Robin Hood : A case Study
Dedicated to Moif – Denmark’s own man in Lincoln Green
By Bob Crumpton

Chapter One : In search of Robin

Verily my Lord, the webbe is a wonderous thynge. My search for Robin Hood in literary and historical references has taken me back as far as the works of Edward Hall (1499-1547) : Halls Chronicle : the union of the two noble and illustre families of Lancastre and Yorke (pub 1548) wherein it states that one Robin Hood entertained Henry 8th with shooting matches. It is perhaps
unfortunate that this Robin Hood is placed several hundred years after the period wherein we care to usually imagine him.

Anthony Munday (1553-1633) wrote his play (pub 1601) The Death of Robert , Earle of Huntington which featured Robin, The Friar, Marian, Scarlet, Much with Prince John and Eleanor the Queen Mother. The play at least places Robin in the right period that we usually associate him with – (1192-1216) and portrays him as a wronged Noble Saxon or Englishman fighting against Norman oppression. His uncle was in fact written as the Prior of York ! * However a play is not historical fact.

William Langland wrote “The vision of Piers Ploughman” in 1377 and one verse mentioned a drunken chaplain who knew the rhymes of Robin Hood better than he knows his prayers. Perhaps this is the root of the folk- tale of Robin o’the hoode which can be traced back in mythology to a Yeoman who lived the life of an outlaw, not in Sherwood but in Barnsdale Forest.

* Churchmen of York as traced (more spice due to gaps !)
Aldred -1070
Thomas 1070- 1100 ( 1st Norman - He rebuilt after the Normans had devastated the city)
Gap
Roger 1154-1181 (31st)
Gap
Walter Grey 1216-1255 (33rd)
Gap
Johannes Romanus 1285-1295 (38th)
Gap
William of Melton 1315-1340 (42nd)
William de la Souche 1340-1352 (43rd)
John of Thurseby 1352-1373 (44th)


15th century ballad (Lytell geste of Robyn Hoode) Manuscript in Lincoln Cathedral

Robyn Hoode in Scherewod stod
Hodud and hathud, hosuf and achod
Ffour and thuyrti arowus he bar in
His hondus”

Thus somewhere between Mansfield, Worksop and Edwinstowe (there is no Loxley in the area) Nottingham, Huntington, Barnsdale and Sherwood, somewhere between 1150 and 1548 may have lived a man (if he hadn’t lived before that is) 
who was either an Englishman or a Saxon or a Norman, nobleman, outlaw or yeoman who may have been a freedom fighter, a criminal or a victim who did various things to the various pleasure and displeasure of various other people.

Chapter Two : One man and his bow

I originally began the piece because of work by our Danish friend MOIF into a Robin Hood game. As I watched something brilliant taking shape before my eyes, Richard Greene, Errol Flynn and Kevin Costner began to prance before my eyes.

As a wargamer, I stuck on one point – why would a troop of men living in a dark, semi- impenetrable forest adapt the bow as their weapon of choice – cumbersome amongst the trees and ferns to say the least, and all those trees blocking long range fire. So what would they have had as weapons I began to muse. Thus I went exploring, and discovered much to my amazement that a
‘forest’ as I imagined it to be, was not ‘the forest in reality’. According to the work done by the Rochester University (The Robin Hood project) vast areas of the ‘forest’ were open farmland, meadow and even townships. 

“Forest” refers to an area governed by a forester, not to a stand of trees. So the bow, which in fact started me thinking, was not as impracticable a weapon as I immediately thought. But I cannot find any reference to such bows being the 1415 Agincourt ‘Welsh Longbow” pattern. Quite possibly they were smaller, lighter and handier weapons, more for downing game and unarmoured men than knights. 

We are closer in period here to Vikings than to 1 horsepower plate steel tanks – it’s chainmail time again. Certainly it’s hard to imagine the Robyn Hoode of the ballad holding 34 longbow arrows in his hand (even allowing for artistic licence).

The fact that the whole of this area came under the Danelaw, which remained effective from it’s inception in 866 to well into the 12th century (even after Norman invasion), would give Robin a ¼ (modern DNA sampling) of being of Norse descent nowadays – probably more like ½ 900 years ago. If he lived during the era of Richard & John and Munday is to be believed, then he was a Norman. If one goes to the new website http://www.domesdaybook.co.uk/index.html then a search shows that no place known as Loxley or Locksley existed in Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Huntingdonshire of Cambridgeshire at the time the book was compiled. 

The “Robin of Loxley” connection thus seems very hard to trace. More recent (often Victorian place names) do exist after the 
resurgence in the interest in our elusive hero. Neither was there a landowner named Locksley who could have been dispossessed.

Where does that leave us then ? Well I think it leaves us in possession of a cracking yarn, a great folk hero, and a series of excellent table top games by Moif. What better sort of heroes to have than Robin or Arthur, whose stories of daring-do can be used, expanded, changed or whatever – and can be based on enough historic fact to feel right. Real or not – it doesn’t matter. 
Pass me the bowls Sir Francis – dish me up more Romans Boudecia , fly me to the moon Biggles – I LOVE IT !

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