Knight and Thomas Ohlgren, Eds., Robin Hood and Other Outlaw Tales

1

stephen knight and thomas ohlgren, eds., Robin Hood and Other Outlaw Tales. Kalamazoo: TEAMS, Western Michigan University, 1997. Pp. 723. isbn: 1–879288– 92–3. $35. There are many intriguing parallels and differences between the ‘careers’ of King Arthur and Robin Hood (hereafter RH), two legendary figures whose ‘biographies’ were constructed in the Middle Ages out of a similar amalgam of fragmentary quasi- historical documentary evidence, myth, folklore, and literary accretion. The locus of the exploits of Arthur, RH, and their loyal followings of roundtable knights and outlaws respectively was the forest—either the mysterious wilderness of Celtic Broceliande, or the even more fundamentally mythic ‘greenwood.’ Both had the habit of demanding the appearance of an ‘unkouth’ guest before commencing a feast. However, while Arthur was a potent symbol of political authority whose practice of chivalry was characterized by an explicit expression of Christian orthodoxy, RH the quintessential ‘yeoman,’ despite loyalty to his king and special devotion to the Virgin Mary, was a rebel against most forms of institutional authority, especially local civil authorities such as sheriffs and the regularly corrupt representatives of the regular clergy—abbots, friars, and prioresses. The appeal of both heroes endured well beyond their medieval roots, as is documented in ballads, plays, narrative poems, novels, and films produced from the fifteenth through the twentieth centuries. Unfortunately, the romanticized contemporary (mis)perceptions of both figures derive from the soft-focus, rose-colored reconstructive lens of the medievalism practiced in the last two centuries more often than from a knowledge of authentic, originary medieval sources. Before now, organizing a period-correct course comparing these heroes was difficult because of a frustrating paucity of medieval RH texts in print. Even R. B. Dobson and J. Taylor’s (hereafter D&T) scholarly but classroom-unsuitable collection, Rymes of Robin Hood (London: Heinemann, 1976) did not advance a wide understanding of the ‘real’ rather than the ‘reel’ Robin Hood. Happily, that situation has now changed. A 1997 paperback reissue (with a revised introduction) by Sutton makes D&T available. Even better, Stephen Knight and Thomas Ohlgren’s long-awaited TEAMS edition, Robin Hood and Other Outlaw Tales (hereafter K&O), now provides the benchmark Robin Hood collection suitable for both scholarly citation and classroom use. Providing single-columned texts with side-glosses and an even more comprehensive complement of early RH material (from chronicles, medieval and post-medieval ballads, Middle English non-RH outlaw narratives, and popular drama) than is found in the double columned, bottom-glossed D&T, this volume is hefty but physically pleasant to read and annotate. In addition to the expected RH texts, it includes the Chaucer-connected Tale of Gamelyn, translated excerpts of the Latin Gesta Herewardi about Hereward, an outlaw of Danish extraction in Lincolnshire, and the Old French texts, Eustache the Monk and Fouke le Fitz Waryn, as well as the complete text of Anthony Munday’s play, The Downfall of Robert, Earl of Huntington. K&O’s collection 2 arthuriana is therefore superior to D&T for the range of medieval and early modern RH materials offered. More important, in the categories of user-friendliness and scholarly authority, K&O also, like their inimitable archer hero-subject, ‘slist the wand.’ The volume’s presentation of texts is informed by a thorough examination of and a judicious and (usually) conservative re-editing from original sources. Editorial decisions—some challenge even Child’s editing of the ballads—are carefully justified in the notes. Each text is introduced by an informative essay which situates the piece in the overall RH canon and synthesizes received criticism about such contested issues as intended audience, probable date, and the literary influence of each piece in the development of the RH mythos. In a paperback volume of such heft, an up-to-date Select Bibliography appended to each consecutive text insures scholarly and physical convenience. The essays and notes contextualize the pieces against other thematically and chronologically comparable texts produced by Chaucer, Langland, and Malory. As the language of many of the ballads and short pieces is terse and confusingly elliptical, these instructive introductions and the usually generous explanatory notes fill textual lacunae that might otherwise impede understanding the content. Only occasionally are these notes not informative enough, as exemplified in two notes to A Gest of Robyn Hode, the seminal text for any study of late medieval RH materials. The note to l. 281 of Gest explains that scarlet and grene was probably ‘originally scarlet in graine, a particularly good form of scarlet dye’ (p. 154). The note does not acknowledge that the word ‘scarlet’ also refers to a type (rather than a color) of expensively-processed wool textile. The implication that the apparent reference to cloths of two colors, red and green, was originally to one color is cancelled four lines later in the text itself by RH’s instruction that ‘thre yerdes of every colour,’ connoting at least two colors, be used for the knight’s livery. In any case, the note fails to address the most puzzling aspect of the line—why would a band of outlaws possess the equivalent of a draper’s shop full of fashionable and expensive fabrics deep in the greenwood? When RH wants to leave the service of the king, he justifies his departure with a desire to make a pilgrimage to a chapel he built in honor of Mary Magdalen (ll. 1757-69). Similarly, while the note to l. 1767 explains the significance of medieval pilgrimage, it neglects to address RH’s mysterious predilection for a shrine honoring not the Blessed Virgin Mary, to whom he repeatedly avows devotion, but a very different Mary. Occasionally, the physical ordering of texts in the volume is curiously inconsistent, as when the fourteenth-century Tale of Gamelyn inexplicably follows the chronologically-later Gest and RH and Guy of Gisborne instead of accompanying other medieval non-RH outlaw tales at the end of the volume. Engravings from printed editions of the RH materials attractively fill the spaces at the ends of texts and notes, but a map of England showing the locations of various placenames mentioned in the texts (included in D&T) would have supplied more substantive illustration. But these are a reviewer’s obligatory cavils. Considering the ambitious scope of the RH 3 texts offered and the care lavished on the scholarly support materials included, enthusiasts of both the greenwood outlaw and his ‘official’ counterpart Arthur owe thanks to Stephen Knight and Thomas Ohlgren for making this superbly-edited collection available for scholarly study and classroom adoption. lorraine k. stock University of Houston