Was Robin Hood real?

On a cool misty morning, a gilded coach with solid gold hubcaps rattles along a poorly maintained dirt road snaking its way through the towering oaks of Sherwood Forest. It’s tax season, and the haul has been good, judging by the merry chatter inside the coach and the bulging treasure chest being carried by two guards. Sherwood is known for bandits and outlaws, but the occupants of the coach aren’t worried; after all, who would dare rob the royal coach?

Well, there’s one man, in this case a green clad fox with a feather in his hat, who would happily borrow excessively, since rob is such a naughty word, from any gilded coach, royal or not. I speak of course of the one and only Robin Hood.

We all know him, we all love him, and we all have a favorite Robin Hood movie. Dressed in green tights, defending the people’s rights, with his longbow in one hand, Robin Hood, along with his very merry men is quite possibly one of the most popular, and most enduring, outlaws the world has ever known. He’s absolutely everywhere and everyone who’s anyone has had a run-in with the man dressed in Lincoln green, from Shrek to the grumpy cat version of Dr Who.

He can split an arrow in two, takes from those who have too much and gives it to those who have too little, and always win the fair maiden’s hand. He has the love of the people and the loyalty of his men who follow him without question. But where does this extraordinary man come from? Was Robin Hood a real historical person who just became an absolute legend or a creation of minstrels and story-tellers right from the get-go?

Robin Hood and His Merry Men

From Errol Flynn to a talking fox; from the antics of Cary Elwes to the grim and gritty Russell Crowe, the tale of Robin Hood has been evolving from the very first time the story was told. Passed down from one story-teller to the next, it’s impossible to determine exactly when the stories first appeared. Back then, your average peasant couldn’t read, so stories were memorized as spoken ballads, rhymes and songs as these were easier to remember and more interesting to recite and perform.

The first written reference to Robin Hood only shows up in 1377, in the Middle English allegorical poem, The Vision of Piers Plowman, written by William Langland. The poem isn’t about Robin Hood; it’s a dream sequence in which the narrator imagines what it would be like to live a good Christian life. They encounter various vices and the seven deadly sins. It’s the deadly sin of sloth, personified as a lazy priest, who claims he doesn’t know the Lord’s Prayer that well, but he does know the rhymes of Robin Hood. The poet doesn’t explain who Robin Hood is; he assumes that everyone reading the poem, or hearing it being recited, will be familiar with the character suggesting that tales of the outlaw was known by everyone, especially the lazy sorts who spent their time in taverns listening to rhymes of Robin Hood instead of on their knees memorizing the Lord’s Prayer. Clearly, the stories had been floating around for a while.

Since the tales of Robin Hood would’ve been spread by minstrels, each adding their own little twist, we’ll never know the original story. However, the first written story we have is Robin Hood and the Monk, dating from around 1465. We only have two more stories from the 1400s, Robin Hood and the Potter, dating to around 1468 and A Little Gest of Robyn Hode, dating to around 1495. Little Gest of Robyn Hode is actually four stories compiled into one manuscript. Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne was only written down in the late 17th century but probably dates to the 1400s. Surprisingly though, the Robin Hood we meet in these ballads is a very different outlaw from the man we know and love today.

In Robin Hood and the Monk, Robin goes to Nottingham to hear Mass and make devotions to the Virgin Mary after an archery contest with Little John, who thought going into town if you’re a wanted outlaw was a bad idea. After arriving in town, Robin is spotted by a monk who, being a sneaky bastard, immediately runs to the Sheriff of Nottingham who promptly bars the gates and arrests Robin. The monk and his page boy set off for London to inform the king of Robin’s capture but run into Little John and Much the Miller’s son. Upon learning that Robin had been captured, Little John beheads the monk and Much kills the page boy. The two outlaws go to the king, claiming to be messengers sent by the sheriff and the king, very pleased to learn about Robin’s arrest, sends them back to Nottingham with a cash reward and a royal guard to bring Robin to London to face justice. The two break Robin out of jail, stabbing the jailer to death for good measure, before fleeing back to the forest. The sheriff is furious, and, eventually, the king learns about all of this. Initially, he’s a bit miffed but decides that Little John tricked him out of loyalty to his master, Robin, so the king decides to become a Disney princess and let it go.

The story has some of the basic elements of the Robin Hood tale we know today: he’s an outlaw in Nottingham, which in Medieval England simply meant he was living outside the protection of the law and all the rights, limited as they were, that went with it. There’s some conflict with the sheriff; however, the main villain is the corrupt monk. Trickery and disguises are used, our man is an archer, and they encounter a fair king that basically lets this one slide.

There’s no sign of Friar Tuck, the minstrel Alan-a-Dale or the lovely Maid Marian, they would only join the story much later, and Will Scarlet is only mentioned in passing. For supposed good guys, our outlaws are also a bit harsh in their treatment of the innocent – coldly killing the page boy, who would’ve been only a child, as well as the jailer who was really just doing his job. Not really the charming honorable outlaws we picture today.

In fact, in most of the earlier ballads, we encounter a Robin who is violent and quick-tempered. The main villains are usually either the Sheriff of Nottingham, a man so evil he threatened to cancel Christmas, or Sir Guy of Gisborne. In Little Gest of Robin Hood, Robin shoots the sheriff with an arrow and slits his throat with a sword. In Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne, Robin encounters Gisborne in the forest, and, after an archery contest, Robin reveals his identity which obviously leads to a fight. Robin kills Sir Guy, sticks his severed head on the end of his bow, and disfigures his face with a knife, with a certain measure of glee, before disguising the body in his own clothes, presumably to lead people to believe that Robin Hood was dead. In Robin Hood’s Progress to Nottingham, dating to the 1600s, young Robin kills 15 foresters after they first mocked him and then refused to pay up on a wager.

It wasn’t all blood and gore though. Robin was violent, but still honorable in his own demented way. He was a devout Catholic, faithful to the Virgin Mary, and while women don’t really feature in the early ballads, once they start showing up, Robin always treats them with respect, refusing to harm a woman.

There’s no mention of Robin stealing from the rich and giving to the poor; Robin only became a Marxist much later. However, he does lend money to a poor Knight, robs a lying monk, and, according to one ballad, he did the poor man much good. Robin Hood was a violent man, but the medieval audience was well acquainted with violence, and since Robin Hood was killing the corrupt and oppressors, our medieval audience didn’t seem to mind how he went about it.

Someone from the lower class was finally turning the table on the rich and punishing them using violence and trickery; Robin Hood was the medieval version of a blockbuster!

Robin Hood: The Man and the Myth

As we’ve seen, the original ballads, which would’ve been closer to the man the story was based on, tell us that Robin was both a devout Catholic, but also had a violent streak that might surprise the modern audience. However, in Medieval Catholic England, you didn’t have to go far to find a violent, yet devout, man, so what else can the ballads tell us of our mysterious outlaw?

In many of the Robin Hood tales of later years, Robin Hood is supposed to be a dispossessed noble, but this is a 1569 addition to the legend which identifies Robin Hood as a noble who is outlawed for debt, probably the most common reason men of standing were outlawed in those days. In the original ballads though, Robin Hood isn’t a fallen noble but a yeoman which is a bit of a tricky term. In the mid-15th century, a yeoman was a member of the rising middle class; they weren’t knights or nobles, but they owned their own plots of land. However, the term was also used for the social rank just below that of a Knight, and yeomen might’ve been in charge of the King’s wardrobe or carry his bows. In A Little Gest of Robin Hood, Robin actually holds a position at court for about 15 months before he returns to his beloved forest and his outlaw ways. In the early ballads, Robin and his men are also sometimes referred to as the ‘yeomen of the forest’ so, presumably, the merry men are also from the middle class. While Robin doesn’t give money to the poor, he does help people of a higher status, more akin to his own; Sir Richard of Lee is a poor knight in debt and Robin compensates the potter, a tradesman, for the money he lost. Feats of daring, like that time bandits rescued a prisoner from Norwich Castle back in 1318, were associated with bandits, and even medieval crime had a social hierarchy with bandits usually being yeomen or slightly better-off peasants, so Robin Hood being a daring, if somewhat violent, yeoman bandit actually makes a lot of sense.

Yeomen were also often associated with archery, another important detail that shows up in the Robin Hood legend. What’s interesting though is that the archery in Robin Hood mostly takes the form of sporting competitions or contests between characters, often Robin Hood and Little John. When the characters need to do some dirty fighting that’s gonna get someone killed, they whip out their swords.

During the Hundred Years War, ranging from 1337 – 1453, the longbow really became a weapon to be reckoned with and that’s mostly where our idea of the English archer comes from. We’re not entirely sure who first started using the longbow on the battlefield in large numbers, but some theorize it was Edward I who reigned between 1239 and 1307 – this will be important later. The longbow was a formidable weapon, for both war and hunting, which required a high degree of skill which took a lifetime to learn, so it was the weapon of choice of the yeoman since your average peasant would be working the fields all day and didn’t have much spare time to master the longbow.

It was law that every man needed to learn to shoot a bow, but shooting a bow and mastering it are two different things. Battlefield archers were mostly volunteers and the rewards were substantial, including a share of the plunder and improved social standing if you survive the war and make it back home. Some kings would even dole out pardons to criminals in an attempt to get more bodies on the battlefield, which also feeds into the Robin Hood legend.

In the 14th and 15th centuries in England, being an archer was akin to being a rock star, so considering the popularity of Robin Hood; it’s really no surprise that he was a master archer.

A picture of the man is slowly emerging, but where do we need to go look for him? England isn’t exactly America, but it’s a little bigger than your average city. If your first response is Sherwood Forest and Nottingham, you’re mostly right. The oldest ballad we have places Robin and his merry men in Sherwood Forest which, at the time, would’ve been a Royal Forest. A Royal Forest wasn’t just a patch of land with a lot of trees but a tract of land set aside exclusively for the king’s hunting needs. Hunting and foraging was expressly forbidden and just gathering firewood could cost you an eye which makes things a bit difficult if you happen to live in a Royal Forest which wasn’t uncommon. However, quite a few of the older ballads also place Robin Hood in Barnsdale Forest in South Yorkshire. Sherwood does have a few things in its favour though – the Major Oak at Edwinstone, in Sherwood Forest, the biggest oak tree in Britain, and still looking good for its age, is, according to legend, the very oak Robin and his men used as a hide-out. Of course, back then, it wouldn’t have been a Major Oak, it would probably have been a Private Sapling. Robin’s main antagonist also seems to be the Sheriff of Nottingham, and Robin keeps going into Nottingham for archery contests and to attend Mass, so that the sheriff can catch him, which wouldn’t make a lot of sense if he was living 50 miles away in Barnsdale. Of course, it’s possible that Robin and his men travelled a bit; the Great North Road, which connected London and York, used to run through Sherwood Forest and Barnsdale, making it the ideal spot for highwaymen and robbers to ply their trade and Sherwood Forest used to be around 100 000 acres, stretching all the way from the city of Nottingham into South Yorkshire. The village of Wentbridge, on the northernmost edge of Barnsdale Forest, also shows up in Robin Hood and the Potter, and the church of St Mary Magdalene, in Campsall, Yorkshire, is supposedly the church where Robin Hood and Marian got married. Both Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire wants to claim the outlaw as their own, so I’ll leave this debate to those who are more invested in the outcome.

Finally, in order to find Robin Hood, we need a date to work with, so when exactly was Robin Hood traipsing around the forest robbin’ the hood? Andrew of Wyntoun, a 15th century chronicler, claimed two outlaws, one Little John and one Robert Hude, were robbing people around Inglewood and Barnsdale back in 1283, so around the time of Edward I. Walter Bower, another chronicler, writing around 1440, claimed that Robin Hood and Little John were real bandits who gathered up a bit of a following in 1266, from among those who lost their lands in the Second Baron’s war during the reign of Henry III. Finally, a manuscript dating to around 1460 also mentions Robin Hood and his accomplices infesting Sherwood Forest around the time of Edward I. So we have at least three medieval sources which all agree that Robin Hood was a real person, hiking the crime rate during or immediately before the reign of Edward I who reigned from 1266 to 1307. If we go back to the earlier ballads of Robin Hood, this dating seems plausible. In Little Gest of Robin Hood, Robin meets comely King Edward who pardons him of his crimes. The ballad doesn’t state which Edward exactly so it could be Edward I, II or III, but Edward III, who reigned from 1327 to 1377 was a popular king and very successful on the battlefield, repelling Scottish invasions and winning decisive victories in France, so the people had much to celebrate, and celebrate they did. Archery contests became very popular, and in many a ballad, we saw Robin Hood drawn out of the forest to compete in one of these contests. It was only in 1521 that Robin Hood was linked to King Richard the Lionhearted, who ruled from 1189 to 1199, in John Major’s History of Greater Britain. The idea we have of Robin Hood, a loyal servant of King Richard who is off on crusade, standing up against the sniveling Prince John to return the rightful king to the throne only comes about in the 1820 novel Ivanhoe written by Sir Walter Scott. He identifies Robin Hood as Robin of Loxley, a name we still associate with Robin Hood today. The novel was very influential, but it’s a much later addition and while it makes for great movies, there’s nothing in the original ballads to suggest that Robin Hood ever encountered either King Richard or his brother John.

So it seems that we have something to work with here; we’re looking for an outlaw yeoman, who was a master archer, living in Nottinghamshire or Yorkshire, around the time of one of the King Edwards. How hard can that be?

The Historic Robin Hood

Finding any record of a real Robin Hood is tricky, not just because it all happened so long ago, but because, back then, most commoners couldn’t read or write, and the only people considered important enough to be written about were the aristocracy – no-one cared how John the Serf spent his time. Commoners show up in court records if they crossed the law, but other than that, we don’t have much written by or about the common people of the day. On top of that, the name Robert, and its diminutive, Robin, was a very popular name in medieval England as was the last name Hood meaning that there are quite a few possible candidates for the tunic of Robin Hood, but we know very little about most of them, so trying to figure out who Robin Hood really is involves quite a bit of guesswork.

As for the Robin Hood ballads, they are stories, not historical documents. They were meant to entertain, not record history, so they’re not entirely reliable when it comes to the search for the real Robin Hood.

Life in Medieval England was hard, and many robbers and bandits became heroes for defying the king’s law and sticking it to the man so they often made it into ballads and songs. The name Robin Hood, and variations thereof, like Robehod and Rabunhood, became a common nickname for thieves, even in official court records starting as early as 1262. However, what came first, a daring outlaw or the nickname? Let’s assume for now the bandit came first and investigate a few candidates, living around the right time, who could’ve been either the real Robin Hood or, at the very least, the inspiration for the character of Robin Hood.

Robert Hod from York

A good candidate appears in legal records in Yorkshire between 1225 and 1226 in the shape of one Robert Hod, fugitive. He was a tenant of the Archbishop of York and owed money to the church, so his assets, worth 32 shillings and 6 pence were confiscated to cover his debt. He also shows up in records a few times in later years, this time under the nickname Hobbehod, but other than that, we don’t know much about him.

Some writers, like Dr David Crook, believe Robert Hod could be the outlaw known as Robert of Wetherby. We don’t know much about Wetherby either, so this doesn’t help us much. According to what little records remain, Wetherby was considered an ‘outlaw and evildoer’ of the land, and a total of 70 shillings were spent to catch and kill this outlaw, so he was very wanted indeed.

It also appears that Wetherby finally met his maker at the hands of the sheriff. Eustace of Lowdham was the sheriff, and later deputy sheriff, of Yorkshire in 1225-1226, and would’ve had the pleasure of collecting Hobbehod’s assets for the church as well as hunting down Robert of Wetherby. However, before holding this position, he was the deputy Sheriff of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire for several years and might’ve been known as the Sheriff of Nottingham in the Barnsdale area which may have been one of Robin Hood’s haunts.

It’s an interesting theory, but we have no proof that Robert Hod and Robert of Wetherby was the same person or that either of them ever used the name Robin Hood.

Robert of Wakefield

In 1852, Joseph Hunter, a clergyman and assistant keeper of records, published a book presenting one possible source of the Robin legend, if not Robin Hood himself, based on Little Gest of Robyn Hode. In this story, a comely king, named Edward, is travelling around the country when he runs into everybody’s favourite outlaw. He pardons Robin of his crimes and offers him a position at court. However, fifteen months later, Robin had grown bored with life at court, and he’d gone a little broke, so he returns to the life of an outlaw. Edward II was considered a fairly handsome man who travelled extensively, and some details of the King’s journey in the Robin Hood story match the movements of Edward II between April and November of 1323. Around the same time, there was a porter, Robyn Hood, who worked at court. In the last court entry mentioning Robyn, he was paid off because ‘he can no longer work’; unfortunately, why he could no longer work is a mystery. Regardless, he was at the right place, at the right time, performing the sort of job that would match with the yeoman described in the ballad.

Personally, I think this is pretty solid, but Hunter wasn’t satisfied, going on to claim that this Robyn Hood was, in fact, Robert Hood, a tenant who lived in Wakefield, Yorkshire, who shows up in records for the first time around 1316-1317. Wakefield is close to Barnsdale, only 10 miles away, and Robert Wakefield was married to one Matilda, a name used for Maid Marian in two Elizabethan plays. In a fascinating case of coincidence, a later writer learned that Robert was the son of a forester named Adam, a detail also showing up in some of the earlier Robin Hood ballads.

In 1321-1322, the barons of England rebelled against Edward II and Robert Hood, a yeoman and proficient archer, like Robin himself, had been a supporter of the Earl of Lancaster. However, the Earl was betrayed by his trusted deputy, Henry de Faucemberg, who revealed all his plans to the king, leading to Lancaster’s defeat in the battle of Boroughbridge in Yorkshire on 15 March 1322. The treacherous Henry de Faucemberg was appointed sheriff of Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire by the king and was charged with rounding up the remaining rebels that fled south into Sherwood and Barnsdale Forest, so here we have a hated Sheriff of Nottingham.

In 1322, after the rebellion, the Earl of Lancaster was executed and those following him were also punished. According to records, Robert may have lost his lands and possibly turned to a life of crime, becoming an outlaw, taking refuge in the nearby forest of Barnsdale. However, kings being fickle, the rebels and outlaws were given amnesty in 1323, so perhaps Robert Hood was pardoned by King Edward II, and even offered a job, when the king visited the Barnsdale/Wakefield area in November 1323.

This is a fascinating theory, but there’s no proof that Robert Hood and Robyn working as a porter at court were, in fact, the same person, that either of them got involved in the barons’ rebellion or that either of them were declared outlaws at any point in time. Later, a record also showed up indicating that Robyn the porter was already working at court before the king’s visit to Nottingham, so it’s doubtful that either of them was the real Robin Hood.

John and Robert Deyvill

The mid-13th century saw a lot of turmoil in England in the shape of the Second Baron’s war that raged from 1264 to 1267. The barons were uneasy about the influence Henry III’s court favorites had on the ruling of the country, and in 1258, Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester, called a parliament, demanding that a council of 15 barons be appointed to oversee the governing of the country. Henry wasn’t too impressed by this idea and after a few years, a civil war finally erupted in 1264, led by de Montfort himself.

Initially, things went well for the rebels after de Montfort won the battle of Lewes in 1264 and for a while, Henry became little more than a puppet-king with the real power in the hands of de Montfort and his supporters. However, in 1265, Henry’s son, Edward, escaped captivity, raised an army of his own, and challenged the barons. The whole thing came to a head during the battle of Evesham in August 1265.

Edward crushed the opposing army, killing de Montfort. However, the fighting wasn’t done. In the following years, de Montfort’s supporters continued a hit-and-run campaign, raiding and plundering, leading to chaos and lawlessness in England.

One of the key instigators was the Earl of Derby, Robert Ferrers, though he was more interested in improving his own position than any real political change. He raised another army against the king and was finally defeated at the Battle of Chesterfield in 1266. After the rout, many of Ferrers’ soldiers fled to Sherwood Forest, only 20 miles from the battleground, and began their lives as outlaws.

Former soldiers and dispossessed rebels became a real problem in England, forming bands of brigands and robbers. In short, it was chaos.

Among the rebels turned bandits were Sir John Deyville and his brother, Robert. For a while, they continued the hit-and-run style resistance, taking advantage of the chaos to pillage and plunder, but the Robin of legend they were not. During a raid on Lincoln, they targeted the Jewish quarter, murdering Jews and destroying records of debts owed to Jewish moneylenders by Christians – among them, John himself. Eventually, they holed up at the castle at Ely in Cambridgeshire, forcing the locals to pay protection money with which John recruited more men to his cause, whatever that was by this point. Among these recruits were two men called Robert Hood and Jean de Petit (Little John). Sir John Deyville eventually led his band of raiders to London where they managed to set up camp in Southwark and caused general chaos but soon things fell apart. There was no real plan and one of John’s allies struck a deal with the King in exchange for a pardon eventually leading to John’s surrender. As a reward for surrendering, Edward I pardoned John. I guess it was good to be a Sir back then. There are a few connections between the brothers and Robin Hood, including property in Barnsdale, and they were on good terms with Sir Richard Foliot who, some theorized, could’ve been the inspiration for the poor Knight, Sir Richard Lee, who Robin loans money to in Little Gest of Robin Hood. John settled Foliot’s mortgage, a sum of 400 pounds, the same sum loaned to Sir Richard Lee. John also held the manor of Egmanton inside Sherwood Forest, so he would’ve been familiar with the forest and the highway. What exactly happened to Robert Deyville is unclear as there’s little historic record of him. Some theorized that he remained a rebel, living under the name Robin Hood, but there’s no evidence he ever used this name. A more likely scenario is that the activities of the Deyvilles and their lawless band inspired stories of Robin Hood. Or perhaps Robert Hood and Jean de Petit slipped away in the chaos of surrender and carved out a career as outlaws.

Roger Godberd

While the name is not quite the same, Roger Godberd was a real outlaw active around the 1260s. His earliest transgression came in 1264 when he was caught poaching deer in Sherwood Forest. He was initially a friend of the Sheriff of Nottingham, Reginald de Grey, but on one fine day, the two found themselves on opposing sides due to politics. Godberd was a supporter of Simon de Montfort’s rebellion, but after the rebellion failed and de Montfort was killed, Godberd was outlawed for fighting against his king, so he fled to the forest where he became a bandit, robbing and terrorizing the wealthy, along with his band of outlaws. It seems that Godberd was pardoned in 1366, but he liked the life of an outlaw so he continued in his dastardly ways. Godberd was captured after committing a robbery at Stanley Abbey in Wiltshire in 1270 and was imprisoned in Nottingham Castle the following year, 1271. However, in true Robin Hood fashion, Godberd managed to escape from Nottingham Castle. After his daring escape, Godberd took refuge at the castle of Sir Richard Foliot, a local knight who held lands in Yorkshire and was apparently a friend of every rebel that came his way, so the sheriff of York was ordered to seize Foliot’s lands in Yorkshire and take his castle at Fenwick. Foliot was eventually pardoned for helping outlaws, but, once again, we’re reminded of Little Gest of Robin Hood where Robin seeks refuge with Sir Richard of Lee and the sheriff besieges Sir Richard’s castle in a desperate attempt to get his hands on Robin Hood. However, Roger Godberd was a busy little bandit and in 1275, Godberd went on trial for burglaries, homicides, arsons and robberies. In his defense, Godberd claimed that he was innocent and had committed no crimes. This was enough for the judge and jury and he was pardoned and returned to his farm where he became a landowner and spent the rest of his days, so I guess all’s well that ends well. Just like Robin Hood, Godberd’s two most notable offences were against the church and he seemed to have natural knack for evading the law. Godberd was never known by the name Robin Hood, but perhaps he inspired the story.

Earl of Huntingdon

As we’ve seen, Robin Hood was quite the social climber and by 1598, in a play written by Anthony Munday, our outlaw had become the Earl of Huntingdon. Where exactly Munday got this from or why he decided Robin was this particular earl is anybody’s guess. However, there was an earl of Huntingdon alive and well during the reign of King Richard I and, later, King John.

In some of the tales, Robin’s home is in Barnsdale which everyone assumes is in Yorkshire; however, there was another Barnsdale in Rutland. During the reign of King Richard, this Barnsdale was controlled by the Earl of Huntingdon though at the time it was called Bernardshill which kinda sinks the whole theory right there, but let’s soldier on. The Earl of Huntingdon wasn’t called Robert, his name was David, and he was the brother to William, King of Scotland, and for 30 years, he was next in line for the Scottish throne.

He held many lands and played an important role in Anglo-Saxon diplomacy. Unlike many other Robin Hood candidates, we know a lot about Earl David of Huntingdon.

In 1174, the Earl supported the rebellion of King Henry II’s eldest son against his father. The rebellion failed and Earl David lost his earldom, becoming just David, for ten years until he made up with the king, got his lands and titles back, and became Earl David again. In 1190, he got married to Maud, also called Matilda which, in Munday’s play, was the real name for Maid Marian. Maud was of the nobility herself, being granddaughter to Rannulf, Earl of Chester and sister to another Rannulf, Earl of Chester, because things aren’t confusing enough already. Shortly after getting married to Maud, Earl David disappears from the records for around three and a half years, possibly because he went on crusade with Richard, but there’s no evidence to support that. Some also claim that Huntingdon had a son, named Robert, who died in infancy, but if he had a son named Robert there’s no record of him. When Earl David finally shows up in the records again, presumably after returning from the Crusades, he does something very Robin Hood-like; in support of the still-absent King Richard, Earl David, along with the Earl of Chester, marched on Nottingham against the usurper John. However, after King Richard passed on to the afterlife, Earl David, to no-one’s surprise, lost much of his position in the English court. In some tales, Robin Hood becomes an outlaw due to debt, and Earl David had his share of financial difficulties, being fined quite heavily for mainly forest offences. He even had to sell some of his land to pay these debts. In 1212, Earl David was accused of being part of a plot to assassinate King John, but his role, if there was any, was never proven. However, by 1215, he was siding against King John in a conflict between John and his barons, so perhaps there was something to the accusations after all. Clearly, Earl David was no fan of King John. A lot of the details in the story of the Earl of Huntingdon are similar to the story we know today which actually makes me think the earl wasn’t the real Robin Hood, but he obviously influenced Munday’s play and Scott’s Ivanhoe, so perhaps some elements of his story influenced the original Robin Hood as well.

Robin of Loxley

In 1746, after studying some family records and adding a few creative interpretations, Dr William Stukeley produced a false family tree indicating that one Robert Fitzooth, commonly called Robin Hood, was the pretended Earl of Huntington. He also claimed that Robert was the Lord of Kime, supposedly with a well-established pedigree, but the family of Fitzooth has never been traced so this seems unlikely. In 1795, Joseph Ritson further perpetuated this myth, claiming that Robin Hood was born at Locksley in the county of Nottingham during the reign of Henry II, around 1160. However, it seems that Robert Fitzooth was about as fictional as Robin Hood himself.

Robert Fitzooth may be fictional, but there was a Robert Fitz Odo, a knight, who was, in fact, the lord of Loxley Manor from the reign of Henry II to around 1196, and, in 1864, J.R. Planche claimed that Stukeley had confused the name Fitzooth with Fitz Odo. The word ‘fitz’ indicated ‘illegitimate son’; however, apparently it wasn’t necessarily bad to be a bastard.

Many nobles kept the affix to show their descent from some famous or landed person; a proof of noble blood. However, some families dropped the ‘fitz’ to avoid drawing attention to their illegitimate status when the time came to inherit estates and titles, so Robert Fitz Odo might’ve been known as Robert Odo or Robert Ode, living in Loxley. According to the Register of Arms of 1196, Robert Fitz Odo was no longer a knight, which could simply mean he died, but Planche found evidence that a Robert Fitz Odo was still alive and well in 1203.

If this is the same person, it seems that Robert was stripped of his knighthood and possibly disinherited in 1196; Robert’s son-in-law, Peter de Mora, inherited his estate. However, there’s no proof that Robert Fitz Odo was ever an outlaw or associated with Robin Hood. There’s a gravestone in the Loxley churchyard, much older than the rest of the gravestones, bearing an unusual style of cross, very similar to a drawing made of Robin Hood’s supposed grave by Nathaniel Johnston, and fitting the relative dimensions of the slab in Johnston’s drawing.

Coincidence? Probably.

William of Kensham

Another possible inspiration for the tales of Robin Hood is William of Kensham, a little-known hero who stepped up in the early 13th century when Prince Louis of France tried to invade England and take the Crown from King John. French armies lay waste to the countryside of southern England, leveling villages and buildings, burning crops, and just generally pillaging, raping and killing their way through England. However, one man, William of Cassingham, later known as Willikin of the Weald wasn’t going to stand for this kind of behavior.

The woodlands of Kent, densely forested and sparsely populated, became William’s battlefield. With the help of a small force of skilled local huntsmen armed with their trusty longbows, extensive knowledge of the terrain, and hit-and-run tactics, William and his men had a great advantage over the heavily armoured French Knights. Who exactly William was is a little unclear; he might’ve been a young loyalist with some military skills, possibly learned while fighting in France, but, like Robin Hood, he had the support of local villagers who provided supplies and information, probably because he returned the possessions looted by the French army to the rightful owners.

The French considered him an outlaw, and William cultivated a well-earned reputation for taking no prisoners, killing around a thousand French soldiers. By 1217, Louis admitted defeat and withdrew his army back to France. William was rewarded for his service to the crown with titles and land in Essex and Kent and became widely celebrated for both his success and his gallantry which does sound a bit like Robin Hood.

Inspirational outlaws

Before the story of Robin Hood, there are a few other notable outlaws who got their own ballads and who might’ve inspired the tales of Robin Hood. The first would be Hereward the Wake, a real outlaw who became the main character in the ballad Gesta Herewardi, composed in the mid-12th century, 300 years before Robin Hood shows up. The hero, Hereward, is banished and outlawed at the age of 18 by King William I, also known as William the Conqueror. After having some adventures in Cornwall, Ireland and Flanders, Hereward returns to England to avenge the murder of his brother and father and to reclaim his ancestral lands. Like Robin, he lives in the forest, using the woodlands and forests against the Normans, forms a band of fiercely loyal followers, is a skilled archer and quite deadly with a bow, and he often uses tricks and disguises, especially those of a potter, fisherman, and monk, to defeat his foes. When he’s finally captured and imprisoned, his faithful companions come to his rescue. Hereward was defeated by the Normans, but show up in records as a landowner in 1086, so apparently William didn’t hold a grudge which is rather unlike William; he could hold a grudge like the best of them – the Harrying of the North comes to mind.

Another outlaw who got his own tale was Eustace the Monk (c.1170 -1217). Eustace was a French nobleman, unjustly outlawed and dispossessed of his lands by the Count of Boulogne. When his father is killed by a rival, Eustace leaves his religious order to seek justice from Count Rainald of Dammartin. However, when his champion loses the judicial trail by combat, Eustace’s inheritance is seized by the Count, forcing Eustace to flee into the forest and become an outlaw. Like Robin Hood, Eustace uses disguises to rob the Count and his men of money or horses whenever he can. He captures, and then releases, the Count of Boulogne, in much the same way as Robin captures the Sheriff of Nottingham in Little Gest of Robin Hood. Like Robin, he would ask those he robbed how much money they had. If they told the truth, they got to keep their money while those who lied got robbed. Eventually, he turned pirate, becoming the scourge of the English Channel, and was finally beheaded in 1217.

Lastly, we have Fouke Fitz Warin, the grandson of Warin de Metz who settled on the Welsh borders after the Norman Conquest, eventually becoming the Lords of Whittington and Ludlow. Apparently, Fouke was also a childhood friend of King John. According to one story, one day while playing chess, John broke the chessboard over Fouke’s head after which Fouke kicked John in the stomach.

When John went crying to his father, he got beaten for complaining. Fouke inherited his father’s holdings at Whittington in 1197 when he died, but when John came to power, he gave the holdings to Fouke’s enemy, Morys fitzRoger. Fouke’s reaction was to murder Morys and become an outlaw, and if tales are to be believed, he was the violent kind.

In one instance, King John sends 15 knights after him; however, Fouke kills 14 of the knights, leaving one alive to report the incident to King John. Clearly, our man was trying to make a point here. This is similar to a quick-tempered Robin killing the 15 foresters after they refused to pay him for winning a wager.

After waging a minor war against John and his agents for three years, Fouke was pardoned in 1203, recovered Whittington, and remained at peace with the King until he joined the baronial rebellion in support of Magna Carta in 1215. He once again reconciled with the king in 1217 and finally died around 1256.

Like Robin Hood, Fouke is outlawed and hides in forests, assembling a group of loyal knights to play a game of hide and seek with the king’s agents. He also relies on various disguises to avoid capture and gather information, and he has a close second-in-command, John de Rampaigne. In one scene, Fouke’s John waylays a caravan of merchants, delivering them to Fouke who tests their honesty, in the same way Robin Hood tested the honesty of his victims. In another scene, King John, like the Sheriff in Little Gest of Robin Hood, is tricked into the forest where he is captured and released after swearing an oath. Of course, there are also a whole lot of differences, but it certainly seems that some of the core elements are quite similar, so Fouke’s story might’ve added some spice to the tales of Robin Hood.

Robin Hood the fairy

Finally, we have, in my humble opinion, the most unlikely of theories – the idea that Robin Hood wasn’t a person at all but a figure from mythology; a spirit of the forest. He’s been associated with all manner of mythological creatures including Hodekin, a household spirit from German folklore, mostly considered to be a good spirit, Wodan, the Germanic version of Odin, or Robin Goodfellow though most of us just know him as Puck.

Robin Goodfellow, or Puck, may have been popularized by Shakespeare, but he was around long before Shakespeare made him a star. He’s a kind of household fairy, associated with the home, but like Robin Hood, he’s a trickster who enjoys a good joke. He’s a shape-shifter, taking the form of various woodland animals, whereas Robin Hood is a master of disguise.

There are also some similarities in how they dress; both wear a hood and Robin Hood prefers wearing green, a colour often associated with fairies. Of course, Robin Hood lives and hides in a forest, so it’s not like he can get away with bright orange. Honestly, the idea that Robin Hood is a fairy is very odd since none of the early ballads contain any magical or mythological elements.

Robin Hood only entered the realm of mythology when the character became an important figure in the yearly May Day celebrations, a festival held to welcome the new season. Robin became a sort of summer king leading the festivities. The celebrations included athletic contests, with archery being a particular favorite, and participants would dress up as Robin Hood and his Merry Men.

Folklorist Margaret Murray also suggested that Robin Hood was the leader of a coven of witches with Robin and his 12 companions suggestive of a Grandmaster and his coven. According to Murray, paganism didn’t die out completely when Europe became Christianized; the old religions simply went underground, practicing their rituals in secret and secluded areas, like forests. She claimed that Robin Hood targeted clergy and the church suggesting animosity towards the church.

However, in the early ballads, Robin Hood is a devout Catholic. He doesn’t oppose God; he opposes corrupt monks. The 12 companions aren’t standard either; the band of merry men could be as many as 140 strong, depending on the story you read.

While Murray’s work has mostly been discredited, I think it’s possible that these mythological stories may have influenced the tales of Robin Hood, but if Robin Hood is based on a real figure, I find a real outlaw far more likely than a fairy.

Robin Hood’s Grave

While I’m not 100% convinced that any of these candidates were, in fact, the real Robin Hood, our outlaw actually has a grave. Well, he has a few graves, but it seems that the most likely grave, according to the ballads, lies in Yorkshire near what used to be the Priory of Kirklees. Some of the details about how exactly Robin Hood dies differ from one story to the next, but the story basically goes like this.

In his later years, Robin Hood falls ill and decides to go to the Prioress of Kirklees in Yorkshire for help. The prioress may have been related to Robin; she’s sometimes referred to as his cousin or aunt, but we’re never given a name. Standard treatment at the time for pretty much anything was bleeding which isn’t the most effective of treatment.

In most tales, he’s advised by his merry men to either not go or at the very least take some protection and it’s usually Little John who ends up accompanying Robin to the Priory. On their arrival, Little John is ordered to wait outside while Robin is taken to the gatehouse where the bleeding commences. However, the prioress has no intention of helping Robin.

Instead, she leaves him bleeding intending for him to bleed out and die. When Robin realizes what’s happening, he blows his hunting horn, summoning Little John who finds Robin severely weakened and past saving. Furious at the betrayal, Little John threatens to take revenge by burning down the priory and killing everyone inside, but Robin forbids him from doing that, reminding Little John that he’s never hurt a woman and he’s not about to start now.

Instead, Little John helps Robin to the window where Robin looses an arrow, asking to be buried where the arrow falls.

There’s some variety in the tales – sometimes the prioress is acting alone while other times she’s assisted by her secret lover Roger or Red Roger of Doncaster whom Robin fights, and manages to defeat, despite his severe blood loss, before dying himself. We’re also never really told why she kills Robin. According to some stories she’s jealous of Robin while others claim she was under the influence of her lover Roger. However, at the end of the day, I suppose her motives don’t really matter; Robin Hood was dead.

Little John honoured his friend’s request and today Robin’s grave can be found in Kirklees Park, part of the estate of Kirklees Hall. The grave was first described by John Leland, antiquary to Henry VIII, when he visited Kirklees in 1534, but the grave slab is only mentioned by Richard Grafton in 1562 and the only illustration of the slab was drawn in 1665 by Nathaniel Johnston, but unfortunately, the grave slab he drew is not the same as the one found there today. The slab described by both Grafton and Johnston mention a William of Goldesborough, but we have no idea who that was.

Some have theorized that it was actually Will Scarlett’s real name suggesting that Robin Hood’s grave is actually Will Scarlett’s grave. Sometime in the 18th century, an iron frame and wall was built around the grave to protect it from souvenir hunters; labourers working on the Yorkshire and Lancashire railway chipped of fragments to use as a cure for toothache. Unfortunately, the whereabouts of the original grave slab is unknown, and the stone marking the grave today contains an inscription that tries very hard to be archaic English but fails miserably; this form of stylized pseudo-archaic English was very popular in the Victorian era though.

The current inscription possibly comes from a 1630 ballad and basically says the following:

Here underneath this little stone Lies Robert, Earl of Huntingdon Never was there an archer so good And people called him Robin Hood Such outlaws as he and his men Will England never see again.

According to this tombstone, Robin Hood was the Earl of Huntingdon and he died in 1247; however, some believe that our engraver made a mistake and Robin Hood only died in 1347.

Skeptics argue that the grave is too far; it’s around 650m away, uphill from the priory gatehouse, and most expert archers agree that an arrow shot from a longbow couldn’t have travelled that far, especially if the person shooting it was severely weakened by blood loss. Sir Samuel Armytage, one of the previous owners of Kirklees Hall and the attached Kirklees Park also apparently excavated the grave to a depth of about three feet in the 18th century but found no evidence of remains or any indication that there had previously been a disturbance or a grave of any kind. Some claim that Robin was initially buried in Kirklees Park and the body was later moved to an unmarked grave though why anyone would’ve done this isn’t really explained.

The Kirklees Priory really did exist, and the White Ladies at Kirklees, as they were known, weren’t the best of nuns. Many of them were unwanted daughters who didn’t have any real desire to be nuns and by 1315, there were some scandalous rumors doing the rounds, including the nuns keeping dogs, going out dancing, and inviting men into the priory. Medieval abbeys also had a bit of a tradition of tourism, displaying relics of saints to draw visitors as visitors translated into donations, so it’s possible that the grave was used by the abbey as a means of income in the 1400s and very early 1500s.

In 1539, the priory, like most monasteries in Yorkshire, was dissolved by Henry VIII, and Kirklees Hall was built on the nearby hillside using stones from the fallen priory. Only the priory’s gatehouse, where Robin Hood supposedly died, remained standing.

In Little Gest of Robin Hood, after killing Robin, the prioress took her own life and one abbess, Elizabeth de Staynton, did in fact die at Kirklees Priory in 1347. According to some excitable Robin Hood historians, Elizabeth and her sister Alice were placed under the care of the nuns at Kirklees when their mother married Hugh de Tutehill in 1344. Apparently, Hugh de Tutehill already had a daughter of his own called Matilda who lived at Wakefield and, according to the Wakefield Court Rolls, was the wife of Robert Hood of Wakefield which would make Elizabeth Robin Hood’s sister-in-law. However, we don’t know this Matilda’s maiden name, or whether her husband was the Robert Hood. The dates for this story also don’t really make sense. If Elizabeth was a 12-year old orphan in 1344, it’s unlikely that she was prioress by 1347 when Robert Hood of Wakefield, who some believe was Robin Hood himself, met his maker, so the orphan Elizabeth and the abbess Elizabeth was probably not the same person.

Of course, there have been some tales of paranormal activity surrounding Robin Hood’s grave. In 1923, John Hill, a tenant farmer living in the gatehouse where Robin died, came home from the pub to see a shadowy figure, wielding a bow, in the upstairs window. A musician, Roger Williamson, claimed to have come across the apparition of a woman with mad staring eyes while walking through the woods near the grave in 1963 and 1972, and in 1990, Barbara Green, founder of the Yorkshire Robin Hood Society, claimed that while holding a vigil at the grave, she was overcome with a profound sense of dread and saw a red-headed man accompanied by a black shape amongst the trees – possibly the spirits of the Prioress and her lover, Red Roger of Doncaster.

According to Reverend Sean Manchester, an ordained priest, alleged descendent of Lord Byron, and a modern-day vampire hunter, Robin Hood’s grave is a potential source for vampire activity; Robin Hood was buried in unhallowed ground while the prioress murdered her own blood so both could be among the ranks of the undead. When visiting the grave in April 1990, he claimed to have found signs of vampires which included occult symbols scrawled on the gatehouse, the mutilated carcass of a goat in the woods, apparently drained of blood, and claw marks in the earth around the grave. However, an exorcism was performed on the grave in April 2005 so, theoretically, the unquiet dead should quiet down now.

Despite the popularity of Robin Hood, his supposed grave is overgrown and the railings and pillars have fallen down. No effort is being made to maintain the site or turn it into a tourist attraction which is unfortunate. It’s probably not Robin Hood’s real grave, but it’s still an interesting part of the legend and worth some conservation, in my humble opinion.

Conclusion

Robin was a popular name, so did a man called Robin Hood exist? Definitely, in fact, there was a fair few of them. Was any of these Robert or Robin Hoods an outlaw? Again, the answer is yes.

Were any of them, the real Robin Hood? Probably not. And this is most likely the reason why Robin Hood is still so popular; in the words of historian Dan Jones, Chaucer is arthouse, but Robin Hood is box office and has been for over 500 years. The story isn’t tied down to any specific person or sequence of events, making it the oldest open-source text document that we still keep adding to even today.

The story of Robin Hood can be changed to speak to just about any audience, no matter what they’re dealing with. Robin Hood was a devout Catholic, but when the Reformation came along after Henry VIII split from the church in Rome, Robin dropped the Virgin Mary like a hot potato and ran off with Maid Marian. When the aristocracy took an interest in this outlaw, even Henry VIII once dressed up as Robin Hood to entertain his new queen, Catherine of Aragon, Robin went from a violent yeoman to a dispossed Earl.

When the French started lobbing the heads off useless aristocrats, Robin Hood stood up against the most useless and evil aristocrat of them all – the usurper Prince John and his corrupt lackeys, and with the rise of capitalism, old Robin became a communist, stealing from the rich and giving to the poor to make sure wealth is distributed evenly. Under McCarthyism in 1950s America, Robin Hood was even banned from schools for giving kids the wrong ideas.

It’s possible that the legend of Robin Hood started when one outlaw robbed a monk and got away with it, but even if the legend was based on a real person, the character of Robin Hood that we know and love today has long since outgrown his origin story and changed so much that the original Robin Hood, if he ever existed, probably wouldn’t recognize himself. With each new daring robbery and humorous escape, each detail added by each storyteller over the centuries, Robin Hood became something far more impressive than just a story; Robin Hood became a symbol of standing up for what’s right and fighting all that’s corrupt, for speaking up for those who can’t speak up for themselves, and showed us that law and justice is not always the same thing. So, go forth, be merry, surround yourself with loyal friends, and remember, the best Robin Hood always speaks with an English accent.

Frequently Asked Questions

When was the first written reference to Robin Hood?

The first written reference to Robin Hood only shows up in 1377, in the Middle English allegorical poem, The Vision of Piers Plowman, written by William Langland.

What was the first written story about Robin Hood?

The first written story we have is Robin Hood and the Monk, dating from around 1465.

What was Robin Hood’s original occupation according to the early ballads?

In the original ballads, Robin Hood isn’t a fallen noble but a yeoman, which is a member of the rising middle class; they weren’t knights or nobles, but they owned their own plots of land.

What was the significance of archery in the Robin Hood legend?

The longbow was a formidable weapon, for both war and hunting, which required a high degree of skill which took a lifetime to learn, so it was the weapon of choice of the yeoman since your average peasant would be working the fields all day and didn’t have much spare time to master the longbow.

Where did Robin Hood and his Merry Men primarily operate?

The oldest ballad we have places Robin and his merry men in Sherwood Forest, but quite a few of the older ballads also place Robin Hood in Barnsdale Forest in South Yorkshire.

What was the relationship between Robin Hood and the Sheriff of Nottingham?

The main villain in many of the earlier ballads is the Sheriff of Nottingham, a man so evil he threatened to cancel Christmas.

What was the original motivation behind Robin Hood’s actions?

In the early ballads, Robin Hood was a violent man, but the medieval audience was well acquainted with violence, and since Robin Hood was killing the corrupt and oppressors, our medieval audience didn’t seem to mind how he went about it.

What was the significance of the name Robin Hood in medieval England?

The name Robin Hood, and variations thereof, like Robehod and Rabunhood, became a common nickname for thieves, even in official court records starting as early as 1262.

What was the historical context of the Robin Hood legend?

The legend of Robin Hood started when one outlaw robbed a monk and got away with it, but even if the legend was based on a real person, the character of Robin Hood that we know and love today has long since outgrown his origin story and changed so much that the original Robin Hood, if he ever existed, probably wouldn’t recognize himself.

What was the significance of the Robin Hood legend in different historical periods?

The story of Robin Hood can be changed to speak to just about any audience, no matter what they’re dealing with. Robin Hood was a devout Catholic, but when the Reformation came along after Henry VIII split from the church in Rome, Robin dropped the Virgin Mary like a hot potato and ran off with Maid Marian. When the aristocracy took an interest in this outlaw, even Henry VIII once dressed up as Robin Hood to entertain his new queen, Catherine of Aragon, Robin went from a violent yeoman to a dispossed Earl. When the French started lobbing the heads off useless aristocrats, Robin Hood stood up against the most useless and evil aristocrat of them all – the usurper Prince John and his corrupt lackeys, and with the rise of capitalism, old Robin became a communist, stealing from the rich and giving to the poor to make sure wealth is distributed evenly.

Sources

• Original Decoding the Unknown video: Was Robin Hood real?
• Hero image source by Brandon Zhang / openverse, cc0.