” Support for this may be tound in the two indisputably authentic fifteenth century ballad texts. l?ohin I load and the Monk- and I?obin hood 1Indthe Portei which show’little or no courtl’ influence and seem best interpreted as ‘talkings’addressed to the marketplace and to a popular audience especially responsive to the comic and mock-heroic aspects of the legend.” The fact that in the GesrRubin only serves the king by special request and then only for a short period of time ‘presumably makes it unlikely that the Robin I lood stories would have been deliberately promoted by the aristocracy of England.” ‘I’hisgroups very organization depended on hierarchical service to a lord.3’ The role of the marketplace in the early ballads received even greater emphasis by Richard Tardifin an article published intO 1983. Looking hack at the debate over the ballads’ intended audience between hilton and Ilolt, Tardif identified one primary weakness they both sharcd.’l’hey both examined the Robin I hood ballads in a rural, manorial context. l]iere is simply no reference [in the ballads] to the social economy ol the manor, lardifargued. Fhe action of all the ballads is played out across a dichotomy of town and forest.” The difference of opinion between I tilton. I bIt, and Tardif largely stemmed from differing interpretations of the word ‘yeoman,’and its meaning, though, Robin and his men are identified as yeomen in all the relevant ballads. I lilton defined yeoman as ‘neither a scoing man nor a rich peasant, but simply a pcasantoffree personal status.”33I bIt placed yeomanry in a lower orderof the gentry. Yeoman, according to Tardif, could mean an tirban journeyman or tradesman, as well as a relativelyprosperous peasant. Tardif argues that Robins yeomanry placed him within this class of urban workers, “the outlaw band was perceived in a fully conscious manner as a yeoman bourneyman] fraternity by a medieval atidienec” 9’he economic organization of the forest band, when it becomes explicit, is that of a master craftsman’s shop. As evicted peasants migrated in search of employment in the developing money economy and fom’3edan urban underclass, the theme of the forest in the ballads may have represented an ideal life that the audience votild have liked to live.5 Another theme, the role of the military in the Robin I loud ballads, has also served as topic of recent disetission. Discovering a garrison payroll from the Isle of ‘Night in November of 133$ which lists a ‘Robin I lood among a company of forty-three archers, Andrew’ Avton became interested in the military aspects involved in the creation and spread of the Robin I load legend. Avton related Robin’s band of merry men to the gangs of veteran soldiers that, returning jubless from campaigns in Scutland took to robbery along roads and in forests. Robin I lood tales, he maintained, “weredistinctively colored by the prolonged experience of war in the later medieval period.” Ayton’s line of reasoning ran as such: civilconflicts in the l2tios and 132os meant that existing outlaw t,ands, augmented by a flood of restless, demobilized men, whose ‘colorful’activities aflictcd the image of the outlaw community as perceived by the population at large, and hence Robin I load and his men began to look and behave like war veterans, lie strengthened his case by discussing several ‘lifestyle’ similarities between robber-veterans and Robin I looci. Like many veterans, Robin and his men are unmarried and appear to lack close familyties or property. Skilled archers and fighters, Robin’s men act w’ithgreat military-like proficiency when called upon to fight. Robin’s courteous demeanor as well as the mechanics of bastard fetidalism, both hallmarks of the nobility, could have been learned directly while engaged in campaign service, With no reason given in the ballads fur why Robin is an outlaw, Ayton’ssuggestion is entirely platisiblc.5

32 j, B. Dobson and John Taylor, “Robin Hood of Bamesdale: a fellow thou has long sought,” review of Robin Hood by J. C. Holt in Northern Histo,y(1983), 210-220. Hilton, “The Origins of Robin Hood,” 204. ‘ Richard Tardif, “The ‘Mistciy’ of Robin Hood: A New Social Context for the Texts” in Stephen Knight, ed., Anthology, 345-362. Ayton, “Military Service,” 126-147,

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More recently, scholars havetaken past historiography to task for ignoring the manuscript contexts of the ballads. John Marshall and Thomas Olgren have each analyzed the significance of a particular manuscript in relation to its particular owner. Looking at the single hound manuscript containing Robin 1-loodand the Porterand several other tales, Ohlgren identified Richard Call (c. 1431 to after l504), a bailiff and estate manager for an aristocratic Piston familyof Norfolk. as “notonlythe original owner but the veryperson who took an active role in the selection of texts to be copied.” iTheson of a grocer and small landholder, Call was literate and employedas a trusted servant by the Pastons before marryingtheir youngest daughter, Nlargcry. in a clandestine marriage. The text as whole. Ohlgrcn fotind. exhibited mercantile interests and a strong theme of self-improvement. Parallels exist between the lifeof the owner and the stories contained in the manuscript. Calls courtship of Margerv Paston parallels Robins courtship of the sheriff’swife, a woman of higher socialclass, in I’orter. The manuscript,Ohlgren concltided, had not been owned b’ a noble, cleric, or gentleman. but by an aspiring yeoman with strong mercantile credentials and high social and economic aspirations. The contents “are preciselythe types of litcrar , religious, and educational texts that you would expect a yoting man hoping to rise in the world to posscss.”4 Marshall. similarl. anah2ed a single folio containing an early Robin I lood play. Robin hood and tile Sberiffwith a plotverv similar to Robin hood and GuvoiGisborne. lie identified the play as belonging to Sir John Paston.37who in April I473. complained by letter to his brother of the desertion of a scrvant who had been hired to enact Robin I lood: “1hatLekcpd hyrn tha iij [3]yere to pleye Scynt Jorge and Robvnhood and the shrvffoff Notvngliam and now when I wolde hatie good horse he is goon in-to Bemysdalc. and I with-owt a kepcre.’9 In owning the manuscript and in staging Robin I lood plays. Marshall suggested. Paston must haveseen parallels between his own role in protecting his land fromcontran’ claimants and Robin’s personification of jtlstice in the face of a corrupt administration. It is also possible that an aristocrat like Paston, “recognized that, in the play of Robin I lood. he could assimilate the political and cultural interests of his servantswith his own. iThe quest for justice and the desire for freedom...may haveostensibly united the household at a time when consensus, or at least a common cause,was crucial to stio’ival.”4 All of the historians discussed thus far have taken the criminality of Robin I lood for granted. thereby eliciting little specific comment from historians at large. I lowever. l3arabara I lanawalt and Richard Firth Green. concentrating explicitly on an analysis of crime in the early ballads, have forged a new path within Robin I lood historiographv. I lanawalt provided an interesting new question: I low does the banditry employed h’ Robin I lood and his men in the ballads compare to banditry in the real world of late medieval England? Comparing material from

the Robin I loud poems to the activities of real bandits as reflected in thejail delivery rolls of Norfolk. Northhamptonshire. and Yorkshire for the years 1300-1400, 1lanawalt found that, “on the whole, in membership. rewards, and techniques of banditry, real bandits encountered in cotmrtrecords closely resembled the ballad bandits. The divergence betsvccn the coo occurs with the victims of banditry in fact arid fiction.”1 In terms of the technique and membership of criminal hands. I lanawalt found several interesting similarities and few notable differences betsveenfiction and fact:

36 Thomas Ohlgren, “Richard Call, the Pastons, and the Manuscript Context of Robin Hood and the Potter (Cambridge, University Library Ee.4.35. 1)” in Nottingham Medieval Studies (2001), 210-228. The head of the family with whom Richard Call was employed. Not Richard. a Ohlgren, “Richard Call,” 220. 40 John Marshall, “goon in-to Berynsdale’: The Trail of the Paston Robin Hood Play” in Leeds Studies in English (1998), 185.217. ‘ Barbara Hanawalt, “Ballads and Bandits: fourteenth-Century Outlaws and the Robin Hood Poems” in Stephen Knight, ed., Anthology, 263-284.

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• In the poems, Robin I mod, Little John, Much, and Will Scarlet form the core of the band and most of action only involves them (usually, in fact, only Robin and John). Real highway robbers often formed small, tiexible units. Two member bands predominated (41 percent), followed by bands with three members (22 percent), or tour members (12 percent). • Although the core of the group remains small, Robin can summon up a large number (seven score) of men when needed. For particularly large or risky crimes—robbery of well-armed person or taking over a market—real bands might use five to twenty or more members (25percent of the gangs). • Robin’s band in the early ballads does not contain any women, kin sets, or clergy. Real bands contained only a small percentage of women, btit kin sets and clergy were very common. Of all gangs stiivcycd, 21 percent had a kin group within them, usually brother or spouses, less often fathers and sons. Clergy were members of 13%of the bandit gangs and comprised 7%of the bandit’s personnel.4’ • Robin is prestirnably the leader of his band because he is the best archer. Real bandits often honored the traditional social hierarchy in selection of leaders. The leader was tisually the man of the highest social rank or, in the case of familymembers, the father or oldest brother. • Robin appropriated the language and demeanor of the nobility. I Ic is addressed as master, delegates responsibilities to his men, and the men wear his trademark color of Lincoln green. Real bandits, like the fictional ones, might tise royal and magnate households as models.43

The choice of victims and goods stolen make up the main differences between fact and fiction. In the Gesi Robin advises his men not to attack peasants, yeomen, knights, and women, btit rather the clergy and state officials. I Ic also only steals items of high value in the ballads. Acttial bandits had more basic needs to provide for. In addition to stealing items of high valcie,robbers often took blankets, cooking utensils, clothing, food (especially bread), and beer. Acttial bandits also

42 The number of clergy may have been lower. Many criminals claimed benefit of clergy in an attempt to have their case transferred to the bishop’s court where hanging was not a punishment. ° In the most sensational example, one northern outlaw sent Richard de Snaweshill, a Yorkshire parson, a letter, written in French in 1336, demanding that the parson remove a priest from his office and replace him with a rival claimant. The letter was written in true royal style: ‘Lionel, king of the rout of raveners salutes, but with little love, his false and dis]oyal Richard de Snaweshill. We command you, on pain to lose all that can stand forfeit against our laws, that you immediately remove from his office him whom you maintain in the vicarage of Burton Agnes, and that you suffer the Abbot of St. Mary’s have his rights in this matter and that the election of the man whom he has chosen, who is more worthy of advancement that you or any of your lineage, be upheld. And if you do not do this, we make our avow, first to God and then to the King of England and to our own crown that you shall have such treatment at our hands as the Bishop of Exeter had in Cheep [Bishop Stapledon was murdered there in 13261;and we shall hunt you down, even if we have to come to Coney Street in York to do it. And show this letter to your lord, and bid him cease from false compacts and confederacies, and to suffer right to be done to him whom the Abbot has presented; else he shall have a thousand pounds worth of damage by us and our men. And if you do not take cognizance of our orders, we have bidden our lieutenant in the North to levy such great distraint upon you as is spoken of above. Given at our Castle of the North Wind, in the Green Tower, in the first year of our reign.’ Hanawalt, “Ballads and Bandits,” 272-273; also Ohlgren, “Edwardua Redivivus,” 18-19.

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commonly targeted women.4 Other victims incitided husbandmen. village craftsmen, shepherds, traveling merchants, clergy, nobility, and government officials—basically,real bandits robbed everyone. Robin’s narrow scope of victims allowed him to be loved by his audience while actual roIbers remained objects of fear. The composition of the ballads as a whole and their selectionof a criminal as hero. IJanawalt proposed, suggests that the audience “knew a great deal about organized cdme...and had an ambiguous feeling about it.” Noting the strong element of ‘cynicalbrutality’ in the early poems. Green sotight to explain the outlaw’sviolence in Foucaldian terms. In his history of punishment in western society. Foucault distinguished two distinct stages: the specraeulai in which the state parades its political power by inflicting ritualizedviolence upon the bodies of its stibjects, and the ea,ver,d. through which the state projects a sense ofomnipresent surveillance over its members’private lives. Green identified a different power/penalty system that operated prior to Foucautt’s specracukzrsvstem—the occlusñecconomv of pitnishment. In an occlusivesystem,traditional communities turn to rejection. expulsion. banishment and outlawry as a way of coping with the worst offenses. Diametrically opposed to Foucatilt’s concept of the spectacular. the occlusive system does not expose guilt to the public gaze, bitt rather conceals it by sending it away. I’hc cynicalbrntalitv found in the early Robin Iloud ballads...should be read as symptomatic of a clash between two penal regimes. the older occlusive regime that underlies the veryinstitution of outlawry itself, and the newer spectacular regime repre.sented by the Sheriff of Nottingham and his officials.” Robin I food and his men are not casually violent. The ritualized violence through constant sparring they enactcdcontaincd a set of clearly recognized niles of communityand conviviality. The outlaws only suspended these rules ss’hendealing with otttsiders, partictilarly those representing the legal atithority of the state. Robin reacts with reciprocal brutality to a system designed to brutalize him, treating with particular savagen those who set out to betray him to that system.45Robin ] lood historiography has largely been a matter of empirical verification, of matching literature to history. Early attempts to identify a historical Robin I food havefailed. owing both to the nttmbcr of individuals bearing such a name and the lack of available information about them. The name Robin I food, most historians have concluded, is a “nont deguenilla—taken tip by people who are fulfilling the role of anti-authoritarian activities.whether in game or in criminal eamest.”6 Robin I food’s importance lay not with being any one actual person. htit svith what he represents to his audience. Considering the number of groups svho may havetaken an intere.st in the famous outlaw (peasants. gentry, tradesmen, soldiers), Robin flood remains a hero for cvcnbody.

Women made up 37 percent of the homicide victims of criminal bands compared to 18 percent of victims in the ordinary homicide pattern. Hanawalt suggests that this is because women were present in the houses where bandits committed burglaries with violence. Richard Firth Green, “Violence in the Early Robin Hood Poems” in Mark D. Mcyerson, ed., A Great Effusion of Blood? Interpreting Medieval Violence, 268-286. 46 Knight, “Splitting Time’s Arrow,” 123.

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