Robin Hood performs must be banned, wrote an marketing consultant to King Henry VIII in 1536 – they had been, he argued, instructing the general public the way to defy the king’s officials. It was once mainly the medieval identical of saying video video games make children violent, a part of a longstanding motion to prohibit performances and stories of Robin Hood. This hero was once in reality a villain, those medieval campaigners complained.
A brand new movie out the next day, The Dying of Robin Hood, echoes this declare. Set within the some distance north of England within the 12 months 1247, the movie sees a wounded Robin Hood (Hugh Jackman), a “wicked and murderous bandit”, mirror on his lifetime of crime. “He was no hero,” claims the movie’s tagline.
IMDB
However in our time of cost-of-living crises and emerging authoritarianism, do we’d like a villainous Robin Hood? One Reddit remark summed it up properly: “Not sure I love the idea of tearing down a folk hero who fought against wealth inequality and greed from upper classes in the current era we’re in. Feels pretty tone deaf.”
The optics aren’t nice. This hero-to-villain recasting comes within the wake of Jackman’s efficiency at Rupert Murdoch’s ninety fifth birthday previous this 12 months, attended via contributors of the Trump circle of relatives.
However do the movie’s claims about Robin Hood’s villainous origins even stack up? What’s the fact at the back of the legend?
The historical past of Robin Hood
We first see literary references to Robin Hood within the 1370s, when poet William Langland wrote that rhymes and romances of Robin Hood had been shared in taverns. Quickly after, round 1405, a literary statement at the Ten Commandments, framed as a dialog between a wealthy guy and a deficient guy, complained that individuals would slightly pass to the pub to listen to a story of Robin Hood than attend church products and services.
The earliest identified Robin Hood narrative survives inside a essential supply that rubbishes Robin’s well-liked enchantment: Scotichronicon, compiled within the 1440s via Scottish abbot Walter Bower. The chronicle was once a rejection of English claims over Scottish sovereignty. Bower emphasized each the piety of the Scottish church and the sessions of violence continuously breaking out around the border.
He estimated that the Robin Hood fantasy originated throughout the 2d Barons’ Warfare (1264-67), by which the forces of Henry III and Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, battled for keep watch over over England. Bower imagined Robin was once one of the most many disinherited infantrymen who ravished the rustic following de Montfort’s defeat in 1265, putting him amongst those that stole vegetation and looted church buildings to make their residing:
Presently there arose from a few of the disinherited and outlaws and raised his head that the majority well-known armed robber Robert Hood, along side Little John and their accomplices. The silly commonplace folks eagerly have fun the deeds of those males with gawping enthusiasm in comedies and tragedies.
An early literary statement complained other people would slightly listen a Robin Hood story on the pub than attend church.
The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, Wikimedia Commons
That is the very supply that impressed director Michael Sarnoski’s 2026 imaginative and prescient.
But Bower additionally admits that a few of Robin’s exploits are commendable. Within the very subsequent sentence, he paraphrases a circulating story the place Robin is attacked via a viscount, whilst diligently conserving a Mass in his wooded area hideout. In spite of the chance, and the pleas of his males to escape, his non secular energy guarantees he’s the victor.
This Robin is the only maximum visual within the later Heart Ages: now not a violent bandit, however a celebrity of motion journey tales that upheld the sanctity of the church and emphasized neighborhood values.
Robin Hood as medieval superhero
The most typical means on a regular basis other people engaged with the Robin Hood custom was once thru play-games – a mixture of costumed roleplays with authentic wearing competitions – which have been held in spring and summer time. Proof for those neighborhood performances date to the mid 1420s, the place gamers in Exeter had been paid 20 pence for taking part in a Robin Hood sport for the mayor.
Males would get dressed as Robin Hood and Little John and lift finances for neighborhood initiatives. Those appearances had been necessarily the identical of superheroes at buying groceries department shops these days, however Robin’s presence in medieval communities was once now not with reference to amusing: it signalled issues locally wanted solving. Whether or not a church desiring maintenance, or a social hire desiring to be reconciled, if Robin Hood was once to your the town, he was once there to lend a hand.
Robin’s presence in medieval communities intended issues locally wanted solving.
De Worde Gest
Those that refused to serve the neighborhood changed into Robin’s enemies. Within the literary custom, that is the Sheriff of Nottingham and the grasping bishops of the church. Robin was once now not strictly anti-authority, however anti-corrupt authority.
He was once staunchly dependable to the king, however challenged corrupt civic officers. He seen Mass 3 times an afternoon, however careworn the grasping clerics of the church. This mirrored Robin’s fundraising position, encouraging all to do their phase and chastising those that didn’t.
The well-known “rob the rich to give to the poor” mantra is a Sixteenth-century simplification of this altruistic spirit. Some distance from being a bloodthirsty felony, the unique Robin had a communal mindset – now not an individualistic one.
Violence as an outlaw’s closing hotel
Jackman has stated that within the Fifteenth-century poem A Gest of Robyn Hode, the outlaw is depicted as a violent cutthroat – however “from these grim beginnings emerged a hero”.
But the Gest famously options the primary glimpses of a gentrified Robin, depicted because the gracious host of feasts. This isn’t a softening of a few previous, violent model of the outlaw, however a easy mirrored image of his position because the host of the feasts of his communal video games.
Whilst some stories comprise violent episodes, they weren’t hidden, however had been celebrated via communities. The oldest surviving Robin Hood play, circa 1475, options the beheading of a knight – a second meant to elicit a cheer from the target market on the defeat of an enemy.
The early Robin Hood stories featured violence, however they weren’t inherently violent tales: not more than Superman is violent as a result of he fights his enemy Lex Luthor. Studying violence into the medieval literary custom is going in opposition to the grain in their context as cautionary stories, which additionally comprise comedy, friendship and love.
Robin does now not hurt the deficient or the blameless – best those that are egocentric, or remoted from society. Violence is a final hotel for this outlaw. His number one weapon is guilt and disgrace. He’s somebody who calls for higher from his target market and leads via instance.
It’s due to this fact lovely telling that those that complained about Robin’s reputation had been regularly the varieties of other people the outlaw would assault. When you had a to blame judgment of right and wrong, you had one thing to cover – clergymen and public officers complaining the outlaw was once being too onerous on them is slightly the inform.
The early Robin Hood stories featured violence, however like Superman, they weren’t inherently violent tales.
Wikimedia Commons
Robin’s actual felony origins
To what extent, then, does The Dying of Robin Hood’s portrait of Robin as a violent felony ring true?
The earliest strains of the Robin Hood custom is a nickname for criminals, dated to 1262. A Berkshire fugitive had his title modified via a London clerk, from William le Fevere to William Robinhood (“Robehod”). Data display a brief string of such aliases most likely imposed via clerks: to be a Robin Hood was once to be a violent felony.
There was once no persona but – best the title. By way of the tip of the thirteenth century, “Robin Hood” starts to look as a surname for each people and households, with none felony implications. Those had been tax-paying other people, law-abiding voters, but they named themselves after Robin Hood. Possibly somebody didn’t like being known as a Robin Hood they usually determined to possess it, like reclaiming a slur?
By way of the mid-14th century, we start to see the green-clad outlaw of Sherwood Wooded area emerge as a hero in opposition to the grain of the standard outlaw tale, now not preventing for his personal freedom however for the rights of the neighborhood at huge. Robin Hood was once now not modelled at the criminals of the thirteenth century, however at the spirit of those that challenged a label they refused to put on.
So, flipping the script on a violent Robin Hood isn’t so new in spite of everything.
