Robin Hood is a heroic outlaw and skilled archer in English folklore, known for the phrase “robbing from the rich and giving to the poor”. While he is a completely fictional character, he is one of the most powerful, enduring legends of England. Each generation grows up with their own imagery of Robin Hood, his followers and enemies, and what they stood for. His stories have inspired at least 12 novels, 8 stage adaptations, 7 TV series, 8 films plus 8 cartoon and 9 feature-length spoofs and 7 musicals – and probably more of each since this list was compiled. Up to a million people visit Sherwood Forest each year, and it seems safe to say that very few of them come primarily to see some ancient vegetation.
Robin Hood is a legendary heroic outlaw originally depicted in English folklore and subsequently featured in literature and film. According to legend, he was a highly skilled archer and swordsman. In some versions of the legend, he is depicted as being of noble birth, and in modern retellings he is sometimes depicted as having fought in the Crusades before returning to England to find his lands taken by the Sheriff. In the oldest known versions he is instead a member of the yeoman class. Traditionally depicted dressed in Lincoln green, he is said to have robbed from the rich and given to the poor.
Through retellings, additions, and variations, a body of familiar characters associated with Robin Hood has been created. These include his lover, Maid Marian, his band of outlaws, the Merry Men, and his chief opponent, the Sheriff of Nottingham. The Sheriff is often depicted as assisting Prince John in usurping the rightful but absent King Richard, to whom Robin Hood remains loyal. His partisanship of the common people and his hostility to the Sheriff of Nottingham are early recorded features of the legend, but his interest in the rightfulness of the king is not, and neither is his setting in the reign of Richard I. He became a popular folk figure in the Late Middle Ages, and the earliest known ballads featuring him are from the 15th century (1400s).
There have been numerous variations and adaptations of the story over the subsequent years, and the story continues to be widely represented in literature, film, and television. Robin Hood is considered one of the best known tales of English folklore. The historicity of Robin Hood is not proven and has been debated for centuries. There are numerous references to historical figures with similar names that have been proposed as possible evidence of his existence, some dating back to the late 13th century. At least eight plausible origins to the story have been mooted by historians and folklorists, including suggestions that “Robin Hood” was a stock alias used by or in reference to bandits.
Understand
There are multiple theories about Robin Hood’s origins, which is another way of saying that no theory, and no historical figure, is convincing. The legend usually places him around the turn of the 12th / 13th Centuries, when King Richard I (Richard the Lionheart) was away fighting the crusades, and his younger brother Prince John had only unofficial power as heir presumptive. The Prince became King John in 1199 and in 1215 he signed Magna Carta to head off a revolt by his Barons – so the Robin Hood legend plays into the story of the foundations of English liberty. King John died at nearby Newark in 1216 and was succeeded by his son Henry III.
From 1261 onwards, magistrates began describing villains as “Robinhood” and suchlike. In 1265 Roger Godberd rebelled against King Henry III, was outlawed and fled to Sherwood Forest with his band of followers, and battled with the sheriff. So he’s a good candidate to be Robin Hood, but the name and legends may pre-date him. Ballads of the time recounted Robin’s valorous deeds, the first written throwaway mention being in Piers Plowman in 1377. Over the next 200-300 years the legend expanded to absorb other Robins (eg Robin of Wakefield) and other characters who now became his companions. Maid Marian, for instance, appears circa 1500 as a Shepherdess May Queen, with Robin morphing into her King of May Day Festivities. The legend was effectively re-launched in 1820 by Sir Walter Scott’s novel Ivanhoe, which introduced Robin of Locksley.
The Sheriff of Nottingham is a real official, but in that era his correct title (as you’d do well to remember if you were at his mercy) was the High Sheriff of Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and the Royal Forests. His chief duties were to ensure law and order and to collect taxes. The post was traditionally shared by two men, and held for one year only, but from 1208 to 1221 it was often held solely by Philip Marc. He was deeply unpopular – “collecting taxes” may for him have meant extorting protection money, and Item 50 of Magna Carta specifically called for his removal. (Like every other Item, once the deal was signed, this was roundly ignored by all sides.) So Marc fits well as a model for the villain of legend, but there’s no evidence he was much troubled by forest outlaws, unlike his successors of the 1260s.
From 1449 the duties were divided so the City of Nottingham thereafter had its own sheriff, again as a shared annual post, and from 1568 there were separate High Sheriffs for Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. In the 19th C most of the sheriffs’ duties passed to the local authority, police etc, and in other cities the post was abolished, but Nottingham has kept it on for ceremonial and tourist purposes.
Associated locations
Sherwood Forest
The early ballads link Robin Hood to identifiable real places. In popular culture, Robin Hood and his band of “merry men” are portrayed as living in Sherwood Forest, in Nottinghamshire. Notably, the Lincoln Cathedral Manuscript, which is the first officially recorded Robin Hood song (dating from approximately 1420), makes an explicit reference to the outlaw that states that “Robyn hode in scherewode stod”. In a similar fashion, a monk of Witham Priory (1460) suggested that the archer had ‘infested shirwode’. His chronicle entry reads:
‘Around this time, according to popular opinion, a certain outlaw named Robin Hood, with his accomplices, infested Sherwood and other law-abiding areas of England with continuous robberies’.
Nottinghamshire
Specific sites in the county of Nottinghamshire that are directly linked to the Robin Hood legend include Robin Hood’s Well, located near Newstead Abbey (within the boundaries of Sherwood Forest), the Church of St. Mary in the village of Edwinstowe and most famously of all, the Major Oak also located at the village of Edwinstowe. The Major Oak, which resides in the heart of Sherwood Forest, is popularly believed to have been used by the Merry Men as a hide-out. Dendrologists have contradicted this claim by estimating the tree’s true age at around eight hundred years; it would have been relatively a sapling in Robin’s time, at best.
Yorkshire
Nottinghamshire’s claim to Robin Hood’s heritage is disputed, with Yorkists staking a claim to the outlaw. In demonstrating Yorkshire’s Robin Hood heritage, the historian J. C. Holt drew attention to the fact that although Sherwood Forest is mentioned in Robin Hood and the Monk, there is little information about the topography of the region, and thus suggested that Robin Hood was drawn to Nottinghamshire through his interactions with the city’s sheriff. Moreover, the linguist Lister Matheson has observed that the language of the Gest of Robyn Hode is written in a definite northern dialect, probably that of Yorkshire. In consequence, it seems probable that the Robin Hood legend actually originates from the county of Yorkshire. Robin Hood’s Yorkshire origins are generally accepted by professional historians.
Barnsdale
A tradition dating back at least to the end of the 16th century gives Robin Hood’s birthplace as Loxley, Sheffield, in South Yorkshire. The original Robin Hood ballads, which originate from the fifteenth century, set events in the medieval forest of Barnsdale. Barnsdale was a wooded area covering an expanse of no more than thirty square miles, ranging six miles from north to south, with the River Went at Wentbridge near Pontefract forming its northern boundary and the villages of Skelbrooke and Hampole forming the southernmost region. From east to west the forest extended about five miles, from Askern on the east to Badsworth in the west. At the northernmost edge of the forest of Barnsdale, in the heart of the Went Valley, resides the village of Wentbridge. Wentbridge is a village in the City of Wakefield district of West Yorkshire, England. It lies around 3 miles (5 km) southeast of its nearest township of size, Pontefract, close to the A1 road. During the medieval age Wentbridge was sometimes locally referred to by the name of Barnsdale because it was the predominant settlement in the forest. Wentbridge is mentioned in an early Robin Hood ballad, entitled, Robin Hood and the Potter, which reads, “Y mete hem bot at Went breg,’ syde Lyttyl John”. And, while Wentbridge is not directly named in A Gest of Robyn Hode, the poem does appear to make a cryptic reference to the locality by depicting a poor knight explaining to Robin Hood that he ‘went at a bridge’ where there was wrestling’. A commemorative Blue Plaque has been placed on the bridge that crosses the River Went by Wakefield City Council.
The Saylis
The Gest makes a specific reference to the Saylis at Wentbridge. Credit is due to the nineteenth-century antiquarian Joseph Hunter, who correctly identified the site of the Saylis. From this location it was once possible to look out over the Went Valley and observe the traffic that passed along the Great North Road. The Saylis is recorded as having contributed towards the aid that was granted to Edward III in 1346–47 for the knighting of the Black Prince. An acre of landholding is listed within a glebe terrier of 1688 relating to Kirk Smeaton, which later came to be called “Sailes Close”. Professor Dobson and Mr. Taylor indicate that such evidence of continuity makes it virtually certain that the Saylis that was so well known to Robin Hood is preserved today as “Sayles Plantation”. It is this location that provides a vital clue to Robin Hood’s Yorkshire heritage. One final locality in the forest of Barnsdale that is associated with Robin Hood is the village of Campsall.
Church of Saint Mary Magdalene at Campsall
The historian John Paul Davis wrote of Robin’s connection to the Church of Saint Mary Magdalene at Campsall in South Yorkshire. A Gest of Robyn Hode states that the outlaw built a chapel in Barnsdale that he dedicated to Mary Magdalene.
Davis indicates that there is only one church dedicated to Mary Magdalene within what one might reasonably consider to have been the medieval forest of Barnsdale, and that is the church at Campsall. The church was built in the late eleventh century by Robert de Lacy, the 2nd Baron of Pontefract. Local legend suggests that Robin Hood and Maid Marion were married at the church.
Abbey of Saint Mary at York
The backdrop of St Mary’s Abbey, York plays a central role in the Gest as the poor knight whom Robin aids owes money to the abbot.
Grave at Kirklees
At Kirklees Priory in West Yorkshire stands an alleged grave with a spurious inscription, which relates to Robin Hood. The fifteenth-century ballads relate that before he died, Robin told Little John where to bury him. He shot an arrow from the Priory window, and where the arrow landed was to be the site of his grave. The Gest states that the Prioress was a relative of Robin’s. Robin was ill and staying at the Priory where the Prioress was supposedly caring for him. However, she betrayed him, his health worsened, and he eventually died there. The inscription on the grave reads,
Despite the unconventional spelling, the verse is in Modern English, not the Middle English of the 13th century. The date is also incorrectly formatted – using the Roman calendar, “24 kal Decembris” would be the twenty-third day before the beginning of December, that is, 8 November. The tomb probably dates from the late eighteenth century.
The grave with the inscription is within sight of the ruins of the Kirklees Priory, behind the Three Nuns pub in Mirfield, West Yorkshire. Though local folklore suggests that Robin is buried in the grounds of Kirklees Priory, this theory has now largely been abandoned by professional historians.
All Saints’ Church at Pontefract
Another theory is that Robin Hood died at Kirkby, Pontefract. Michael Drayton’s Poly-Olbion Song 28 (67–70), published in 1622, speaks of Robin Hood’s death and clearly states that the outlaw died at ‘Kirkby’. This is consistent with the view that Robin Hood operated in the Went Valley, located three miles to the southeast of the town of Pontefract. The location is approximately three miles from the site of Robin’s robberies at the now famous Saylis. In the Anglo-Saxon period, Kirkby was home to All Saints’ Church, Pontefract. All Saints’ Church had a priory hospital attached to it. The Tudor historian Richard Grafton stated that the prioress who murdered Robin Hood buried the outlaw beside the road,
All Saints’ Church at Kirkby, modern Pontefract, which was located approximately three miles from the site of Robin Hood’s robberies at the Saylis, is consistent with Richard Grafton’s description because a road ran directly from Wentbridge to the hospital at Kirkby.
Place-name locations
Within close proximity of Wentbridge reside several notable landmarks relating to Robin Hood. One such place-name location occurred in a cartulary deed of 1422 from Monkbretton Priory, which makes direct reference to a landmark named Robin Hood’s Stone, which resided upon the eastern side of the Great North Road, a mile south of Barnsdale Bar. The historians Barry Dobson and John Taylor suggested that on the opposite side of the road once stood Robin Hood’s Well, which has since been relocated six miles north-west of Doncaster, on the south-bound side of the Great North Road. Over the next three centuries, the name popped-up all over the place, such as at Robin Hood’s Bay, near Whitby in Yorkshire, Robin Hood’s Butts in Cumbria, and Robin Hood’s Walk at Richmond, Surrey.
Robin Hood type place-names occurred particularly everywhere except Sherwood. The first place-name in Sherwood does not appear until the year 1700. The fact that the earliest Robin Hood type place-names originated in West Yorkshire is deemed to be historically significant because, generally, place-name evidence originates from the locality where legends begin. The overall picture from the surviving early ballads and other early references indicate that Robin Hood was based in the Barnsdale area of what is now South Yorkshire, which borders Nottinghamshire.
Some other place names and other references
The Sheriff of Nottingham also had jurisdiction in Derbyshire that was known as the “Shire of the Deer”, and this is where the Royal Forest of the Peak is found, which roughly corresponds to today’s Peak District National Park. The Royal Forest included Bakewell, Tideswell, Castleton, Ladybower and the Derwent Valley near Loxley. The Sheriff of Nottingham possessed property near Loxley, among other places both far and wide including Hazlebadge Hall, Peveril Castle and Haddon Hall. Mercia, to which Nottingham belonged, came to within three miles of Sheffield City Centre. But before the Law of the Normans was the Law of the Danes, The Danelaw had a similar boundary to that of Mercia but had a population of Free Peasantry that were known to have resisted the Norman occupation. Many outlaws could have been created by the refusal to recognise Norman Forest Law. The supposed grave of Little John can be found in Hathersage, also in the Peak District.
Further indications of the legend’s connection with West Yorkshire (and particularly Calderdale) are noted in the fact that there are pubs called the Robin Hood in both nearby Brighouse and at Cragg Vale; higher up in the Pennines beyond Halifax, where Robin Hood Rocks can also be found. Robin Hood Hill is near Outwood, West Yorkshire, not far from Lofthouse. There is a village in West Yorkshire called Robin Hood, on the A61 between Leeds and Wakefield and close to Rothwell and Lofthouse. Considering these references to Robin Hood, it is not surprising that the people of both South and West Yorkshire lay some claim to Robin Hood, who, if he existed, could easily have roamed between Nottingham, Lincoln, Doncaster and right into West Yorkshire.
A British Army Territorial (reserves) battalion formed in Nottingham in 1859 was known as The Robin Hood Battalion through various reorganisations until the “Robin Hood” name finally disappeared in 1992. With the 1881 Childers Reforms that linked regular and reserve units into regimental families, the Robin Hood Battalion became part of The Sherwood Foresters (Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Regiment).
A Neolithic causewayed enclosure on Salisbury Plain has acquired the name Robin Hood’s Ball, although had Robin Hood existed it is doubtful that he would have travelled so far south.