(intense music)
(pen scribbling) - I'm walking down what used
to be the Great North Road, the medieval version of the M1, and this was one of the most difficult and dangerous stretches
because it was bandit country. Sherwood Forest. But there can't be many
characters from history who we can immediately identify
just by saying a place name, but already I'm absolutely
confident that all of you will realize this is gonna be
a program about Robin Hood. (intense music) Everyone knows his story. He's one of the most
famous people in history. But what was he really like? Did he actually exist? I'm gonna try and establish whether the most celebrated
outlaw of all time was just a comic book character or a flesh and blood historical figure. (intense music)
(flames crackling) I've always had a fascination with Robin, so this is something of a personal quest. We all feel we know the famous outlaw, but he comes in a host
of shapes and sizes. The pictures of him we've
all had since childhood may be a long way from the real truth. - In the dictionary of national biography, Robin Hood is the only
figure who didn't exist. - He certainly robbed from the rich, but he never got round
to giving to the poor. - A thousand men could not find an outlaw if he didn't want to be
found in the Sherwood Forest. - Some years ago, I
wrote a children's series called "Maid Marian and her Merry Men." It parodied the Robin
stories we all know from TV and the movies. So, who'd have thought it? Robin Hood and his team
of mastermind finalists! But what we think of as traditional isn't. Our modern Robin's story
is the product of centuries of change and evolution. The Robin we know today
is Robin of Loxley, who returns from the
crusades to find his lands have been stolen by evil
Prince John and his henchman, the Sheriff of Nottingham. - It's master Robin. (man whistling) - [Tony] He flees to the
Greenwood and fights on with his Merry Men, stealing from the rich
to give to the poor. - You two go around by the far bank, and we'll meet up at the log bridge. - [Man] Right. - He marries his sweetheart Maid Marian, and gets his land back only
when King Richard the Lionheart returns from the Holy Land. It's a great story, but a red herring as far as tracking down a real Robin goes. If we want a flesh and blood Robin, then we're gonna have to look
for the original Robin stories in their earliest versions. The earliest Robin stories
were ballads handed down by word of mouth. We know they were around in 1377. By investigating these original stories, we should be able to find
evidence of Robin's real identity. (gentle music) - [Man] That be of frebore blode, I shall you tel of a gode yeman, His name was Robyn Hode. Robyn was a proud outlaw whilst he walked on ground... - This earliest fiction
is just as exciting as our modern versions, but it doesn't offer any
clues about how Robin became an outlaw. The tale opens abruptly at his camp. Robin's there with only
three of the usual suspects. Little John, Will Scarlet,
and Much the Miller's son (gentle music) They're preparing a meal. Robin's hungry, but he won't
eat until he has a guest. He sends his men off to lie in wait by the Great North Road
and catch a fellow diner. They don't have to wait
long before they waylay a threadbare knight. Of course, it's a racket. Robin offers the knight his hospitality, and then once he's eaten, tells him he's got to pay for his meal, but it emerges that the
knight is penniless. His son has killed a man. In order to pay a heavy fine, the knight's taken on a
vast loan from the monks at Saint Mary's in York. Unless he repays the debt tomorrow, he stands to lose everything he owns. Because the knight's been honest, Robin sends him on his way with
400 pounds to pay the debt, trusting that the Virgin
Mary will pay him back. On top of that, he gives the
knight a new set of clothes and a good horse and sends
Little John to accompany him to York as a valet. When you read the ballad, you start to notice
that it's very different from the version we know today. Robin here isn't a nobleman. He and the outlaws are
yeomen, low born freemen. But most obvious is the setting. It's not Sherwood Forest. This is where the poem's set, in the forests traditionally
known as Barnsdale in south Yorkshire. Yes, Robin Hood was a Yorkshireman. - People perhaps will be surprised that Robin Hood's a Yorkshireman, but it depends on the background. Historians have known
this for a good few years. The problem is that other outlaws perhaps living down round
Nottingham in Sherwood Forest, their stories will be amalgamated
with the original ballads, which don't come from this area, and the fact that Nottingham
is a much better-known place than Wentbridge or Barnsdale, which most people to be
frank have never heard of outside the area, would help
the Nottingham connection. - The ballad's very
specific about the area. This track is the remnant
of the Great North Road as it dipped down into Barnsdale to cross the river Went at Wentbridge. Today, the A1 bypasses Wentbridge
half a mile to the east, and it's where the viaduct is now that the Merry Men laid their ambush. This is the spot where
Little John and Will Scarlet lie in wait for the knight in the poem. Robin sends them to Sale
to spy on Wentbridge. You can see just beyond
those white buildings, the road snaking down into
Wentbridge from the other side of the valley. The writer knew this place. He knew it was the perfect lookout point. It may surprise some people
to hear the Robin Hood stories coming from here and not from Sherwood, but six centuries ago, it
wouldn't have raised an eyebrow. The phrase "Robin Hood in Barnsdale stood" was a legal saying,
meaning that something was a well-established fact. And a couple of miles down
the A1 from Wentbridge, there's further proof
of Yorkshire's claims. This is Robin Hood's Well near Skelbrooke, or rather, it's the cover that
the 18th century architect Vanbrugh designed for it. The landmark's been moved to make way for the dual carriageway,
but for centuries, people have stopped here
to celebrate Robin Hood. This is the earliest known place name that's associated with Robin Hood, but over the next three centuries, the name starts cropping
up all over the place. Robin Hood's Bay near Whitby,
Robin Hood's Butts in Cumbria. Robin Hood's Walk in Richmond, Surrey. Practically everywhere except Sherwood. The first name there doesn't
appear until the year 1700. They're jumping on the bandwagon at least four centuries after the event. So we've got tales set in
Barnsdale, not Sherwood, Robin's not a dispossessed nobleman, but a lowborn Yorkshireman. What else do these original
stories tell us about him? (gentle music) - [Man] Then spake that gentle knight, to Little John began he saying, "Tomorrow I must to Yorktown, to St. Mary's Abbey." - [Tony] The abbot and monks
of St. Mary's Abbey in York are hoping that the night
will fail to show up. They're loan sharks. The knight's only got until
sunset to repay his vast debt. After that, they can claim
all his property and land. - [Man] If he doesn't come this very day, disherit shall he be. - [Tony] But in the nick of
time, the knight arrives. Expecting him to be empty-handed, the abbot shows him no respect
and leaves him kneeling like a servant. He gets a shock when the knight hands over the full 400 pounds of his debt. (dramatic music) It seems as though everything's square. But there's a twist. Back in the Greenwood,
Robin sends his men out on a carbon copy of their first ambush. Lo and behold, this
time, their dinner guest is none other than the
monk from St. Mary's. Unlike the knight, the
monk pleads poverty, but is found to have 800 pounds with him. (coins jingling) The knight told the truth and was helped, the monk lied and lost everything. Justice prevails, and
Robin doubles his money. But there's no mention
of giving to the poor. Our heroes are just a
bunch of highway robbers. - Can you imagine any Yorkshireman robbing the rich to give to the poor? He almost certainly robbed
the rich and kept it. That was a product of
a much later version. - [Tony] The Robin of the
ballad is a bit of a thug. In one poem, he kills a man, puts the head on his bowstaff
and mutilates the face. - The original Robin Hood is
a pretty vicious character. But then again, in the Middle Ages, when people were being
entertained by the early ballads and stories of Robin Hood, they would expect to find a
vicious character as their hero, because in those days, everyone was used to
living a pretty hard life. So just because somebody went round lopping people's heads
off, stealing from people, as long as you went
round killing the people they didn't like, it didn't
really matter how he did it. - But why does Robin pick on
men of the cloth in particular? St. Mary's really exists.
It's here in York. But don't be fooled by
these romantic ruins. It was more than just a
religious institution. York was the second most
powerful political center in the country, and the monks
who ran abbeys like these were politicians and captains of industry as well as being in charge of the spiritual welfare of the country. The abbeys of northern England
controlled the wool trade. The money was supposed
to be a means to an end, supporting a life of prayer, but wealth had led to sleaze. (bleak music) In Robin's day, religious
communities were notorious for their greed, lax morals,
and hypocritical lifestyle. Conversely, Robin's portrayed
as fair and truly religious. He may be a criminal, but his rough justice
restores true values. When Robin mugged the
monk from St. Mary's, a great cheer would have gone up. This ordinary bloke
Robin was striking a blow for justice and true religion. Everyone knew the system was wrong, only an outlaw would have
dared do anything about it. (intense music) So far, this original
version of the Robin stories has given us a good general picture of the sort of hard-bitten
character we're looking for. But we'll be getting more
clues about his actual identity when he comes face to
face with his arch enemy, the Sheriff of Nottingham. (intense music) (flames crackling) (intense music)
(flames crackling) To find the facts about
the real Robin Hood, we've been looking at the
earliest fictional versions of his legend. These medieval tales explode the myth of a penniless nobleman in Sherwood in favor of a much tougher
out-and-out criminal based in Yorkshire. But the stories in these ancient
texts also contain evidence pointing us to a real flesh
and blood historical Robin. - [Man] Little John (indistinct) were archers good and free. - [Tony] Robin and his
men are brilliant archers. The Sheriff of Nottingham
organizes a competition to trap the archers. Despite wearing their hoods, the sheriff knows that
whoever splits the wand to win must be an outlaw. - [Man] They cried out on Robin Hood and great horns began they blow. "Woe, were thee treason," said
Robin Hood. "Full evil..." - [Tony] Of course he never succeeds. The outlaws always escape
in the nick of time. There's chases, fights,
escapes from prison, and then the feud with
the sheriff climaxes in a showdown. (intense music) (horse neighs) Robin takes down his arch
enemy with a single shot. Then moves in for the kill, beheading the sheriff with his sword. - [Man] Before the man
could arise, (indistinct). He smote off the sheriff's
head with his bright blade. Robin beheld our comely king wistfully in the face. So did Sir Richard- - [Tony] Next, King Edward himself comes to sort out these rebels in the north. With his men disguised as monks, he deliberately gets
captured in the forest, but when he sees that
Robin's a loyal subject, he forgives the outlaws and
takes Robin into his service. - [Man] My lord, the king of England. - Which leaves us with a puzzle. The modern Robin story's set in the reign of Richard the Lionheart. The evidence in the ballads
suggests this is all wrong. The ballads say that Robin met
an entirely different king, Edward the comely king. Now, there've been eight King Edwards who've ruled Britain through the ages. The first mention of the
ballads is in the year 1377, so that rules all these kings out because Edward IV didn't
come to the throne until the 15th century. So using this logic, Robin
must've been around between 1274 when Edward I comes to the throne, and 1377, when we get that
first mention of the ballads. And there's another blindingly
obvious piece of evidence that supports that dating. It's the one thing more than any other that Robin Hood's famous for. (intense music) - It's the rise of the bow, the longbow, as they call it nowadays. It began to take off 12th, 13th century. That's when it's got to have
permeated through the villages and through the towns and
begun to become ingrained into our communities and become basically a common man's religion for sport. - [Tony] In Richard the Lionheart's reign, the bow was a minority weapon. There was no cult of the longbowman. Edward I, II, and III made the bow a key part of their military strategy. Archery was compulsory for
every able-bodied male, and so being a great archer was like being a football star today. - If you'd got the eye and the strength and you could do the
business with the bow, you were really one of
the best in the community. - Robin the crack marksman could only be a product of this culture in the early 14th century, and closer examination of the ballads leads us to an exact date. Historians have looked
closely at the lives of the three Edwards who
are potential candidates to be our comely king, and they've come to the
conclusion that only one of them could possibly have come
face to face with an outlaw in this area. In the year 1323, Edward II
went on a tour of the north, ending in Nottingham, because of a political
crisis that started here at Pontefract Castle. Pontefract in West Yorkshire
was confusingly home to Thomas the Earl of Lancaster, the cousin of Edward II. The king was unpopular. Lancaster decided to make
his own bid for the throne. He called up his men from
Yorkshire and Lancashire to form an army. But as they moved out of Pontefract, Edward ambushed them
and crushed the rebel. The Earl of Lancaster
was tried and beheaded. His followers were outlawed
and fled for their lives to places like Barnsdale. (soft music) The Lancastrian Revolt provides
a plausible explanation as to why Robin and his men
would have been outlaws. It also connects Robin to Nottingham through the villain of the piece. The period of the revolt was the only time that the Sheriff of Nottingham was also responsible for Yorkshire. He'd have been the King's right-hand man in fighting the rebels. (intense music) The Lancastrian rebellion also
explains another possibility. The poor knight who
Robin originally held up is a recurring character in the stories. When the outlaws are
fleeing from the sheriff, they run to his castle for protection. The knight's name is
Sir Richard of the Lea, and this is where the
ballad says he was from, Lea in Wyresdale. But this is Lancashire, several
days' ride from Barnsdale, where Robin's based. At first glance, it
seems pretty implausible to have a leading
character from so far away, but actually it makes perfect sense. Plumpton and Wyresdale
are linked with Barnsdale through the lands of
Thomas, Earl of Lancaster. They formed a corridor
right across the Pennines, allowing for easy communication between rebels here and here. A knight faced in Wyresdale
would have been brother in arms to a yeoman outlaw in Barnsdale. The Lancastrian revolt is
the only time and place where the ballads fit
with political history. When historians realized this, they set about the task of
finding a real Robin Hood from this period in the medieval archives. Today, if you wanted to track me down, you'd probably try looking
in the telephone book, and there among all the Robinsons, you'd be bound to come across a Tony, but whether or not it
was this Tony Robinson, you'd be hard pressed to know. And in the early 14th century, it would be even more difficult, because the court rolls
and the church records of the early Middle
Ages weren't cataloged. There were no indexes, and
no one was written down in alphabetical order. Nevertheless, lo and behold, when historians were looking for Robin in the early 14th century, they found one. In the court rolls of
the Manor of Wakefield in the reign of Edward II, living with his wife Matilda was a tenant called Robert Hood. - To most people that's
well, that's not Robin Hood. That's a totally different
name, but it isn't. Robin is a nickname for Robert. For many years, the name Robin
was used instead of Robert, just like for example,
Jack might be a nickname for the name John, hence John F. Kennedy is Jack Kennedy. So this man is called Robin Hood. - [Tony] Let's suppose for a moment that this is the real man
behind the Robin of the ballads. Robert Hood was a forester. He's one of the Lancastrian
rebels who were outlawed after the rebellion. As a result, he loses his
property in Wakefield. (people chattering) And the property was here. Robert Hood's house was in Bichill. Today, it's the site of the bus station. Our Robert Hood, who lived somewhere
under the number 49 stop, disappears in 1322. We don't hear of him again, but it's not quite the end of the story. - [Man] "Alas," then said good Robin- - [Tony] The ballad says Robin was taken into the king's service,
but after 15 months, he was so depressed that he left to return to his former life. - [Man] If I dwell longer with the king, sorrow will me slay. - The record tells us that a year after the Lancastrian revolt, there was still political unrest. The king set off on a tour of the north, offering an amnesty to the outlaws, some of whom he took into his own ranks. Enter our second candidate. This is Robin Hood, a valet de chambre, a bodyguard, who appears on the payroll with Edward II's court in 1323, but the following year takes
a lump sum of five shillings because he can no longer work. When you compare the
stories with the history, the parallels are striking. Let's recap, the ballad
tells us that the king forgave Robin Hood of his crimes, that Robin went to work for him, but he left the king's
service a year or so later because he felt fed up and depressed. And the records tell us that this man, Robert Hood of Wakefield,
fought in the Lancastrian revolt and disappeared, but
that shortly afterwards, this man crops up, Robyn Hood, a king's servant who worked
for the king for about a year, and then he too disappears. Could these two men be the same person? Our Robert Hood of
Wakefield was a forester. He'd have been well-equipped
for life as an outlaw in the forests of Barnsdale. At Papplewick Church in Sherwood, there's a medieval forester's
grave that gives us an idea of the essential forester's kit. There's a bow and arrow of course, and this, a sort of shoulder strap with a horn hanging from it, is, I have to tell you, a baldrick. But living out in the forests
required more than this. Near the church, I learned just how tough
life on the run could be. At the cave known as Robin Hood's Stable, I met a man who's made a point
of surviving in the forest using only the tools of the Middle Ages. What were the biggest problems? - The rain one night, it rained very, very heavily one night. I resolved to wisely get into an oak tree and sleep inside the oak
tree not far from here. - [Tony] What equipment have you got? - The basic equipment. You'd have to carry your
home on your back, really. This is a flask, because
water is very hard to find. This is a cup made from an ox horn. A blanket for wrapping
yourself up in at night. An antler for digging a
hole to go to the toilet in, and toilet paper hangs on the trees. An axe for making a woodland shelter. And in here, necessities
and a few little luxuries, some eating utensils,
some salt, some flour, just a basic kit. In terms of weapons, a
yew bow, simple yew bow in a hunting case. These are hunting arrows. A knife to eat with, a
knife to kill people with. - See you've got a hunting horn there. - It is, it's very important
to maintain communications in the forest. This was the medieval equivalent of Robin Hood's mobile phone. - [Tony] So might Robin Hood really have gone.
(imitates trumpet fanfare) - He could try. (horn tooting) - [Tony] So, disappointingly
tuneless outlaws. And there's one more surprise in store if you're still clinging to
the image of the Merry Men living out in the Greenwood. - They probably went home in winter. This place is particularly
inhospitable in bad weather. You can imagine what it's like in January. You would die if you stayed
livin' out here in January. And so they almost certainly went home. - [Tony] So, we have a plausible
if surprising candidate for our real Robin Hood, a yeoman Yorkshireman living
as an outlaw during the summer and sneaking back to his
home with his wife Matilda here in Wakefield in the winter. But every outlaw needs his gang. Next, we have to find the real Merry Men. (flames crackling) (intense music)
(flames crackling) By matching the clues
in the earliest stories of Robin Hood with historical records, we found a candidate
for the real Robin Hood, Robert Hood, who lived
in Wakefield until 1322, when he fled to the forests of Barnsdale. Can we also find real
versions of the Merry Men, who could have been in league
with Robert of Wakefield? Here again, the earliest
version of the story doesn't have the outlaw
band we know today. - We have Little John mentioned with Robin from the very beginning,
and then a few others, Much, Will Scarlet, Friar
Tuck comes in later. And so in a lot of the early ballads, you have Robin and a very small group, which is very credible for outlaws. Real outlaws, it was usually the leader, his younger brother, a cousin, and someone from the same village who'd also got into trouble. That's realistic, and I think
it is perfectly possible that there may have been folk
from Nottingham, Yorkshire, wherever else, who had those
names, who were outlaws. - [Tony] So what evidence do we have about the outlaws' real identity? - I was on this bridge first,
and I intend to cross first! - What do you carry that staff for, just to make yourself
look like a bold fellow, or do you know how to use it? - [Tony] We all know
Little John as the giant who joins the Merry Men after
fighting Robin on a bridge, but in the earliest
stories, there's no fight, and John plays a much more central role. - [Man] For thee have
scarlet and green, master, and many a rich array. There is no merchant in
merry England so rich. - [Tony] It's actually Little John who starts the whole
feud with the sheriff. His relationship with Robin
is much more democratic than in our modern version. Little John isn't afraid of
telling Robin what to do. (man speaking indistinctly) The tourist tradition about Little John is that he's buried in
Hathersage in Darbyshire, so people assume he came from there, but the ballads say he comes
from Holderness near Beverley in Humberside, and Little
John is just an alias. His real name is Reynold Greenleaf. - [Man] I-wis, all of my dame. Men call me Reynold Greenleaf. - [Tony] We've got
records from 1318 and 1323 of John the Little being
charged with crimes in Wakefield and Beverley. It could be that Little
John was already a criminal who joined Robert Hood
of Wakefield in Barnsdale after the Lancastrian revolt. As for the other outlaws, we don't have a record of Much the Miller, but there are some fascinating clues about Will's Scarlet's identity. - [Stephen] Will Scarlet's an odd name because in the earliest texts, he seems to have the name
of Scathelock or Scathelock, perhaps in a Northern form, and Scathelock seems to mean lock smasher. He's a break and entry merchant. In some recent versions, Will Scarlet has got dressed in scarlet. You know, he's very elaborate, and I don't think that's
what they had in mind. - And yet again, there's
evidence of a Will Scathelock at the right time and place, who could have known
Robert Hood of Wakefield. He was a monk from the
very St. Mary's in York that's mentioned in the ballad. We don't know why, but he was thrown out of the abbey at the end of the 13th century. If this real Will
Scathelock harbored a grudge against St. Mary's, it would help explain why the abbot ended up as
a villain in the story. Then we come to some
really disappointing news. Robin Hood may have had a wife,
but it wasn't Maid Marian. The early versions of the story
don't have any love interest in them at all. Marian comes into the tradition in a completely different way. (bells jingling)
(people chattering) (lively accordion music) Every year at Whitsun in the Middle Ages, the workers used to have
processions and plays to celebrate the coming of summer. We still have the
remnants of this tradition preserved in morris
dancing and mummer's plays. Robin was one of the main
characters in these revels, which were riotous and disruptive. - I can see ye likes food. - [Tony] Among the other characters, there was a Marian too, and at the time, she
became Robin's partner. The Robin and Marian characters used to force revelers to
give money for good causes, which is where we
eventually get the tradition of robbing from the rich
to give to the poor. As Robin changed from bandit
to nobleman in Tudor times, Marian was brought into the stories. (dramatic piano music) - Marian appears in full form
when Robin becomes gentrified. When Robin is a lord,
he has to have a lady, and she appears in 1598, 99
in Anthony Munday's play, "The Downfall of Robert
Earl of Huntington," and the second one, "The Death of Robert Earl of Huntington." - [Tony] But even here, there's a link. In the play, she assumes
the name Marian as an alias to conceal her real name, Matilda. - Interestingly, Robert Hood of Wakefield, his wife Matilda is recorded
as having fled with him into the forest to join
him in the struggle. Now, that is what Maid
Marian is supposed to do in the popular legend of Robin Hood. So Robert Hood of
Wakefield's wife, Matilda, matches very much the Maid Marian profile. - Marian's a later addition. There's only one woman
recorded in the early stories. She was a nun, and she'd
be Robin's nemesis. This is the Three Nuns pub on the road between Huddersfield and Dewsbury. There's been a hostelry
here for over 700 years, and it gets its name from the shenanigans that were rumored to be
going on between the guests and three of the local nuns
from nearby Kirklees Priory. If the ballads are to be believed, the guest house that
would have once stood here would have been the last place that Robin ever saw
before the priory gates closed behind him and he went
unwittingly to his death. (intense music) After leaving the king's service, Robin lives on in the
Greenwood for 22 years. Then unwittingly, he goes to his cousin, the prioress of Kirklees Priory, to be bled for his health as
they did in the Middle Ages. (man speaking indistinctly) The story gives no motive,
but this nun betrays Robin, and leaves him to bleed to death. And a later story says that
Robin fires one last arrow through the window and asks
to be buried where it lands. - [Man] Christ have mercy on his soul that died on the rood. For he was a good
outlaw, and did poor men- - Kirklees Priory was
dismantled by Henry VIII as part of his dissolution
of the monasteries. The only sign of the actual priory today are the odd stone and bumps in the ground. But the guest house where Robin is said to have died still stands. Although there's no record of how Robert Hood of Wakefield died, it's possible that he was the
person who was killed here. Kirklees is only 10 miles from Wakefield, where Robert Hood lived,
and the relevant dates link the original stories
with historical fact. The ballads tell us that Robin
Hood was killed by a relative who ran the priory here 22 years after leaving the king's service. Dating from the time of Edward II's visit, that would be about 1346 or seven. And the records tell us that in 1346, the prioress here was
Elizabeth de Staynton, none other than the cousin of
Matilda, Robert Hood's wife. This is the room in which
Robin is said to have died. The spot marking his grave's up there, but the business about
the arrow can't be right, it's 650 yards away and uphill, almost twice the longbow
range for a skilled archer. It's generally accepted
that Robin being buried where his arrow lands is a
piece of poetic elaboration round the original simple
story of his death. The site of Robin's grave at Kirklees has been a place of
pilgrimage for centuries. But if you expect a nice simple ending, you're gonna be disappointed. Searching for Robin
Hood's a bit like being the Sheriff of Nottingham. The moment you think you've got him, he slips through your clutches. This is the site of Robin Hood's grave, except it isn't. The site's been moved
at least three times, and this is what Robin's
gravestone looked like according to a sketch from the year 1665, but it disappeared,
and a replica was made, and it was chipped to pieces
by 18th century canal workers, who thought that a little bit
of Robin Hood's gravestone would cure their toothache. (intense music) When the site was excavated, there was nothing but earth,
which isn't surprising if the grave's been moved. To replace the missing grave slab, there's a 19th century
inscription in good olde English to establish the grave's
ancient credentials. Even if we haven't found
his last resting place, we've built a coherent
picture of a historical Robin. Our man from Wakefield
matches the clues given in the earliest sources. The Lancastrian revolt gives
him opportunity and motive. There's real contemporary
outlaws from Yorkshire who could have been his Merry Men, and Robin Hood was related in real life to characters mentioned in the ballads, like the prioress of Kirklees. But as with the grave, the truth about Robin
is complex and fragile. There's always more to
him than meets the eye. Just when we thought we'd
found our prime suspect, Robert Hood of Wakefield, 250 miles to the south, historians discovered another man who blew the whole thing wide open again. And this man had never
committed a crime in his life. (flames crackling) (intense music)
(flames crackling) The earliest ballads about Robin Hood have given us a picture
of a historical suspect, Robert Hood of Wakefield, who seems to have ended
up working for King Edward after the Lancastrian revolt of 1322, but in all the best detective stories, the neatest of solutions can
be upset by a single clue. Suddenly, evidence turned up that pointed to an earlier Robin. In the Middle Ages, it was the custom to be
known by your father's name. So if your dad was a yeoman
called Robert or Robin Hood, then you'd be called
Fitzrobert or Robertson or Hoodson or Hudson or
Hood, or of course Robinson. But then out of the blue, a historian discovered a
man who'd lived in Sussex in the year 1296, called Gilbert Robynhod. This was an extremely rare surname, and seemed to imply that
the name was already known as some sort of nickname, but then more and more
people called Robin Hood or Robynhod started to pop up. But these weren't just random individuals. We know that a very
high proportion of them had at some time in their
lives committed criminal acts. (intense music) There's even one case where
the clerk of the court changed a man's surname
from Lefevre to Robin Hood because he was an outlaw. Later, Robin Hood became
a common criminal alias. This doesn't mean that any
of these men are candidates for the real Robin. It just proves that people knew about him 50 years or more before
Robert Hood of Wakefield. So where does that
leave our prime suspect? Well, it's still likely that
he's the Robin of the ballads, but the ballads aren't
about the original Robin. Historians then went scurrying off and came up with another
Robert Hood in 1225. He was an outlaw who'd
been fined 32 shillings and six pence by the York assizes. But there's no record
of him doing anything like the Robin of the stories. Randomly picking up Robin Hood type names from the records didn't
seem to be leading anywhere, but there were medieval
figures that we know existed whose lives match the famous stories. They just weren't called Robin. The best example is a story
that started with a dispute over the ownership of Whittington
Castle here in Shropshire. Funnily enough, in the reign
of Richard the Lionheart. In 1197, it was inherited from his father by a man called Fulk Fitz Warine. But a rival lord with better
contacts with King John wanted Whittington too. Charges of treason were trumped up, and Fitz Warine was outlawed. For three years, he operated a guerrilla
campaign in the forests of the Welsh borders, and the stories that blew up about him are eerily similar to those
we associate with Robin Hood. (soft music) Not only does Fitz Warine have
a right-hand man called John, he robs people by inviting them to supper and then getting them to pay. He takes shelter with a local knight and kills his sworn enemy in the forest. But when the king comes
to the forest in disguise, Fitz Warine is forgiven. Sound familiar? Could this man from Shropshire
be a new prime suspect, whose name got changed
in the course of history? It's really weird. Maybe there never ever was a
real historical Robin Hood. Maybe the stories are just
that, a mishmash of old legends, but if that's the case, why bother with inventing
Robin Hood at all? Why not just stick with Fulk Fitz Warine and have all the stories about him? Or maybe there actually
was a bloke in real life like our Robin Hood of York or our Robert Hood of
Wakefield, who had adventures and then a lot of fictional
stuff was tacked onto them. But there is a third possibility. Suppose both the Fulk Fitz Warine stories and the Robin Hood ballads are
based on an earlier figure, a hidden Robin Hood who
we haven't yet discovered. (upbeat music) The modern Robin Hood
story is set in the time of Richard the Lionheart, when Robin is also called Robin of Loxley. Because of the northern
connections in the ballads, historians always assumed this meant the Loxley in Yorkshire. But there's another Loxley, here in Warwickshire,
near Stratford on Avon, and here, the trail
leads us to the ancestor of one of the Norman invaders who came over with William the Conqueror. In 1193, the Lord of Loxley
Manor was Robert Fitz Odo, a descendant of Bishop Odo of Bayeux. Because Fitz meant an
illegitimate descendant, it was sometimes dropped,
leaving us with Robert Odo, effectively another Robert Hood. - In the time of Richard the Lionheart, he was thrown out of
his manor, Loxley Manor, and for a while, became an outlaw, because there are records from that period saying that he is causing trouble in the surrounding woodlands. And he was a robber for a while, he was finally given his lands back when Richard the Lionheart came back from the Crusades eventually, and so he does match quite to some degree, the actual historical Robin
Hood from the point of view of the later legend. - So out of the blue, another candidate from
a part of the country not usually associated
with the Robin stories, but it gets even weirder. The Robert Odo connection
comes from a relatively recent piece of research, but there's evidence
here in Loxley churchyard that it may have simply
uncovered a tradition that was known before. Lying just to the north of the church, they found a mysterious gravestone. Its design seemed to match the
original Kirklees grave slab. Remember, in 1665, the Kirklees stone had been sketched in Yorkshire
and had then disappeared. Is this evidence that people were aware that Loxley was part of the story long before the historians? This is the gravestone. It seems to me there's
three possibilities. Either the whole thing's
just a coincidence, but that seems unlikely given how similar the original drawing is
to what we've got here, the pattern's the same and
the dimensions are so similar, or else this could be a copy
of the original gravestone in Kirklees, or else maybe, just maybe, this is the original Kirklees gravestone, which was brought here
by someone who believed that this was the real last
resting place of Robin Hood. (gentle music) We've got three historical candidates who together have helped to
create the figure of Robin Hood. There's Robert Hood of
Wakefield, the Lancastrian rebel, there's our historical non-Robins who've added their touches, and there's Robert Odo, the
original nobleman Robin Hood. But there's another angle to the story, and for that, we have to
return to Sherwood Forest, not the usual tourist trail this time. The clues lie in Southwell Minster. (gentle music) When the stonemasons
finished the cathedral in the Middle Ages, they decided to leave an exhibition piece in the octagonal chapterhouse. The highest form of the stonemasons' art was to carve leaves in
stone that had the lightness and delicacy of nature, and interwoven into the fabric of this Christian meeting house is the ancient pagan
spirit of the Greenwoods, the so-called Green Man. Another name for the
spirit of the Greenwoods was Robin Goodfellow. Could this Robin be the inspiration behind the mythic hero of Sherwood Forest? - [Stephen] Now, this figure
is not clearly associated with outlawry, he's much
more associated with nature. Because Robin in the original ballads always appears framed in the forest. That's where he is. And then he moves into action
and he returns to the forest, and if you want the original Robin Hood, I think he is that figure, you know, Robin of the wood, Robin in the hood. - [Tony] It is perhaps
this pagan version of Robin that appeals most to
us in the 21st century. (gentle music) - Robin Hood type stories
I think have been with us since probably the end of the last Ice Age about 35,000 years ago, but they've been added to and
taken away from since then. Robin Hood that we know
now here in Sherwood Forest is not the Robin Hood
that we would have known if we were standing
here in the 10th, 11th, or the 12th century. He's now cast as a preservationist, a conservationist, look
after the Greenwoods. In those days, it was
nothing like that at all. It was simply watch out
for bishops, archbishops, beat 'em up, and whatever
you do, don't get caught by the Sheriff of Nottingham. - [Tony] When I wrote my children's series about Maid Marian, I knew I was joining in a long
tradition of telling stories about Robin, but until I went
to look for the real Robin, I never fully appreciated
just how much that tradition has evolved to suit the
needs of the audience. - I think Robin Hood is
in the process of becoming the secondary character
in a feminist set of sagas starring Maid Marian,
and that's well underway. What will there be then,
intergalactic Robin Hoods? Will there perhaps be a gay Robin Hood? I think it's quite likely
that that will happen. The homosociality of the
legend will be interpreted in that way, and one can
see good reasons for that. But I guess what's really
next for Robin Hood is lots of exposure. - I started my search
by trying to find out whether Robin Hood was fact or fiction, and the answer is he's both. There's a whole host of Robin Hoods. There's the mysterious man from Loxley, the Lancastrian revolutionary,
the petty criminal, the king's servant, not to mention the
countless medieval outlaws who took on his name as an alias in order to try and
protect their anonymity. They all lived and breathed.
They were all fact. But it took a fiction
to make the story great, a legend that could
touch us more profoundly than the simple story of
one human being ever could. And whether that legend is about
the spirit of the Greenwood or the nature of being a hero, or the struggle of the common man, they all create for us a Robin
who's fair, brave, heroic, and just human enough for
us to be able to believe that in a fairer world, we
too might be Robin Hood.
