In Search of the Medieval Outlaw: The Tales of Robin Hood - Professor Stephen Church

I would like to begin this lecture with a bold statement about Robin Hood's identity there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that there was a physical person called Robin Hood who is the progenitor of our mythical Robin Hood neither the most diligent archivist nor the most inventive historian has been able to find him yet despite this fact Robin Hood still has a place in the definitive Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and there's the start of what it has to say about him he is therefore one of those liminal characters who have a place in a work of national history even though their historicity is to say the least doubtful but this statement about his historical reality in no way belittles the importance of Robin both to us now and to those who lived in the medieval period and who had Robin as part of their imaginative framework just like his literary counterpart King Arthur who equally has a place in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography despite the fact that there's no historical evidence for his existence either Robin has a central part to play in the medieval imagination but unlike Arthur who was a character with an extensive medieval literature Robin Hood was a man of the people if Arthur was the hero of the french-speaking elite of the court then Robin was his counterpart in the tavern Inn in the May Games celebrated in some villages of medieval England and because Robin was a hero in medieval popular culture and did not become popular with aristocracy until the 16th century he's a figure without a literary culture until the 16th century we're therefore in the case of the medieval Robin Hood in the realm of memory rather than written record the medieval Robin Hood is a character of orality not literature and yet it's only through literature that we can approach him for the obvious reason that the written record is the written record which conveys to us across time something of is character now I'll have something to say about the literary record of Robin Hood in a moment but first of all I want to say something about the may games with which Robin Hood was associated and in which he became hugely popular in the second half of the fifteenth century because it's his presence in the may gains that tells us something about his popularity amongst the ordinary people of medieval England the May Games marked the traditional start of summer and were part of a wider annual cycle in which medieval men and women marked the changing seasons the first half of the year was given over to a focus on the religious cycle it began with the Christmas festivities starting with Advent of course and ending on the Epiphany on the 6th of January Christmas was therefore the transitional Frette phase from one year to the next spring began on the 2nd of February the Feast of the purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary to be followed by Lent and the preparation for the greatest of the Christian festivals Easter Easter of course is a moveable feast tied to the movements of the Moon so Lent might begin as early as the 4th of February or as late as the 10th of March summer began on the 1st of May I hope you've noticed that the Sun did come out today and the May games which mark the celebration associated with summer began at whitson and again because it's related to Easter that could be as early as the 10th of May or as late as the 13th of June and then these games went on until midsummer after which the Year moved into its secular phase where there were no significant religious festivities or long holidays the May II games which marked the beginning of summer were the occasion for the appearance of Robin Hood the person who was to play the part of Robin would be elected from amongst the better sort in the community sometimes at Easter sometimes at Ascension Day and at the same point the person playing the part of Maid Marian his companion in the May games would also be chosen again from the better sort in the community Robin was to be the Lord of misrule and if that mr. all were not to get out of hand the person chosen for the role needed to be trustworthy but that man was also young the summer season was a celebration of youth of young love of courtship those playing the role of Robin Hood had to be of the appropriate age and the condition in life and Robin's role with his companions Little John fry a turkey company by Maid Marian was to go out into the community to raise money which would then be handed over to the church for pious works Robin then was cast in the role of the young outlaw taking money from the rich and handing it to the poor he was dressed in green because he represented summer and he was the Lord of misrule so he could be counted on to make a bit of a commotion now these may games tell us that the name Robin Hood was well known to men and women in late medieval England and as william langland Langland makes the illiterate and lazy priest who equals sloth say in Piers Plowman I know not my Paternoster as the priest it singeth but I know the rinds of Robin Hood he then goes on to tell tell us that he likes spending his time harlot in and in the pub drinking and playing games he was supposed to be a priest now Langland was writing about the Year 1377 so Robin had a place in everyday life in 14th century England and he is associated with the lower end of society the Ale has the well whorehouse the places where the summer games took place there is however a really important caveat about Robin Hood's existence in the May games of late medieval England and that is that he did not exist everywhere when scholars have gone looking for Robin Hood and his gang in the May games they found him only in Scotland the south of England and the southwest of England he doesn't appear in Wales he doesn't appear in East Anglia apart from one instance and nor does he appear anywhere in the north in fact Robin Hood is entirely absent from the late medieval May games in any of the location in which you'd expect him to be found so he's not in Nottingham for example or Nottingham sure and he's not to be found in the north most especially not in Yorkshire where as we shall see in a moment many of his adventures took place the medieval Robin Hood therefore was part of the management of landscape of people of the south when they were thinking about the north the north that scary place for all seven people of course so we know that Robin Hood was well known in certain parts of late medieval England the Thames Valley the Seven Valley the West Country and in the separate kingdom of Scotland remembering that Scotland was a separate Kingdom at this point and we know that he was the harbinger of summer a symbol of fertility a Lord of misrule that he played a role in relieving people of their hard-earned cash and handing it on to the church to be used in pious works the celebrations that accompanied Robin Robins appearance were dissolute involving dancing drinking the unlicensed acquisition of the flora which decorated the Bowers and arbors that were set up in church grounds and the Maypole was the sentiment which was the central attraction was also acquired by stealth and we have here this rather nice Bette Lee window dating from about 1621 but seemingly seemingly copied from an earlier probably late 15th century set of figures and I hope you can see here the central figure there is the Maypole and these are the characters this is Maid Marian and this is supposed to be Friar Tuck now at the outset of this talk I stated that the medieval Robin Hood is a character of morality and not of literature and yet it's only really through literature that we can come to grips with him but the written evidence that we have for the medieval Robin Hood is very sparse indeed and must represent a small fraction of the stories that were circulating about our hero in these outlaw tales so I want to devote this section of the lecture to those medieval tails and by medieval tales I'm trying to be very strict with myself and thinking only in terms of pre-reformation tales tales that have a definite pre-reformation provenance and I'll come back to why that matters later on in the lecture now by far and away the largest collection of medieval ballads that we have concerning Robin Hood are encapsulated in the cycle known as the jest of Robin Hood there's no surviving manuscripts of the jest all the versions have survived to the modern world have done so in printed editions but the earliest printed editions predate the Reformation by some years now the jest runs to about fourteen thousand words which makes it by far and away the longest pre-reformation Robin Hood stories and it's been postulated that the jest was brought together by a single author from a series of stories about Robin Hood which was circulating in the late 15th 16th centuries and perhaps that speculation is correct the first publisher at the Jes was this man Wynn kinder word it's a fantastic name isn't it but he was William Caxton successor after that man's death in 1492 and he seems to have been a man of considerable entrepreneurial acumen winking was in the business of making money out of printing and he did it very successfully indeed his first printing was the hugely popular golden legend which was usually populate in late medieval England and sold lots of copies for him and by about 1506 so very shortly after he'd taken over Caxton's business he was publishing this the little jest of Robin Hood and I think that that speaks strongly to the suggestion that he aimed to be intended to introduce an already popular Robin Hood to a literate audience the jest is part of the literate history of Robin Hood and thereafter the Jester of Robin Hood was reprinted throughout the 16th century now the Robin Hood of the jest is in fact two distinct characters the first Robin Hood is in the mould of King Arthur and like King Arthur this Robin Hood of the jest does not play a central role in the story the focus of the jest is on the actions of others and while Robin is crucial to the tale he acts as a catalyst for others to act while he holds court in the Greenwood named as Barnsdale in Yorkshire not Sherwood Forest and so the jest opens with Robin in the Greenwood and here he is live and listen gentlemen that be of freeball blood I shall you tell of a good yeoman his name was Robin Hood Robin was approve outlaw whilst he walked on ground so courtesy an outlaw as he was one was never non found Robin stood in barnesdale and lent into a tree and by him stood Little John a good yeoman was he and also did good Skaar lock and much the Millers son there was none inch of his body that was worth a groan [Music] so immediately we know that this story is about Robin Hood since he's named in the first stanza after which we are told this is the essential elements of the man he's a yeoman he's proud of his status as an outlaw he's not a dangerous outlaw but a courteous one he lives in Barnsdale his right-hand man is Little John also of yeoman stock and his principal men are will Scarlett a much the Millers son so far so good he's almost recognizable as our Robin Hood though he's in Barnsdale forest and not in Sherwood Forest which is slightly discombobulating I know and that the the tale goes on and then spake Little John I'll answer Robin Hood master and ye would dine be time and would do much good then beasts pack him good Robin to Diane I have no list till that I have some bold Baron or some uncouth guest till that I have some bold Baron that may pay for the best or some night or some Squire that dwell if by west encouraged by Little John to eat Robin declines saying that he has no desire to eat unless he has the company of somebody who can pay for the best food and drink whether he be a baron a knight a squire or some other unknown guest this too is recognizably are Robin Hood who demands that those brought to the Greenwood had dined and wined and then pay for the privilege but then the tone of the jest changes a good manner then had Robin in longed where he were every day or he would dine three masses would he hear the one in the worship of the Father the other in the Holy Ghost the third of our dear lady that he loved all the most Robin loved our dear lady Ford out of deadly sin would he never do company harm that any woman was in master then said Little John and we our board shall spread tell us whether what that we shall go and what life we shall lead where shall we take where should we leave where shall we bar abide behind where shall we rob and where shall we Reeve and where will shall we beat and bind so he is Robin characterized as being extremely religious he hears three masses of day before he will even eat even kings only heard two masses a day so three is extreme two of these masses are dedicated to a particular part of the Trinity the Father and the Holy Ghost but the third is dedicated to the Virgin Mary it's a strange sort of Trinity not at all what one might expect from a text expressing the extreme religiosity of its principal character since it's hardly Orthodox but the point is that Robin is dedicated to the Virgin Mary that Marian cult was especially strong in the late Middle Ages so in dedicating himself to the Virgin Robin was being utterly conventional even if in the expression of that dedication he was acting in a manner which was zealous this is not our modern Robin Hood though in being unwilling to harm neither a lady or a company in which she was in he is a bit of our chivalrous Robin Hood the key point of departure for her for us then is his religiosity but what I want you to focus on is the fact that Little John asks Robin to set the bandit ask or if we were being our Furion about it to set the banda quest the quest isn't exactly the holy grail it's just somebody for for Robin to dine with but nonetheless it is a quest Little John and his companions have to find somebody who who Robin can dine with because until they can find Robin a guest he must go hungry now I want you to Lodge that in your minds for a little while because I'm going to come back to it Robin doesn't eat until he has a proper guest now the first person that the companions find is a knight who's fallen on hard times they bring him back to the forest the night is dined magnificently Robin asked the knight to pay for his fare and the knight is forced to admit that he does not have the means to pay for his sumptuous meal having but ten shillings on his person Little John checks the knight's possessions and finds that he's telling the truth the night then recounts the tale of his woes his son killed a knight of Lancaster and so he had to pay the blood price an extremely large four hundred pounds the knight mortgaged his lands to the abbot of st. Mary's at York and now the debt was due to be paid but the knight did not have the means to pay it Robin then orders Little John to provide the night with twice what he needs to dress him in fine quality clothes clothing as befitting his nightly station a much humorous had at the way in which Little John hands out the cloth in an overly generous manner the knight then takes his leave promising to do so at prom promising as well swearing to buy the Virgin Mary there she is again to return to Robin and to pay him back what what he owes him and then the last bit of this fit the last bit of the thus this section ends I shall V lend Little John my man for he shall be thy name in a yeoman stead he mace this the stand if tho great need have that's the end of the first fit now in the second fit Robin has absolutely no part to play whatsoever yet he is actually very much present in the way the the action is presented because he becomes now the paradigm of good virtual virtues chivalric virtues even against which all are now measured the scenes which is to York where the night now were the means of repaying his loan appears that some marries a B this is the day on which the loan must be repaid or the Knights lands are forfeit so the abbot should be expecting the night worse still the abbot with the Justice you who's very much in his pay and with the seller er who's the man in charge of the abbeys estates have been plotting what to do with the land that is coming their way when the Knights in his company arrive the abbot has already started to eat note the contrast with Robin who Curtis Lee waits for a guest before he will dine and when the night enters the hall the abbot continues to eat a keeping the night standing even and certainly not inviting the knight to join the meal when the night pretends that he does not have the means to pay the debt the abbot gratuitously chooses as they enjoys the moment until the night produces the catch the cash much to the abbot's discomfort the knight returns to his lands gathers the money he owes to Robin and with the company of a hundred men begins the journey to Barnsdale Barnsdale the second fit ends with the knight being delayed in his mission waylaid by the desperate plight of a young man threatened with death so he's going to be late to repay Robin in the third fit the action switches to Nottingham where Little John leaves the night service to join the service of the Sheriff of Nottingham he tricks the sheriff into taking him on and then he deliberately behaves like a bad servant and eventually leaves his new mark leads his new master to Barnsdale forest where Robin Hood dines the sheriff at the sheriff's expense and Little John returns to Robin service it's a riotously funny fit all at the sheriff's expense and it's worth noting at this point that this is the first time when when Little John comes back to Robin it's the first time that Robin Hood has been seen since the first fit he's been absolutely absent from the story for 89 stanzas while Little John and the knight have taken center stage in the fourth fit Robin Hood is waiting for the night to keep his appointment and unlike the abbot before him he cannot eat before the appointed hour of the Nights return he's also worried that the Virgin Mary is angry with him because the night is now late for his appointment Little John will Scarlett a much the Millison ascent again on an errand to find Robin a guest before he can eat this time the crew happened upon the cellar of st. Mary's Abbey you remember him he was looking forward to enjoying the night's lands wasn't he but as they looked in Barnsdale by the highway than they were their word of two black monks each on a good pal fray then beasts back Little John to much he can say I dare lay my life to weed as a pledge that these monks have brought our pay and here is one of the principal jokes that the jest has been working towards the monks are of course the monks of sant Mary's Abbey you're dedicated to yes the Virgin Mary Robin too is dedicated to yes the Virgin Mary but he performs his dedication not by stealing land from the unfortunate nights by put but by putting right wrongs by helping not predating on those experiencing difficult times the Virgin has an abandoned Robin nor is she cross with him on the contrary she intends that Robin should receive back the money he lent to the knight from the very a be of some Mary's the seller who has been looking forward to enjoying the night night and in fit one is the principal monk whose wind he's dined lies to Robin about how much money he has in his sacks than his force to pay 800 pounds for the privilege of his meal at the end of the fit the night arrives ready to pay Robin what he owes but Robin replies it's alright I've been repaid by the Virgin Mary the joke is blatant I know and it's really hard one none of the humor in the ballads is exactly subtle but it is actually quite good fun in the fifth fit the second Robin Hood emerges remember we've been talking about one Robin Hood who looks like King Arthur in the second part part of the jest of Robin Hood beginning in the fifth fit the second Robin Hood emerges so he's no longer the king of the Greenwood holding court and sending his men on quests now he takes center stage and we seem driving forward the story there's an archery competition in Nottingham which Robin wins this is our Robin Hood of course the master Archer and then he has to make his escape the outlaws take refuge with the knight they have helped in the first fit in the sixth year the sheriff appeals to the king the knight is captured Robin Hood and his men go to Nottingham kill the sheriff notice a death here and then return with the night to Barnsdale to await the arrival of the Kings pardon the king at this moment is named as Edward Robin is sheriff killer is not our Robin and now we see to that the jest is not set in the reign of Richard the Lionheart in the early eleven 90s but in fact in the reign of one of the Edwards so sometime between 1272 and 1377 King Edward arrives in Nottingham at the beginning of the seventh fit he disguises himself as an abbot and takes with him five of his best knights are tired as monks and sure enough Robin way lays the disguised King dines him then recognizes his king then begs the King for forgiveness in the eighth fit the two returned to Nottingham Robin serves the King for a year but then returns to the forest to take up his former life again where he lives a further twenty-two years before being killed by the treachery of the Prioress of Kirk please Rob kinswoman so now we've got three late medieval Robin Hood's the one the character of the may games who has a female companion in Maid Marian who in the company of Little John and Friar Tuck emerges each whitson to celebrate the arrival of summer takes money from the people in the community and hands it to the church for you song goods what good works and he's the Lord of misrule when drinking and riotous games are the order of the day the second Robin Hood is this our Furion figure who sends his men on quests who is overly religious even in the context of a religious Society of his day has two companions not even mentioned in the May games scarlet much has no love interest there's no Maid Marian has no Friar Tuck in his company the third Robin Hood is a much more active Robin Hood one who wins an archery competition justifiably kills the Sheriff of Nottingham is a hero to his men even rescues Little John from certain death but is a loyal subject of King Edward III Robin Hood while all recognizably Robin Hood's are all very different from one another we find a fourth type of Robin Hood in our medieval sources in what is widely regarded as the best medieval of the medieval ballads Robin Hood and the monk the character that emerges from the text isn't even more complex one than the three we have already met in its earliest surviving form the Ballad dates from about 1450 and it does exist in manuscript form unlike as we've seen her jest Robin is the same religious teen enthusiast and this time he complains that he has not heard mast for more than a fortnight and so he determines that he must go to Nottingham to hear a mass his men advised him against going and when Robin protests his determination to go they advised him to go with a crowd of his men Robin refuses to heed that advice and says that of all my merry men said Robin be my faith I will none have but Littlejohn shall bear my bow til that meal to draw Littlejohn's immediate responses to say to Robin thou shalt bear thine own said little Jang master and I will bear mine and we shall shet up any said Little John under the Greenwood line Robin at first refuses the challenge and when he does eventually accept it he loses the contest so badly that he ends up blowing Little John five shillings that's an awful lot of losses 60 losses Robin denies videos Little John the money calls him a liar and then slaps him Little John responds by bringing out his sword and telling Robin that he no longer wishes to serve in his band with that Robin stalked often Nottingham enters the church where he's recognized by a monk who calls out the hue and cry is captured and then put in prison ironically by this point Robin is still not hurt his much wish for mass the remainder of the story focuses on the attempt by Little John to spring his master from Nottingham jail the rescue that little John in his companions now concoct is one that involves the murder of the monk the murder of his pageboy both buried in unmarked graves by the side of the road the impersonation of the sheriff's man to the king by Little John and therefore the false acquisition of the Kings seal the use of the royal seal to gain entry to not even Castle and then the release of Robin at the end of the to the story the two companions make up Robin admits that he's been very foolish and Little John forgives his master and the two returned to their company in the Greenwood the King at the end is left to wonder at the loyalty of Little John to Robin Hood as are we two for Robin is content being contemptuous of his companion perhaps we're supposed to think that love of friendship is stronger than the other forces in the land the King the law the sheriff the prison and the friendship can even overcome the failure of one friend to respect another this Robin Hood is therefore a liability still recognizably Robin Hood but behaving in a way which is reckless he's petulant like a teenager he manages to alienate his constant friend Little John and as result of his foolish behavior he falls into the hands of his mortal enemy the Sheriff of Nottingham he's he is not now the loyal subject of the king and the king is left to lament the fact that Little John and much the Millison are far more loyal to Robin than they are to the king that Robin was rescued was rescued owed more to the dogged loyalty of the outlaw band led by Little John than it did to Robins ability as a swordsman or indeed as an archer and Robin's release was engineered by little Jon's ability to be a trickster just as he was a trickster in the jest when he spent a year working for the Sheriff of Nottingham and this Robin Hood is no longer in barnesdale hooray we finally found him in Sherwood the sheriff made to seek Nottingham both by stret and stye in other words by street and alleyway and Robin was in Mary Sherwood as light as a leaf on Lynde so in fact now we have four distinct Robin Hood's one the Robin of the may games located in Scotland the Thames Valley the Seven Valley in the West Country 2 the Robin who is like King Arthur keeping court in the Greenwood in barnesdale forest and sending his men on quests 3 the central character in trials of skill and strength but intensely loyal to his king and for the petulant teenage like Robin Hood of Sherwood Forest who recklessly puts his and his men's lives in danger and has to be rescued by his band of men who lose certainly not loyal to the king these are there are of course constants in each of these Robins the Greenwood archery as indeed is the fact that Robin is an outlaw and that he's devoted to the Virgin Mary but in each of the cases I've outlined for you this evening Robin Hood is a fundamentally different character the engine that drives the narrative of Robin is different each time in time in May games it's the celebration of summer and young love and the raising of money further local church in the jest it's a quest a part of the cycle and then an adventure in the monk it's the rescue of Robin from his own folly Robin Hood in the PATA which I don't propose to discuss in detail tonight the location of Robins hideaway returns to Barnsdale forest and the engine that drives the narrative is the trick on the Sheriff of Nottingham it might be worth noting it at this point that apart from the Virgin Mary who I don't suppose counts in this regard the whirl of interest that the medieval Robin had heard has in the ballads is with the sheriff's wife she obviously likes Robin and takes quite a bit of pleasure from the sheriff's discomfiture when he returns home from a bruising encounter with Robin in the green Greenwood another of the medieval tales is Robin and Guy of Gisbourne again The Hideaway is in barnesdale forest the engine in this one is the retribution on the Sheriff of Nottingham for having a sigh as having hired an assassin Guy of Gisbourne to kill to kill Robin the retribution is the only one that counts in this tale guy is killed his face is disfigured his head is chopped off and stuck on the end of a pike the sheriff is also dispatched to meet his maker Robin shows no mercy to his would-be assassin nor to the man who hired him the body count in this tale is 5 plus some other sundry people in red top's including two of Robins men making it a thoroughly violent peace in the context of the Robin Hood move in the jest the first Robin is gentrified perhaps even more so turned into the king of the Greenwood the second Robin is a bit more of a ruffian but his connection to the Prioress suggests the a he was more than a simple yeoman in the Monken the Potter and in Guy of Gisbourne Robin is firmly of yeoman stock in the may games Robin is likewise a man of the people even if he if he is chosen from the better sort of the community at no point in the medieval tales is Robin raised to the aristocracy the outlawed Earl of Huntingdon Robert of Locksley is an entirely post-medieval character now somehow or another we have to explain why Robin Hood is so different whenever we meet him in a text or in a situation and I think that the answer is that he was a vehicle on whom it was possible to place whatever Robin Hood one wanted Robin never was a single character evil from his inception rather he was multiple characters on whom was laid the story or celebration that suited the times there was no one Robin Hood as an individual human being I don't think he ever existed as a character he existed in multiple forms the vast majority of which have been lost to us because those forms were part of an oral culture the written forms that we have are the ones that very few people decided to set down in writing and we shouldn't be surprised to find our Robin appearing in almost any situation and here he is in the moons of Lincoln Cathedral for example here's the reference to Robin Hood and Sherwood Forest in a form not known elsewhere so this particular rhyme is in English and in Latin Robin Hood in Sherwood stood hooded patted hosed and shod four-and-twenty arrows he bar in his hands and then it's translated into Latin by the same writer perhaps our boy learning his grammar as we've seen so far in the literary text Robin was firmly entrenched in Barnsdale and although he went often to Nottingham only once was he to be found in Sherwood Forest and then it was only escaping from Nottingham Jail so it looks more like Sherwood was an immediate Haven from the sheriff's men rather than a permanent hideaway of the outlaw band which obviously that Barnsdale forest had that status that bands Fadel Forest had and yet in this graffito on a thirteenth century manuscript of John Garland's grammar in Lincoln Cathedral we can see that there's a strong link between Robin Hood and Sherwood Forest and it was a lie in the minds of school boys at Lincoln at the end of the 15th century were it not for this one chance reference we might be tempted to think that Robyn's permanent base in Sherwood Forest is almost entirely a post-reformation creation and only really established in the 17th century and what this reminds us is the fragility of the link that connects the medieval tales of Robin Hood to us in the modern age I think the further interest of this piece is that it's a poem and it's in the West Midlands dialect and the meter is rhyming couplets nothing now in existence of the medieval Robin Hood corpus is preserved in this manner but it seems likely that there was a thriving oral poetical culture swishing around in the heads of bored schoolboys who wanted to be somewhere else rather than in the schoolroom and I should say if you're looking at this and you're struggling to read it the reason you're struggling to read it is because the handwriting is execrable and if you're struggling to read the latin and you're looking at the latin you're thinking well I'm quite good at Latin why can't I read that the reason is because the Latin is extra ball too this is a student who sat at the back of the class been dreamt of running free of his lessons and into the Greenwood to join the legendary band of outlaws he obviously wasn't one of the top pupils in that particular class now as I mentioned a moment ago the aristocratic Robin Hood the disgraced Earl of Huntingdon who also went by the name of Robert of Locksley is not a medieval character and seems to have been in an entirely late creation he was unlike his yeoman count a yeoman counterpart a character of writing not of orality he was created at the end of the 16th century to satisfy a demand for a Robin Hood who could be played in front of the highest in the land the author of the piece that turned Robin Hood into the Earl of Huntington was a man called Anthony Monday who wrote his downfall of Robert Earl of Huntingdon as a romantic comedy to be be performed by the Admirals men at the Christmas caught in 1598 presumably therefore no lesser person than Queen Elizabeth the first saw Monday's play about Robin Hood it's in Monday's Robin Hood that the character emerges almost fully formed as we know him the scene is set in the reign of Richard the Lionheart that makes us comfortable doesn't it who's away on crusade Prince John is present that also makes us comfortable because we know he's there and Eleanor of Aquitaine and Maid Marian is there Maid Marian is the love interest of the Earl of Huntingdon and Prince John is the rival for maid Marian's affections meanwhile and I'm not sure what Queen Elizabeth thought of this Queen Ella and accutane is supposed to have had a love interest for the Earl of Huntington she'd have been a 70 year old by that stage the Earl is out Lord and takes the name Robin Hood he settles in Sherwood Forest with his men including Little John will Scarlett Friar Tuck much the Millers son and his principal enemy is the Sheriff of Nottingham they live happily in the woods Marian joins Robin though she remains chaste until Robin is pardoned and they can be properly married and the crew swears an oath to protect the poor Prince John rules in his brother's absence and abuses his power King Richard returns and Robin is pardoned but decides to remained ensured all that is missing is the name of Robert of Locksley that Association had to wait until the 17th century probably when in a manner which I don't quite understand yet Robin was given an entirely fictional pedigree so here we have a society of antiquaries commonplace book presented to the society on the 23rd of May 1720 when the Society of Antiquaries has been in existence since 1707 and William Stokely was one of their earliest senior fellows and it's his commonplace book and you go through it and what you discover is there's this as I've shown you this wonderful pedigree of of Robin Hood and there he is I can't quite see it with the reading glasses on hopefully you can see it can you see it here's Robert Fitz commonly called Robin Hood the famous outlaw and Earl of Huntingdon who died in 1247 have no idea where he got that date from and here's the Loxley bit because he's drawing you a nice little line here and you can see up here he's got a grandfather who is a man of Loxley Loxley is an entirely fictional place you would have thought a chap who was so high up in the Society of Antiquaries would know that there was no such place as Loxley but that didn't seem to worry him when he was looking for the origins of Robin Hood so just like the editors of the ODN be in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography William stutely the Reverend William strictly thought of Robin Hood as a real person the lottery name first appears as a pseudonym for Robin Hood in a 17th century text which is supposed to describe an encounter between Robin and Queen Catherine of Aragon Henry the eighth's first wife when she's supposed to have given Robin the alias of Locksley so what you've got here is all these tales being jammed together to create in certainly William stokeley's mind the real Robin Hood this it seems to me is the Robin Hood of literature not of oral culture and it is the Robin Hood who is acceptable to polite society but he's not the medieval Robin Hood the Robin Hood of this lecture was a man of the people and hence his literary footprint is very sparse indeed this upper class Robin Hood was to have a much larger literary presence and hence the impact on our own imaginations of Robin Hood today and if you're aware of the French Robin Dubois who's the Prince of the thieves brought to the French by Alexandre Dumas this is exactly the Robin Hood that they have today when writing this lecture for tonight I tried to think how I might characterize the medieval Robin Hood to a modern audience in a way that could push home my main message and I concluded that the way to help you see how we should view the medieval Robin Hood is to encourage you to see him as a superhero but not a superhero like spider-man or Batman but a particular sort of Superman in fact not a man at all but a Time Lord there have been 13 Doctor Who's each one played by a different actor each one with a different characteristic but each one is undoubtedly Doctor Who whether the doctor is the zany Tom Baker that's my Doctor Who or the clown like Sylvester McCoy or the frankly slightly threatening Christopher Eccleston he's recognizably Doctor Who and we've now got a new Doctor Hemenway who's going to be played by a female actor Jodie Whittaker the change of gender will make no difference whatsoever to our understanding of the role she like all her predecessors is a Time Lord she will travel through time and space in the TARDIS disguised as a 1920s police box that's her green wood if you like she will have adventures where she will heroically save the world using wit not violence but wit above all aus she will inexplicably like human beings even though we are self-destructive and childlike in our actions and there will be a human's assistant in whiticus's case I think there going to be three human assistants the doctor makes the difference in the struggle between good and evil without the doctor evil would prevail the similarities between Robin Hood and Doctor Who don't end there as one of my brightest students from last year noticed because Doctor Who is an outlaw too on the run from the authorities of Gallifrey the doctor's home planet but for my purposes today the real importance of Doctor Who or that Doctor Who comparison is that the stories change is the character of the doctor changes he/she is a character on which to hang a whole variety of stories and in which to invest a whole variety of personalities all of which are recognisably Doctor Who but all of whom are different from one another the medieval Robin Hood like the modern doctor who was a work of fiction created by people who wanted a character who answered the fundamental needs that medieval men women and children had and one of those needs was of course entertainment entertainment Errol Flynn highly entertaining one of my favorite Robin Hood characters it's very clear that the may games were moments of celebration which when the religious climate change brought down the opprobrium of the zealots of the age the impact of the Reformation on the Robin Hood May Games was profound in part because the Reformation broke the traditional cycles of the ritualistic year that half of year which stretched from Christmas to Midsomer was expunged from the calendar or so altered as to make it unrecognizable and Robin Hood suffered as a consequence of that Robin also answered a need which we all have within us I think to believe in the triumph of good over evil even if evil holds most of the trump cards we need to like we feel like or we need to feel like we are participating in a just world and it seems to me that the medieval Robin Hood texts show that our forebears were no different they too needed to feel that their world was just even if the people who wielded power in their world the abbot the sheriff the monastic official held most of the trump cards and humor was absolutely central to the medieval Robin Hood tales even when the action gets bloody and people get killed the humor of the events comes through strongly we're supposed to laugh a great deal in these when we're participating in the Robin Hood tales and when we encounter their medieval Robin Hood because for us you me the audience he's a safe out he's not a threatening outlaw he's not the real outlaw he's isn't going to attack us the ordinary man and woman in the street he's not the real threatening outlaw he's the outlaw that we can meet and who won't take from us our hard-earned money and one of the crucial points it seems to me about our medieval Robin Hood is he just is Robin Hood he never becomes Robin Hood he lives in the forest Barnsdale mostly perhaps Sherwood where he is happy to carry on the life of the outlaw there's no back story to our Robin we just there he is our Robin Hood and we know who he is and we're invited to laugh a lot we're invited to laugh at the people who are more stupid than ourselves and the sheriff is often more stupid than we would be and we are invited to enjoy the slapstick humour which is usually directed at the people in power using their of offices corruptly and we're supposed to cheer as well as the bad guys get their just punishment the real outlaws of medieval England Hereward the wake Eustis the moment faults that Volk fitzwarren all of whom had tales written about them and about which I could talk at length if I had time perhaps another time were figures of popular times and places one's a freedom fighter one's a pirate one's a March a baron so they're tied by time and place the real Robin Hood is a character of the medieval imagination infinitely adaptable within the confines of being Robin Hood of course but infinitely adaptable and this is my own favorite Robin Hood I thought I'd share my own favorite Robin Hood with you it is in fact Frank Sinatra in Robin in the seven hoods it's a fantastic a vocation I think of the spirit of the Robin Hood tales and it's set in 1930s Chicago and because it's a musical it gets the essence of the medieval Robin Hood perfectly because the texts i've been talking about have been texts that were sung and i havnt son to you tonight which is very remiss of me but they were texts that were sung they weren't texts that were read it's not just orality but it's also singing is also it's about singing the may games are about singing they're all about the musical and here we have an e vacation of it from you know the Rat Pack in the forgotten when it was made late late 50s early 60s early sixties isn't it and the eve occasion of 1930s Chicago and I think he's a fantastic Robin Hood absolutely superb and so engaging with those medieval texts of Robin Hood's exploits I think allows us a window into the imagined imaginative world of ordinary men and women and schoolboys remember our schoolboy from Lincoln of late medieval England and Scotland thank you very much

Channel: Gresham College

Views: 33,670

Keywords: gresham, gresham talk, gresham lecture, lecture, gresham college, gresham college lecture, gresham college talk, free video, free education, education, public lecture, Event, free event, free public lecture, free lecture, Robin Hood, medieval England, outlaw, folklaw, hero, criminal, superhero, Betley Window, Victoria and Albert Museum, Maid Marion, Friar Tuck, Wynkyn de Worde, Ca, ton, Robyn Hode, Bernesdale, Litell Johnn, Little John, king john, King Richard, richard the lionheart

Id: Ut6Wl5VHlX8

Length: 49min 50sec (2990 seconds)

Published: Wed May 02 2018