Middle English - Term Paper

7/31/2019 Middle English - Term Paper

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The old Robin Hood of EnglandSome Stray Observations

Sujaan Mukherjee

U.G. III

Roll 06


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Introduction

One of the earliest known mentions of Robin Hood in mainstream literature is

found in Langlands Piers Plowman (B text), where Sloth says:

If I sholde deye bi this day, quod he, me list nought to 1oke

I kan noght parfitly my Paternosteras the preest it syngeth,

But I kan rymes of Robyn Hode1

In the course of time this figure of Robin Hood became one of the most iconic and

enduring figures in English folklore. The title of this present paper borrows from

Shakespeares As You Like It, where Charles compares with Robin Hood, the carefree

(golden world) existence of the old Duke in the forest of Arden2. Even today Robin

Hood holds a unique place in the popular imagination, and a remarkable number of film

and television series adaptations (animated and otherwise) are still being made in

countries all over the world.

This paper will attempt to look at the figure of Robin Hood as it appears in its

earliest textualized forms (ballads and plays). Before beginning to deal with these, it will

perhaps be worthwhile to take a brief look at some of the major lines of enquiry that have

been made into the history or myth of Robin Hood. There have been numerous attempts

on the part of scholars down the ages to trace in historical and legal records of medieval

England the historic origins of Robin Hood3. Critics and scholars have also commented

frequently on the relationship between the ballads and the plays and there have been

debates regarding the influence exerted mutually. Besides, there have been debates

regarding the original audience of these ballads. Thomas H. Ohlgren summarizes:

1 William Langland, The Vision of Piers Plowman, ed. A.V.C. Schmidt (Gurgaon: Hachette, 2010) 82.2 William Shakespeare,As You Like It, ed. Swapan Chakravorty (Hyderabad: Orient Blackswan, 2009) 7,I.i.114.3

For a popular list: http://www.robinhoodloxley.net/mycustompage0002.htm.


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R.H. Hilton argued that the poems were created for peasant yeomen, expressing

their discontent about intolerable social and economic conditions. By contrast, J.C.

Holt located the popularity of Robin Hood among the household retainers and

dependents of the northern aristocracy and landed gentry. Disagreeing with both

these views are R.B. Dobson and J. Taylor, who posited Robin Hood as a new type

of hero for a new social group4

The primary texts used for the purpose of this paper are the three ballads

considered earliest in date5: Robin Hood and the Monk, Robin Hood and the Potter,

and A Gest of Robyn Hode. The present paper will not look into the historic origins of

Robin Hood, but will speculate on the reasons for the popularity of the character: then and

now, through certain observations regarding the position of the character in society and

folklore, the vocabulary found in these works, and the socio-political conditions of the

age. The editions used were published originally inRobin Hood and Other Outlaw Tales,

edited by Stephen Knight and Thomas H. Ohlgren, and made available in the public

domain very helpfully as part of The Robin Hood Project undertaken by the University

of Rochester.6

Robin Hood appears in the earliest ballads as a yeman (yeoman) who spends his

time largely in the company of his mery maney in Barnesdale. The notes tell us that

although a particular tract of land has been identified in West Riding of Yorkshire by

Holt, there was no forest or chase, and the three locations of the myth are all

confounded.7

Ad Putter and Elizabeth Archibald write that Arthurs court moves around

the country, from Caerleon to Carlisle to the mysterious Camelot, and onto the Continent

4 Thomas H. Ohlgren, A Gest of Robin Hode,Medieval Outlaws: Twelve Tales in Modern English

Translation, ed. Thomas H. Ohlgren (Indiana: Parlor Press, 2005) 358 - 359.5

Ohlgren 356.6 http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/rh/rhhome.stm.7A Gest of Robyn Hode, ed. Stephen Knight and Thomas H. Ohlgren, originally published inRobin Hoodand Other Outlaw Tales, (Kalamazoo, Michigan: Medieval Institute Publications, 1997),

http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/gestint.htm, accessed 14 April 2011.


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in time of war, but what it stands for does not change.8

Likewise, neither Sherwood, nor

Barnesdale, nor the historical Robin Hood is relevant to the present study. What they

stand for is.

The Early Robin Hood

Let us begin by looking at the image of Robin Hood, the outlaw, as we find him in

these earliest ballads. Robin is a friend to all honest wage-earners (But loke ye do no

husbonde harme,/ That tilleth with his ploughe./ No more ye shall no gode yeman/ That

walketh by grene wode shawe,/ Ne no knyght ne no squyer/ That wol be a gode

felawe.9), but these ballads have hardly anything to suggest his noble-robber image of

stealing from the rich and giving to the poor.

A Gest of Robyn Hode, which covers nearly all the available themes found in

the Robin Hood ballads, begins with a knight (Sir Richard) who is brou ght to Robins

camp and helped financially with the penalty he is supposed to pay to the clergymen. This

is followed by Little Johns entering the service of the Sheriff of Nottingham. He

subsequently tricks the Sheriff into coming to Robin; the Sheriff is released eventually.

Having forced an unsuspecting monk into paying him the sum Sir Richard owes him, and

having turned down Sir Richards own attempt at repaying the same, Robin then goes on

to win an archery contest organized by the Sheriff. Interestingly the townspeople are not

pleased at this and They cryed out on Robyn Hode,/ And grete hornes gan they blowe10,

upon which the Sheriff is compelled to make an attempt to arrest Robin and his merry

8 Ad Putter and Elizabeth Archibald, introduction, The Cambridge Companion to the Arthurian Legend

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009) 9.9A Gest of Robyn Hode, ed. Stephen Knight and Thomas H. Ohlgren, originally published inRobin Hood

and Other Outlaw Tales, (Kalamazoo, Michigan: Medieval Institute Publications, 1997), lines 51-56http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/gest.htm, accessed 14 April 2011.10

A Gest of Robyn Hode, lines 1181-1182.


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men. The latter take shelter at Sir Richards home and re turn to the forest only later. The

King, in disguise, seeks out Robin and reveals himself gradually. He invites Robin to the

Royal castle, but Robin is unable to find comfort there and goes instead to Kyrkely

where he meets his end at the hands of a treacherous prioress.

Robins dislike for the clergy is emphatic, despite the fact that he himself is a

deeply religious minded, God-fearing individual: Our dere Lady,/ That he loved allther

moste11

refers to the Virgin Mary. The bandits of Bengal too, it may be recalled,

associated themselves with Goddess Kali. Eric Hobsbawm mentions latter day South

Italian brigands who regarded themselves as being under the protection of the Virgin, and

several other cases in point. He notes the bandits invulnerability is not only symbolic. It

is almost invariably due to magic, which reflects the beneficent interest of the divinities in

his affairs.12

One wonders whether there is any connection to the development of Robin as

anticlerical to a contemporary event which may well have been one of the reasons for his

immense popularity. This is the Peasants Rebellion which took place in 1381. One of the

leaders of the Rebellion, John Ball was a Lollard priest, a firm believer in social equality.

It was he who popularized, perhaps invented the couplet Whan Adam dalf and Eve span,

Wo was thanne a gentilman?13, but alas, [t]he archbishop of Canterburycaused him to

be taken and put in prison a two or three months to chastise him, Froissart tells us.14

Wycliffes influence was fairly prominent on the masses as evidenced by this. Perhaps the

popular Robin Hood was influenced by these religious beliefs. Perhaps these incidents

11A Gest of Robyn Hode, lines 35-36.

12 Eric Hobsbawm,Bandits (London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 2000) 57.13John Ball, Sermon Theme, ed. James M. Dean,originally published inMedieval English PoliticalWritings(Kalamazoo, Michigan: Medieval Institute Publications, 1996)

http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/sermfrm.htm, accessed 14 April 2011.14

Froissart, Wat Tylers Rebellion, Chronicles and Romance, The Harvard Classics Series. 35 (New

York: P. F. Collier & Son Corporation, 1938) 62.


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added to a societys need for a hero like Robin. (Interestingly Ball claims that one of his

co-protestors was Piers Plowman: stondeth togidre in Godes name, and biddeth Peres

Ploughman go to his werk15. James M. Dean points out that Ball appropriates the figure

of Piers as symbol of the political cause, representing the commons as industrious and

faithful16

.)

Incidents preceding the Peasants Rebellion may also have influenced the rise of

Robin Hoods popularity.Ohlgen tell us that:The new social group - yeomanry - emerged following three waves of bubonic

plague in 1348-49, 1361-62, and 1369. The resulting population decrease produced

a labour shortage, which affected wages, prices, and farm production, and led to a

population shift from the rural manors to villages and towns, where freemen, in spite

of the repressive measures of the Statute of Labourers (1351), sold their services to

the highest bidders. The more enterprising yeomen, particularly those possessing

skilled crafts, quickly rose in social and economic standing17

The term yeoman, used to refer to Robin Hood, has also caused considerable

disagreements among critics. Richard Almond and A. J. Pollard18

, for instance argue that

Robin is in fact a yeoman of the forest, an official forester. This seems an improbabl e

explanation to me, as it is evident from even a basic reading of the early ballads

(especially Robin Hood and the Monk) that the King wants him dead, and that he is

nothing but an outlaw. It seems more probable that Robin did belong initially to this newly

formed and loosely defined class of yeomen, as Ohlgen defines them.

15John Ball, The Letter of John Ball (Royal MS), ed. James M. Dean, originally published in Medieval

English Political Writings (Kalamazoo, Michigan: Medieval Institute Publications, 1996)

http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/ballrfrm.htm Accessed April 14 2011.16 Ibid (notes by James M. Dean).17

Ohlgren 358.18Richard Almond & A.J. Pollard, The Yeomanry of Robin Hood and Social Terminology in Fifteenth-

Century England, Past & Present, No. 170, Feb 2001 (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2001) 52-77http://www.jstor.org/stable/3600794, accessed 25 March 2011.


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Robin Hood Excommunicated

Let us now assess the position of Robin not in, but with respect to society. He is a

man who is clearly not popular in the towns. When at the end ofA Gest of Robyn Hode

he accompanies the King to his palace, there is a palpable paranoia noticeable among the

citizens. They think that Robin has killed their King:

Than every man to other gan say,

"I drede our kynge be slone:

Come Robyn Hode to the towne, iwys

On lyve he lefte never one."

Full hastly they began to fle,

Both yemen and knaves,

And olde wyves that myght evyll goo,

They hypped on theyr staves.19

Like Sir Richard, a fallen knight, there are some who are not suspicious of Robin. Sir

Richard says: He is gode yoman, sayde the knyght,/ Of hym I have herde moche

gode.20

The monks and noble-men clearly consider him a threat. The monk passing

through the forest in the same poem says He is a stronge thefe," sayd the monke,/ "Of

hym herd I never good21

, and a similar view is held by the monk who gives Robin away

in Robin Hood and the Monk: This traytur name is Robyn Hode 22

In Robin Hood and the Potter, Robin takes charge of selling the Potters wares in

the market, and he sells them at a very low price. He compensates for this later on, when

he tricks the Sheriff of Nottingham into entering the forest, where they strip of him of all

19A Gest of Robyn Hode, lines 1709-1716.20

A Gest of Robyn Hode, lines 103-104.21A Gest of Robyn Hode, lines 883-884.22Robin Hood and the Monk, ed. Stephen Knight and Thomas H. Ohlgren, originally published inRobinHood and Other Outlaw Tales, (Kalamazoo, Michigan: Medieval Institute Publications, 1997), line 91,

http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/monk.htm, accessed 14 April 2011.


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his valuables. Roles are reversed within the ballad, as the Potter initially beats Robin at his

own game. Then Robin takes on the role of the Potter and sells off his wares faster than

the Potter could have. Even though it appears that Robin incurs a loss, eventually he

makes the Sheriff pay for this. Robin makes a mockery of the existing system of economy.

It seems from these subversive elements present in the texts (hatred for religious

mediators, i.e. monks; his illogical donations and help to honest workers; the subversions

of the economy) that Robin, in these early ballads, is a man who stands against the

establishment in all possible ways and not just in terms of stealing from the rich.

If a typical brigand wants a long career he must be or show himself to be a

philanthropist, even as he kills and robs to the best of his ability. Otherwise he risks losing

popular sympathy and being taken for a common murderer or robber.23 Robin Hood

down the ages assumed this philanthropist image through no effort of his. The people

wanted a hero who would suit their purposes if and when required. Robin serves the

purpose nicely, not being someone with a very specific ideological standpoint, but rather

as a character who is generally subversive towards society and establishment. He is a

stereotype, a vacant image of a hero waiting to be filled in by any group of marginalized

persons who are in need of a hero. It is hardly surprising then, that the archetypal figure

for Hobsbawm in his bookBandits, against whom all future banditry is considered, is

none other than Robin Hood.

23 Hobsbawm 19, qtd. From Enrique Morselli-Sante De Sanctis,Biografia de un bandito, Giuseppe

Musolino di fronte alla psichiatria e alla sociologia. Studio medico-legale e consideraznioni (Milan, 1903),cited in L. Lombardi Satriani and M. Melgrana eds.,Diritto Egemone e Diritto Poplare: La Calabria negli

studi di demologia giurdica (Vibo Valentia, 1975) 478.


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Robin Hood The Outlaw

Probably the most important feature of Robin Hoods early ballads is the fact that

he is an outlaw. The term outlaw had a much more nuanced meaning than we commonly

understand today. The concept of outlawry was probably introduced to English law by

the Saxons. George Crabb writes:

If an offender fled from justice, and was not to be found within the space of thirty -

one days, he was outlawed, and any one might kill him if he made resistance. An

outlaw was called in the Saxon wulfesheofod, that is, wolf's-head; which was as

much as to say that any one might kill him in the same manner as they would a wild

beast.24

This practice was prevalent right through the medieval period. Bracton in his thirteenth

century work, De legibus et consuetudinibus Angliae, says of outlaws: they bear the

wolf's head and in consequence perish without judicial inquiry; they carry their judgment

with them and they deservedly perish without law who have refused to live according to

law.25

Robin Hood was one such. However, it is also interesting to consider the relation

between the King and the outlaw in terms ofAgambens notions of sovereignty and homo

sacer. Homo Sacer or The sacred man is the one whom the people have judged on

account of a crime. It is not permitted to sacrifice this man, yet he who kills him will not

be condemned for homicide26

Though there have been many discussions regarding the

paradoxical nomenclature (calling such a man sacred), the fact remains that such a man is

an outlaw, and one who has been excommunicated. He (women and children below 12

were not considered within the folds of the law) is outside the law. The English word

24 George Crabb,A History of the Common Law (London: Baldwin & Cradock, 1829) 38.25 Bracton, How one ought to prosecute; at how many county courts, On the Laws and Customs of

England, Vol. 2, 354, http://hlsl5.law.harvard.edu/bracton/Unframed/English/v2/354.htm#TITLE329,accessed 14 April 2011.26 Pompeius Festus, On the Significance of Words, quoted in Georgio Agamben,Homo Sacer: SovereignPower and Bare Life, trans. Daniel Heller-Roazen (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1998)

71.


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outlaw is derived from Old Norse utlagi (ut "out" + *lagu, pl. of lag "law")27

. The

towns peoples notion of Robin Hood as one living without society and law, and one

from whose hands no one escapes [I drede our kynge be slone:/ Come Robyn Hode to the

towne, iwys/ On lyve he lefte never one28

] is clearly articulated when they see Robin and

his men coming towards them. One cannot help notice a similarity, a little far fetched

perhaps, between the townspeoples notion of Robin as a monstrous man inhabiting

liminal spaces between civilization and wilderness, and the peoples attitude towards

another excommunicated character, Grendel.

Hobsbawm enumerates the typical characteristics of the Noble Robber, where he

says he [the Noble Robber] is not the enemy of the king or emperor, who is the fount

of justice, but only of the local gentry, clergy or other oppressors.29 It is, after all, the

King who could accept him back into the folds of law as Bracton says, For the king may

of his grace inlaw an outlaw, admit him to his peace outside of which he had earlier been

placed.30

Even apart from these, there may be yet another curious similarity between

outlaw and King. Agamben writes, The paradox of sovereignty consists in the fact the

sovereign is, at the same time, outside and inside the juridical order.31

The sovereign

formulates the laws in a state of exception:The exception is a kind of exclusion. What is excluded from the general rule is an

individual case. But the most proper characteristic of the exception is that what is

excluded in it is not, on account of being excluded, absolutely without relation to the

rule. On the contrary, what is excluded in the exception maintains itself in relation to

27 http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=outlaw&searchmode=none, accessed 14 April 2011.28A Gest of Robyn Hode, lines 1710-1712.29

Hobsbawm, 49.30Bracton, How outlaws after outlawry are admitted for good reason to the peace,On the Laws andCustoms of England, Vol. 2, 369,http://hlsl5.law.harvard.edu/bracton/Unframed/English/v2/369.htm#TITLE5030 , accessed 14 April 2011.31

Agamben 15.


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the rule in the form of the rule's suspension. The rule applies to the exception in no

longer applying, in withdrawing from it. The state of exception is thus not the chaos

that precedes order but rather the situation that results from its suspension. In this

sense, the exception is truly, according to its etymological root, taken outside (ex-

capere), and not simply excluded.32

At the same time it can perhaps be suggested that the outlaw too is in a similar state of

exception, though not in terms of being in a position to frame rules. The sovereign and the

outlaw thus seem to be in on two sides of the legal spectrum, both situated just outside the

law: the sovereign above it, the outlaw below it. Robin Hood is shown as a figure who

pays due respect to the King. In A Gest of Robyn Hode, when Robin discovers that the

monk who appears towards the end of the ballad is in fact the King, Robin kneels before

him:

And so dyde all the wylde outlawes,

Whan they see them knele:

My lorde the kynge of Englonde,

Now I knowe you well.33

Robin Hoods struggle is against the law-enforcers and not, as Hobsbawm says,

against the fount of justice. One of the more jarring notes in these ballads is struck in

Robin Hood and the Monk when the protagonist is reported against by a monk and

captured when he is kneeling before the rode in Saint Marys Church.

I have spyed the false felon,

As he stondis at his masse;

Hit is long of the, seide the munke,

And ever he fro us passe.34

32 Agamben 17-18.33

A Gest of Robyn Hode, lines 1641-1644.34

Robin Hood and the Monk, lines 87-90.


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This goes to show that even the law enforcers are not entirely in compliance with the law.

This action cannot be justified by claiming that Robin is an outlaw. The notion of

sanctuary for criminals and outlaws was prevalent in England at the time (indeed from

Saxon times35

), as Bracton notes36

, and it is this that the Monk denies Robin.

Hierarchies

Despite the fact that Robin Hood and his men live without society and mainstream

politics, there is a hierarchy discernible within the band, and much like King Arthur,

Robin Hood is not all-powerful. In Robin Hood and the Monk, Robin asks Little John to

be his bow-bearer: But Litull John shall beyre my bow,/ Til that me list to drawe.

Little John refuses this honour: Thou shall beyre thin own," seid Litull Jon, "Maister,

and I wyl beyre myne37

Robin Hood goes to Mass all by himself and is taken prisoner.

Little John rescues him. As a reward, towards the end of the ballad, Robin says to Little

John So shall hit never be; I make the maister, seid Robyn, Of alle my men and

me.38

Little John refuses.

A closer look at these two refusals may prove worthwhile. In the first occasion it

appears that Little John refuses because he is not willing to be his masters bow-bearer.

Robin too acts in a superior and condescending manner and refuses to acknowledge the

fact that in fact he wants Little John, not as a page-boy or servant, but as a body-guard

against possible threat. Little John sees through this, is conscious of the hierarchy, and

refuses to be subordinated. Robin too is aware of the fact that his companions are no less

35 Crabb 55.36 http://hlsl5.law.harvard.edu/bracton/Unframed/English/v2/382.htm.37

Robin Hood and the Monk, lines 37-50.38

Robin Hood and the Monk, lines 312-314.


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skilled than he is. Johns refusal to assume leadership, however, is perhaps due to his

realization that even though there is a hierarchy and he is situated below Robin, it is only

nominal. John says: But lat me be a felow, seid Litull John, No noder kepe I be

[Nothing else do I care to be].39

That Robin too realizes this and the pointlessness of the

hierarchy is implicitly hinted at towards the end of the ballad.

Tradition of the Medieval Hero

[I]t seems that in the later Middle Ages there was a fashion for flawed heroes,

such as Gawain and Lancelot, and indeed Arthur himself40

, say Ad Putter and Elizabeth

Archibald. Robin is one such. Like King Arthurs Knights, Robins men are often as

skilled as he is, sometimes even more so; and like King Arthur who began to increase his

personal entourage by inviting very distinguished men from far-distant kingdoms to join

it41, Robin too invites anyone he considers worthy to join his merry band, despite the fact

that they may have defeated him. In Robin Hood and the Potter, after being defeated by

the Potter, Robin says: Y well prey the, god potter,/ A felischepe well thow haffe?42

In

Robin Hood and the Curtal Friar, Robin and his men are defeated by the Friar, and

Robin extends his hand of friendship to him.

If that thou will goe to merry greenwood,

A noble shall be thy fee.

And every holy day throughout the year,

39Robin Hood and the Monk, lines 317-318.40 Putter & Archibald 10.41

Geoffrey of Monmouth,History of the Kings of Britain, ix.11, trans. Lewis Thorpe (Harmondsworth:Penguin, 1966), 222, quoted in Putter & Archibald42Robin Hood and the Potter, ed. Stephen Knight and Thomas H. Ohlgren, originally published inRobinHood and Other Outlaw Tales, (Kalamazoo, Michigan: Medieval Institute Publications, 1997), lines 93-94,

http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/potter.htm, accessed 14 April 2011.


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Changed shall thy garment be,

If thou wilt go to fair Nottingham,

And there remain with me.43

There seems to be no palpable reason why these men should join Robin Hood and why it

should not be the other way round. The only explanation seems to be that it is Robin Hood

who is chosen by literature as the hero. Robin Hoods similarities with Arthur extend

beyond these. Robin Hood and his men follow a similarly rigid code of honour. At the

beginning ofA Gest of Robyn Hode, his refusal to eat is reminiscent of King Arthurs

refusal to dine in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight:

Other sum segg hym bisoght of sum siker knyght

To joyne with hym in justyng, in jopard to lay

[Or (until) someone had begged him for a trusty knight to joust with, to set all at

hazard]44

Later on, when the King comes to the forest, his identity is discovered when he hits

Robin Hood for missing the target. They shote plucke buffet,/ As they went by the

way45

. This again is reminiscent of the challenge set by the Green Knight in Sir Gawain

and the Green Knight, although the theme of humility is not overtly present in A Gest of

Robyn Hode. A significant absence (as compared to the Arthurian Romance) in the tales of

Robin Hood is the theme of love, and this (heterosexual love) is a natural exclusion as

women could not be outlawed (as explained above). (In Adam Bell46, William of

Cloudesley, an outlaw, tries to go back to pay a visit to his wife, and trouble ensues.) It is

true that in the centuries to come, Maid Marian was introduced to the Robin Hood legend,

43Robin Hood and the Curtal Friar, ed. Stephen Knight and Thomas H. Ohlgren, originally published in

Robin Hood and Other Outlaw Tales, (Kalamazoo, Michigan: Medieval Institute Publications, 1997), lines

143-148, http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/curta.htm, accessed 14 April 2011.44Pearl, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, ed. A.C. Cawley, (London: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1962) 54, lines

96-97 (with translation).45

A Gest of Robyn Hode, 1695-1696.46Adam Bell, Clim of the Clough, and William of Cloudesley, ed. Stephen Knight and Thomas H.

Ohlgren, originally published inRobin Hood and Other Outlaw Tales, (Kalamazoo, Michigan: MedievalInstitute Publications, 1997), lines 23-26, http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/adam.htm, accessed

17 April 2011.


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but as W. E. Simeone point out, Robin appears to have drawn Maid Marian and Friar

Tuck into the orbit of his plays from the Morris Dance47

. It may also have been an

influence of gradual permeation of the Arthurian Romance themes in the folk-imagination.

The Death of a Bandit

The death of the outlaw is also significant and is dealt with at length in the ballad

titled Death of Robin Hood. Knight and Ohlgren note in their introduction to A Gest of

Robyn Hodethat [l]ike other heroes he is betrayed by someone close to him and leaves

a shrine and noble memory.48 It is similar to one of the causes for Arthurs death, the

substitution of the sword by (Malorys) Morgan la Fay: And she loved another knyght

bettir than hir husbande, kynge Uriens, other Arthure. And she wolde have had Arthure hir

brother slayne, and there she she lete make anothir scawberd for Excaliber49

and

swapped the two. William of Cloudesley is betrayed in a similar manner, although this

does not lead to his death:

There lay an old wyfe in that place,

A lytle besyde the fyre,

Whych Wyllyam had found, of cherytye,

More then seven yere

She went unto the justice hall,

As fast as she could hye:

Thys nyght is come unto thys town

47W.E. Simeone, "The May Games and the Robin Hood Legend", The Journal of American Folklore Vol.

64, No. 253 (Jul - Sep 1951), 268, http://www.jstor.org/stable/536152, accessed 25 March 2011.48 Stephen Knight & Thomas H. Ohlgren, Introduction to "A Gest of Robyn Hode",ed. Stephen Knight andThomas H. Ohlgren,originally published inRobin Hood and Other Outlaw Tales, (Kalamazoo, Michigan:Medieval Institute Publications, 1997), http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/gestint.htm, accessed 17

April 2011.49

Sir Thomas Malory,Malory: Works, 2nd

edition, ed. Eugene Vinaver (London: Oxford University Press,

1974), 49.


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Wyllyam of Cloudesl.50

Among the characteristics of the Noble Robber enumerated by Hobsbawm, one says that

he dies invariably and only through treason, since no decent member of the community

would help the authorities against him. Hobsbawm also mentions several such cases:

Diego Corientes (1757 81), the noble robber of Andalusia, was according to popular

opinion, similar to Christ: he was betrayed, delivered to Seville on a Sunday.51

The myth

of Robin Hood is constructed in a similar way and remarkable at the end ofThe Death of

Robin Hood is the following exchange, when John asks permission

To set a fier within this hall,

And to burne up all Churchlee.

That I reade not, said Robin Hoode then,

Litle John, for it may not be;

If I shold doe any widow hurt, at my latter end,

God, he said, wold blame me.

I never hurt fair maid in all my time,

Nor at mine end shall it be52

Use of Language

The essay would be incomplete without some comments on the language and

vocabulary. That these ballads originated in the oral tradition is fairly clear. There are

repetitions of phrases which helped in rapid rhyming as these ballads were performed.

But God that dyed on tree or its variants occur on numerous occasions. The ballads and

their several sections usually begin with a direct address Lythe and listin, gentilmen.

50Adam Bell, Clim of the Clough, and William of Cloudesley, lines 57-68.

51 Hobsbawm, 4752The Death of Robin Hood, ed. Stephen Knight and Thomas H. Ohlgren, originally published inRobinHood and Other Outlaw Tales, (Kalamazoo, Michigan: Medieval Institute Publications, 1997), lines 121-

128, http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/deathrh.htm, accessed 14 April 2011.


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The exact dates of composition are not known, but much like local songs about the bandits

of Bengal, one may assume that the tradition grew up as an oral one, although

textualization was necessary for preservation.

Knight and Ohlgren note that [t]he language is limited in vocabulary and range...

They argue that this limited vocabulary may also have contributed to type-characters (i.e.

dramatis personae, whose characters remain constant and are representative of certain

fixed vices or virtues), as was usual in ballads. The sheriff is consistently proude, the

knight gentyll, Robin and his men gode, wight, and mery.53

However, it should be

observed that these ballads, belonging to a folk-tradition, formed at a remove from centres

of administration or religion. The influence of French and Latin load-words is

significantly less than in most mainstream works of contemporary literature. The

proportion of words descended from Anglo-Saxon is much larger in these subaltern

narratives. An arbitrarily chosen stanza will illustrate the point. Almost all the words are

of an Anglo-Saxon origin:

Than he met the proude sheref,

Huntynge with houndes and horne;

Lytell Johnn coude of curtesye,

And knelyd hym beforne.54

Subaltern Narratives

Apart from these ballads, it would also have been worthwhile also to comment on

the fragmentary plays relating to the Robin Hood myth that have survived, namely Robin

53Knight & Ohlgren, Introduction to "A Gest of Robyn Hode.

54A Gest of Robyn Hode, lines 725-728.


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Hood and the Friar and Robin Hood and the Potter and Robyn Hod and the Shryff off

Notyngham. However, this is beyond the scope of the present paper.

Putter and Archibald write, that of dominant narrative themes of the time,

according to Jean Bodel, there were three: the Matter of Rome (from the fall of Troy to

neas establishment of the Roman Empire), the Matter of France (the deeds of

Charlemagne and his lords), and the Matter of Britain (the story of Arthur and his Round

Table ).55

It is perhaps unfortunate that the Robin Hood tradition is often overlooked.

Perhaps it is a sign of good fortune too, that their anti-establishment ideology is survived

in the relative negligence in institutions from which they suffer. Songs, games and plays,

which were held to be subversive paradoxically survive in textual forms. What I have tried

to point out through the sections above, is that the Robin Hood of these early ballads is an

icon of subversion, readily available for appropriation by any group of people. It would

seem that in many cases, it is these ballads and folk-plays, often carnivalesque in nature,

which bear the burden of subversive forces within a society: works which are later found

in textual forms and made available for research.

___________

55Putter & Archibald 1.


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Bibliography

Ad Putter and Elizabeth Archibald. The Cambridge Companion to the Arthurian Legend.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.

Bracton. On the Laws and Customs of England Vol. 2. (Accessed through

http://hlsl5.law.harvard.edu/bracton/Unframed/calendar.htm.)

Chronicles and Romance: Froissart, Malory, Holinshed.The Harvard Classics Series Vol. 35.

New York: P. F. Collier & Son Corporation, 1938.

Eric Hobsbawm.Bandits. London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 2000.

George Crabb.A History of the Common Law. London: Baldwin & Cradock, 1829.

Georgio Agamben. Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Trans. Daniel Heller-

Roazen. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1998.

James M. Dean Ed. Medieval English Political Writings. Kalamazoo, Michigan: Medieval

Institute Publications, 1996. (Accessed through

http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/dean1.htm.)

Richard Almond & A.J. Pollard. The Yeomanry of Robin Hood and Social Terminology in

Fifteenth-Century England. Past & Present, 170. Feb 2001. Oxford: Oxford University Press,

2001. 52-77. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3600794/.

Sir Thomas Malory. Malory: Works. 2nd edition. Ed. Eugene Vinaver. London: Oxford

University Press, 1974.

Stephen Knight and Thomas H. Ohlgren Eds. Robin Hood and Other Outlaw Tales.

Kalamazoo, Michigan: Medieval Institute Publications, 1997. (All Robin Hood ballads and

respective introductions referred to are from this collection, accessed through

http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/rh/rhhome.htm.)


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Thomas H. Ohlgren Ed. Medieval Outlaws: Twelve Tales in Modern English Translation.

Indiana: Parlor Press, 2005.

W.E. Simeone. "The May Games and the Robin Hood Legend". The Journal of American

Folklore 64.253 JulSep. 1951. 265-274. http://www.jstor.org/stable/536152

William Langland. The Vision of Piers Plowman. Ed. A.V.C. Schmidt. Gurgaon: Hachette,

2010.

William Shakespeare.As You Like It. Ed. Swapan Chakravorty. Hyderabad: Orient Blackswan,

2009.

Documents

Middle English - Term Paper