In the earliest tales, Robin Hood was many things—gambler, fighter, braggart, gentleman, con artist, master of disguise—but he was never a nobleman.
Despite scholarly fights and centuries of material to choose from, no one has ever agreed on why this change became so popular. It may have been a desire to link the legendary bandit with a real live person (such as Fulk fitz Warin or Robert Hod), or fear that the poor folks of the world might read stories of Robin’s origin and start a rebellion of their own, or simply the novelty of a man displaced and still carrying on despite it all. No matter the cause, the version of Robin that we come across most often is a figure of privilege. He’s an earl or a member of the landed gentry. He’s in the forest for now, while he waits for the rightful king and the restoration of his lands and position. With very few exceptions, modern Robin Hood stories are about a rich dude who is briefly less rich, and thankfully doesn’t hate poor people.
Moreover, Robin Hood’s position as a “hero for the people” has always been one of the most aggressively contested aspects of his character. Over the centuries, the tale has been rewritten and reinterpreted countless times, leading to confusion about Robin’s true origins and motivations. The question of which aspects to favor when piecing together the long arc of the tale’s history are never in agreement, in part because there is so little information about the earliest stories. When you add politics in to the mix, things get even more awkward: one scholar contends (J.C. Holt, 1982) that the gentry are responsible for keeping the story alive and growing, so Robin Hood cannot possibly be a figure of plebeian rebellion; another scholar (Jeffrey L. Singman, 1998) insists that Robin Hood is a subversive figure, and an enemy of serfdom and feudalism. Where some see a figure of dissent and resistance, others find a vehement enabler of the status quo who just likes a good laugh.
When it comes right down to it, the root of this constant argument is simple: people want the outlaw of Sherwood Forest to belong to them, to their own ideologies. Following Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood, there were arguments that this pseudo-historical Robin would have been a member of the Tea Party (Jared Keller, 2010), or that he was clearly a libertarian (, 2012). During the era of McCarthyism, Robin Hood was banned from textbooks (Alison Kysia, 2013) in the United States for “promoting communism” with its rob-from-the-rich-give-to-the-poor schtick. If you were to ask me over friendly pints at a bar, I’d tell you without hesitation that Robin Hood and the Merry Men in Sherwood Forest are a gay socialist utopia that the world needs to embrace. But none of these interpretations can encompass the entirety of the legend. It is simply too vast and too long-lived.
But this is the story we are most likely to recognize:
The good king is away, and his little brother was left to rule in his place. The prince is an idiot and he surrounds himself with monstrous men, and he demands everything of his people. He taxes his citizenry bare and tells them that it is good for them. He sits on their gold like a great dragon and portends to virtue while they starve. He ignores their pleas for help and acts surprised when there is unrest in his country.
Never fear! Everything will be all right, because a dispossessed nobleman is here to stop the prince and his lackeys! He even has friends to aid him in this national hour of need; they live secretly in Sherwood Forest and they rob from the rich and give to the poor.
The tendency to portray Robin Hood as a nobleman who robs from people just like him—it smudges the image up, like grit on a lens. The very idea has a disingenuous sheen to it, or worse, a heavy aura of wishing thinking: Wouldn’t it be great if there was one super nice wealthy person who would make the rest of the wealthy people hand over their money and take care of the poor and needy around them? Wouldn’t it be even greater if he could alleviate them of said wealth in a comical fashion so that the concept of class warfare and potential revolution didn’t seem nearly so serious? Hollywood is failing us, and so are a multitude of current adaptations. It’s akin to making every female Disney lead a princess; every Robin Hood must come with a title and a patch of land that a mean sheriff or haughty prince can commandeer. It’s lazy storytelling, and worse for the fact that it has nothing to do with origin of the figure.
Contextually, the root of Robin Hood’s character and popular elements of his story come from a likely multitude of sources as the legend was being built over the 13th and 14th centuries. Robin Hood was a member of the middle class at a time when chivalry was the rule of the day—and civil unrest was, too. The earliest known stories contain no record of him robbing the rich and giving over the plunder to peasants, but they do make mention of him being a “good” outlaw who helped poor men. He became king of the May Day festivities by 15th century, where Maid Marion also became a popular mainstay of his story. The Historia Majoris Brittaniae of 1521 was responsible for tying Robin Hood rather permanently to King Richard and the Crusades. The earliest known source that mentions his nobility is Anthony Munday’s The Downfall and The Death of Robert Earl of Huntington, a series of plays published in 1601.
Still, nobility was not a common feature of Robin Hood stories until Joseph Ritson published a work called Robin Hood: A collection of all the Ancient Poems Songs and Ballads now extant, relative to the celebrated Outlaw in 1795. In this work, which attempted to reassert the medieval version of the figure (who had been somewhat displaced by more comical ballads in the 18th century), Ritson did some dubious detective work into the potential truth of Robin Hood as a living human being, concluding that he was a real man named Robert Fitzooth. Pointedly, Robert Fitzooth was not a real man—he was likely an invention of William Stukeley, who created Fitzooth and his family tree for Paleographica Britannica (1746). As we can see, the evidence Ritson used was beyond wobbly; it seems that in an effort to become to foremost Robin Hood scholar in the world, he was determined to make the outlaw real by any means necessary, even citing fiction (such as Munday’s plays) in his argument for Robin Hood’s historical presence. Even so, his work is still one of the most influential in the character’s history, and Ritson’s pal Sir Walter Scott referenced this mighty tome in creating his own version of Robin Hood for Ivanhoe—itself an incredibly popular and influential book.
Ritson’s version of Robin Hood was meant to be a hero of the people, and Ritson himself was an advocate of the principles espoused by the French Revolution—obviously not very forgiving of the wealthy and privileged classes. But Ritson was unlikely to find records dating back to the 12th century for his “real life” Robin Hood among the annals of peasants or yeoman—and perhaps this is the key. Ritson’s champion of the common man became an aristocrat not because Ritson desired it, but because he was determined to offer up a historical Robin Hood, and records of the gentry were the only places where he could even attempt to establish lineage that others would take seriously. And though most earlier versions of the story did not grant Robin of Locksley (or of anywhere else) a sheen of nobility, this was the backstory that stuck. Films and television and many modern revisions, they can’t shake this rewrite, no matter how hard they try.
Most of the Robin Hoods you know embody this error. Errol Flynn is a nobleman and a Saxon fighting against the Normans. Douglas Fairbanks is the Earl of Huntingdon, who asks to return home from the Crusades in order to take the throne back from the king’s evil brother. Kevin Costner returns from the Crusades to find his father dead and his estate destroyed, but King Richard still blesses his marriage to Marian. Cary Elwes finds Loxley Hall repossessed when he arrives back in England. Russell Crowe pretends to be a nobleman throughout his misadventure because the concept is so ingrained that even a “realistic” version of the tale must abide. Television series Robin of Sherwood (1984) features two distinct noble born versions of Robin, and the BBC’s Robin Hood (2006) features their own Earl of Huntingdon running the Merry Men into Nottingham and back. Even Disney’s dashing fox is likely to be a nobleman—it’s unlikely that he would have been Marian’s childhood sweetheart if they weren’t both of the upper crust.
And still we must ask—why?
Why is it more appealing, more comfortable, more exciting to imagine Robin Hood as a rich fellow who forgoes his wealth to fight against a corrupt system? Why are we taken in and placated by a nobleman of charity and occasional good humor?
The truth is, our fictional halls of fame are lousy with this figure, this exact prototype. Think carefully and you will recognize him well: He is Batman. He is the Scarlet Pimpernel. He is Tony Stark. He is literally Green Arrow because that character was very obviously based on Robin Hood. Modern fiction wants us, needs us, to believe that this hero exists. And what’s more, we are not meant to merely tolerate this figure—we are supposed to love him. To demand more of him. To feel safer because he exists.
Which is ironic, given the unconscionable imbalance in the distribution of wealth and resources that we see today, and the incalculable greed of those who are lucky enough to have it.
Because the truth is far more painful to reckon with. There are a few figures of incredible means who go out of their way to provide for everyone else. Some may give to charity, create programs to get much-needed resources into the hands of those who need them, offer the world more energy-efficient cars. But they are not here to save us by any stretch of imagination. They do not hit the street day and night to fight crime, stop oppression, and keep monsters at bay. So we have created a fictional crew, like a table setting, to be laid out whenever this reality becomes too much. The Good Wealthy Men set. They have money and still care what happens to the destitute. Thank goodness someone does.
But Robin’s Hood real origin as an average man is the true inspirational plot, and one that likely brought comfort to the masses for centuries before that retrofitted narrative took hold. When the Forest Laws were still intact in England and hunting for food without paying a hefty fee could land you in prison, Robin Hood was there to stop the sheriff and his men from hauling you in. When chivalry was still the code that people were expected to abide by, Robin Hood was gallant and kind to those who needed aid. When the Peasant Revolt of 1381 was still fresh in the mind of the populace, Robin Hood showed people that there was hope beyond a life of serfdom and servitude, beyond poverty and isolation.
In Sherwood Forest, we look out for one another and no one is king.
The legend of Robin Hood may have been rewritten and overwritten by nobility, but it was a tale meant for everyone. Ridding ourselves of this ridiculous alteration not only revives the source material, it makes the story matter again. Robin Hood as the trust fund baby who decides to go live in the woods to prove a point is just another ad for the virtue of simple living. It’s Silicon Valley millionaires raising their own chickens, and start up gurus claiming to be as accessible as their low-level employees, and financially sound power couples making the choice to live according to tenets of minimalism because they can afford to do so. There is nothing genuine or meaningful about it.
We deserve heroes who are doing real work to alleviate the suffering of others. Robin Hood of the gentry has had his day. He’s had a couple of centuries, in fact. If we’re going to keep telling this story over and over (and we will, because mythology tends to work that way), we may as well cherrypick the best pieces.
Sherwood Forest is ours. No one can wall it off, or chase us from it, or brand it with their name in big block letters. We are outlaws with bow and arrows, with rowdy friends, with disguises and songs. Robin Hood belongs to us all, not to a privileged few. It’s time he was returned.
Originally published April 2018
Emmet Asher-Perrin is going to go have a quarterstaff fight on a bridge. You can bug her on Twitter and Tumblr, and read more of her work here and elsewhere.
Robin McKinley’s The Outlaws of Sherwood is one of my favorite versions.
I seem to recall reading somewhere that in earlier versions, Robin Hood had a devotion to the Virgin Mary. But once Great Britain settled on being Protestant, That Just Wouldn’t Do, and thus we got Maid Marion.
Interesting how British folk heroes tend to get co-opted by those they originally fought. One of the more likely historical inspirations for King Arthur was a Cornish chieftain fighting against the Anglo-Saxon invaders, but those invaders’ English descendants turned Arthur into their own champion.
Another standout example of the pattern you cite is Zorro — a Spanish colonial don who fights a corrupt official and protects the indigenous peons from exploitation, but is still part of the colonizing system that took their land and reduced them to a servile class in the first place. Another work of fiction saying, no, the system itself isn’t intrinsically bad, it’s just a few corrupt people who twist it, and it’s up to the good rich people to take care of us.
It’s interesting to compare Robin Hood to his Japanese equivalent, Ishikawa Goemon, who’s had a very similar evolution. A (possibly) real historical figure who was initially just recorded as a thief, he’s had many conjectural origins ascribed to him as a figure of popular culture and kabuki theater, one of the more famous ones saying he was from a samurai (noble) family and then studied under a famous ninja clan. Ninjas were historically commoners, but they’ve been elevated in fiction and lore to have their own great lineages much like the nobility.
It’s also interesting that Robin Hood is placed as an adamant enemy of King John, who may not have been the best king in history, primarily famous for signing the Magna Carta, reducing the king’s authority over (at least some of) his subjects. Quelle horreur; reducing the absolute power of a monarch! Robin Hood is a supporter of the “true king,” Richard the Lionhearted, a king who was primarily interested in foreign adventures and combat, not necessarily the minutia of actually governing.
Robin and Marian is worth watching, as it addresses some of the issues inherent in other tellings of the Robin Hood legends.
@4/swampyankee: It’s occurred to me that I’d like to see a version of Robin Hood that didn’t erase Eleanor of Aquitaine, Richard & John’s mother, who ruled as unofficial regent during Richard’s absence in the Third Crusade, and who seemed to be one of John’s main supporters, from what I’ve read. It sounds like she might have been a significant power behind the throne, but she’s absent from most Robin Hood stories I’ve seen.
As for the Magna Carta, I still remember Doctor Who: “The King’s Demons” having the Doctor assert that King John was actually in favor of the Magna Carta despite the conventional wisdom that he was forced to sign it. But I’ve never found any confirmation for that claim.
I seem to recall that Howard Pyle’s treatment has Robin become, but not come from, nobility…
@5 That is one of my favorite movies, and definitely my favorite film treatment of the legend…
I may be mistaken, but I seem to recall that in Robin of Sherwood, the first “Hooded Man,” Robin of Loxley, was a peasant, the son of a peasant who was part of an uprising against the Norman lords. When Michael Praed left the series, they replaced him with Jason Connery who was the son of the Earl of Huntington, thus giving us the original peasant origin and the later displaced noble myth. I do wonder how much Robin Hood was influenced by various Mayday type celebrations and mythic figures such as Robin Goodfellow.
No mention of 80s/90s BBC children’s TV series ‘Maid Marian and her Merry Men’? In which Marian is an idealistic peasant, Robin a yuppie idiot who gets credited with things because he’s a good-looking man, and Richard returns only to be delighted with his brother’s brutal rule. It’s fabulous.
@@.-@: I only recently imagined Robin flourishing his sword, trying to rally the peasants to battle – only to be told they were descendants of either the Danes (Nottingham was one of the five boroughs) or the British celts. So why would they fight for an Anglosaxon nobleman when they thus would just support somebody who was none of them in favour of a ruler that was also none of them? So why didn’t he just look for some darned Anglosaxons to help him with the Normans and leave simple folks alone?
It occurs to me that you could count Doctor Who as another iteration of the “nobleman who rebels against nobility to become a champion of the common people” trope, which is a chance to segue into mentioning that the very first television incarnation of Robin Hood was played by Patrick Troughton for a 6-episode miniseries in 1953 — though it was broadcast live, and only a few minutes of episode 2 were preserved on film (and can be seen on YouTube). I can’t find any specific story information, but Troughton certainly plays Robin like a dashing, commanding nobleman in the two surviving scenes he’s in — quite a contrast to his “cosmic hobo” characterization of the Doctor. (Troughton’s grandson Sam Troughton played Much the Miller’s Son in the 2006 BBC Robin Hood series.)
No thought for Stephen Lawhead’s King Raven series, which reinterprets Robin Hood as a welsh borderer during the Norman Conquest.
Because a lot of the myth around Robin is frankly weird – Sherwood was a tamed and managed fores by the time of Richard, there’s little likelihood of anyone managing to hide in there for long.
I’m in my 50’s and I grew-up on stories of Robin Hood. I remember begging my mother to read as a bed time story, from a dilapidated old hard cover, which I believe was illustrated by Wyth, written in old english prose, which tongue-tied my poor mom. But I was unaware of Robin being of noble descent until seeing the Costner movie.
As I recall it, which may very well be incorrect, Robin Hood’s outlawry starting out when he was caught pouching a deer on the King’s land.
You left out the best screen version of Robin. “Yoiks, and away!”
What weird set of Robin myths did I grow up reading where the “rob from the rich, give to the poor” was “rob from the rich, maybe give some to the poor, but mostly collect it up to pay Richard the Lionheart’s ransom”?
Monty Python do a sketch about a Robin Hood-esque figure named Dennis Moore, who has a difficult time getting the whole rob-from-one-and-give-to-the-other thing figured out.
And, of course, there’s the brilliant Robin Hood scene from Time Bandits, with former Python, John Cleese as the man in green tights.
@18 sounds bit like, but not quite, the treatment given in Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe.
Let’s not forget When Things Were Rotten.
They laughed, they loved,
They fought, they drank,
They jumped a lot of fences!
They robbed the rich,
Gave to the poor,
Except what they kept for expenses!
Trust the Australians to get it right. Wat Tyler, especially, and the bushranger legends embody the pre-noble Robin Hood (and were inspired by him).
This seems related to a phenomenon that Alister McQuarrie noted a few years ago in New Socialist, namely, that Hollywood just adores the aesthetics of revolution but fears any serious ideological challenge to the status quo. Thus, you get the “non-ideological” hero, who is finally moved to take up arms against a corrupt power structure because of some personal insult to himself (in this case, a nobleman having his inheritance stolen from him), rather than as matter of principle; and the end condition in such stories is a return to the status quo ante: holding out for the “good” king to return, rather than, for example, trying to build an anarchist commune in Sherwood Forest (or even, more in the spirit of the original stories, to go on robbing people until you die because feudalism sucks and crime is fun).
@16. That was the version I grew up reading. I remember watching the Kevin Costner version and wondering why he was suddenly nobility. I tried reading the book my parents read to me, to my children, but the prose turned them off. I need to look for that one again and see who the author is.
@25 Baianojack I speculate that your author’s name is “Howard Pyle”, but of course that is just a guess.
During McCarthyism, TV series “The Adventures of Robin Hood” apparently (Wikipedia says) was created for blacklisted Americans to write for, using aliases. There are or were 143 episodes.
Without me checking, British actor Hugh Paddick plays a clearly gay-ish Robin Hood in risque comedy film “Up the Chastity Belt” or “Naughty Knights” (1971).
Queen Eleanor and Maid Marian are represented in both of these shows. Wikipedia lists Richard but not John in the cast of the film; Frankie Howerd stars as lowly Lurkalot, who is revealed to be Richard’s twin brother.
It’s possible that “Robin Hood as outlawed dispossessed noble fighting a tyrant with his loyal band of followers” comes into the story from Robin’s identification with the real life King Robin, Robert the Bruce.
Robin Hood is the exiled Earl of Huntingdon in several early versions of the story – Earl of Huntingdon was a title held by many Scottish kings, including Bruce’s ancestors; his great grandmother was Isabella of Huntingdon.
Clym of the Clough anyone? https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Adam_Bell,_Clym_of_the_Clough,_and_William_of_Cloudeslie
@15 The King Raven Trilogy was my first thought, too, where Robin (or rather Bran, in this iteration), is a Welsh noble but his forest-lurking and highway robbery is all a part of his guerrilla warfare campaign to retake his title and protect his people rather than a misguided attempt to balance social disparity.
As a middle-schooler, I accidentally read the second book, Scarlet, first, which is narrated by the jaunty Will, and so was jolted when I got around to reading the first and rather darker book, Hood. I particularly remember the not-at-all comic robbing of some rich guy’s loot, where Bran and company engage in psychological warfare by hanging dead animals along the forest road and culminating in a night-time attack with flaming arrows and Bran showing up in a raven mask, stepping out of the fire like a demon from hell. It was a long time before I stopped picturing that scene any time I walked or drove through the woods at night.
My favorite Robin Hood is the one with Patrick Bergin from 1991, which was released theatrically in Britain, but only aired as a TV movie in the States because of the Costner movie, which totally bigfooted it. Which is too bad, because it’s better in every way, and set it as a conflict between Normans and Saxons.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@32/krad: I feel similarly about the Bergin movie, which was so much better than the more high-profile Costner movie. Not only did it have Uma Thurman — and a Robin Hood who had an actual personality, rather than a Costner-shaped hole where the lead character was supposed to be — but it went for a distinctive take on the mythos rather than rehashing the familiar Robin-vs.-Sheriff beats.
The Hood by Lavie Tidhar is a recent exploration of all of this, and it’s great. A sort of mash of all the robin hood legends into a single tale, pointing out all the inconsistencies and absurdities and the ties to English folk legend, with a real sense of fun. Can’t recommend it enough