Robin Hood: What Is It About this Folk Hero?

The story of Robin Hood is a familiar one to almost everyone. His campaign of defiance from his hideout in Sherwood Forest against the evil Sheriff of Nottingham and his master “Prince” John is certainly inspiring, and its narrative echoes can be seen everywhere from Walter Scott to Star Wars. 

Such characters are always interesting, but why this one, in this particular time and place? Every century has its outlaws, so why does this particular 12th century one hailing from a provincial English city continue to resonate

For those who haven’t come across this English legend, Robin led a band of merry men with helpfully descriptive names like Little John, notable for being big, Friar Tuck, notable for being a friar and Maid Marian, notable for being a woman. Together these bandits robbed from the rich, like every other bandit, but also gave to the poor, and in this redistribution of wealth we may find the first hints as to why the legend endures.

But there is something even more unusual about this character, something which stands in stark contrast to almost all other stories from history, embellished or otherwise. This is something that rings true of almost all folk stories, something that they have to offer which is unique.

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History is the story of kingdoms and rulers, of Popes and Emperors, almost never of the common man. This focus on the mighty risks distorting the truth as it concerns only a tiny portion of society, the rest of which remains silently undocumented. 

Medieval times are largely recalled for the actions of one nation against another, royal marriages and brutal warfare, the fate of princes and lords but never of the commoners. Their stories, when they survive at all, are almost all to be found in such folk tales as Robin of the Hood.

It is true that, in the search for a single man behind the legend, many have alighted on a nobleman named Robin of Loxley, but here we see the spoiling hand of Hollywood: Loxley is a town near Nottingham, and Robin “of” Loxley was originally a townsman, not its lord. This legend is clearly established as a commoner fighting back against the establishment.

Said establishment must have been brutal indeed, for such a tale to take hold. But we are in an era of high feudalism here, and the lot of every commoner was one of a person shackled to his station in life, unable to rise. What was it about the time of Robin Hood which gave birth to this enduring folk hero?

Why Did the Poor Need to Steal?

What we have with the story of Robin Hood is a society where the landowners are taxing the commoners excessively. This is easily glossed as the actions of evil nobles looking to squeeze their tenants and serfs, but there was something else in the background: the Crusades.

No English king was as committed to the Crusades as Richard I. The city of Jerusalem had fallen to Saladin and Islam in 1187 after almost a century of Christian rule, and Richard’s determination to recover the highly symbolic capital of the Crusader States was his principal focus.

Richard came to the throne in 1189, but his accession was not a straightforward one. He had spend a decade in a power struggle with his father Henry II, and his succession was cemented by defeating his father’s army in France at Ballans, only two days before the death of the old King.

But even before he sat on the English throne Richard’s eyes looked to Jerusalem. He had taken the cross and pledged himself to crusade after news reached him in 1187 of Jerusalem’s fall and the disastrous Battle of Hattin in which the army of Jerusalem was destroyed. He would take his army to the very gates  of Jerusalem to reclaim it, and although he failed he would bleed England dry in the attempt.

Robin Hood is traditionally set against the Sherriff of Nottingham and Prince John, but in truth it was “good” King Richard who had created England’s problems. John was certainly a hated figure and rightly so, but it was Richard who levied the taxes.

An absentee king, who quite possibly never visited England as her ruler and who drained her coffers fighting idealized wars a continent away, created turmoil by his absence. Robin Hood took from the rich, but he was effectively recovering the excessive taxes that Richard and later John had taken from the poor.

But there are far deeper social tensions woven into the legend than those created by a single king. England in the time of Robin Hood had endured a century under Norman rule, and it would seem that the wounds had not yet healed.

The Normans must have seemed like aliens to the newly conquered Saxon peasantry. They rode in weird looking full plate armor, they cut their hair short and they spoke an entirely different language: these were England’s new masters, parachuted in to rule at an aloof distance from within their unfamiliar and imposing stone castles.

Robin Hood fights for the Saxons, taking from these Norman overlords as they have taken England from its people. In his stories he represents a deep undercurrent of resentment at these people with their strange ways, and the temptation to reject them.

Was there ever a real Robin Hood? Actually, there were probably loads, Robert (and its abbreviation Robin) being a common name and hoods being habitually worn by outlaws. The earliest sources are English legal records which repeatedly name criminals as “Robin Hood” although even the earliest of such records are decades too late for the legend.

In fact, all the references to Robin Hood we have are too late. Like King Arthur, the tradition is all we have and the trail leading from the legend to the man peters out. The earliest literary reference, from the poem Piers Plowman in 1370, talks of the “rhymes” of Robin Hood which suggests the famous stories of this hero may be in a work of fiction, another poem.

It is two centuries after the time of King Richard and King John that Robin Hood is first framed as a figure from history. More likely by this point that his exploits are a collection of tales, each from a separate individual, drawn together into a narrative thread and associated with one man.

But what of his merry men? They appear to be a later invention, along with much of the romantic side of his story. There have been many attempts to match any of these characters to real-life figures, but the only characters in his legend which can be reliably confirmed as real are on the Norman side.

Who was the Sheriff of Nottingham then? Again we do not know. His very title didn’t exist until 200 years later, and he is never named, a faceless authority figure. Guy of Gisbourne, the other prominent Norman of the stories, is similarly unknown; it is only John and Richard who can be found. This is history, after all, and as we said history only remembers its kings.

Is it all a myth, then? Well, there is one aspect of the stories of Robin Hood which suggest otherwise, something which sets them apart from the likes of King Arthur. There is nothing supernatural about our forest hero: his deeds are the deeds of a real man, albeit a heroic and skilled one.

The lack of such embellishments point to, or at least hint at, a genuine set of stories which grew into the legend, at least some of which may be partly true. But in our search for the real Robin Hood, we can go no further.

Header Image: Robin Hood and Little John: unlike most other folk tales of England there is nothing supernatural about the tales of this outlaw, which may hint to some aspects of them being true. Source: F Tayler / Public Domain.