Editing Ivanhoe (section)

===Lasting influence on the Robin Hood legend===
The modern conception of Robin Hood as a cheerful, decent, patriotic rebel owes much to ''Ivanhoe''.

"Locksley" becomes Robin Hood's title in the Scott novel, and it has been used ever since to refer to the legendary [[outlaw]]. Scott appears to have taken the name from an anonymous [[manuscript]]—written in 1600—that employs "Locksley" as an epithet for Robin Hood. Owing to Scott's decision to make use of the manuscript, Robin Hood from Locksley has been transformed for all time into "Robin of Locksley", alias Robin Hood. (There is, incidentally, a village called [[Loxley, South Yorkshire|Loxley]] in Yorkshire.)

Scott makes the 12th-century's Saxon-Norman conflict a major theme in his novel. The original medieval stories about Robin Hood did not mention any conflict between Saxons and Normans; it was Scott who introduced this theme into the legend.<ref name="sb">Siobhan Brownlie, ''Memory and Myths of the Norman Conquest''. Woodbridge, Suffolk; Boydell & Brewer Ltd., 2013. {{ISBN|1843838524}} (pp. 124-5)</ref> The characters in ''Ivanhoe'' refer to Prince John and King Richard I as "Normans"; contemporary medieval documents from this period do not refer to either of these two rulers as Normans.<ref name="sb"/> Recent re-tellings of the story retain Scott's emphasis on the Norman-Saxon conflict.

Scott also shunned the late-16th-century depiction of Robin as a dispossessed nobleman (the Earl of Huntingdon).

This, however, has not prevented Scott from making an important contribution to the noble-hero strand of the legend, too, because some subsequent motion picture treatments of Robin Hood's adventures give Robin traits that are characteristic of Ivanhoe as well. The most notable Robin Hood films are the lavish [[Douglas Fairbanks]] [[Douglas Fairbanks in Robin Hood|1922 silent film]], the 1938 triple Academy Award-winning ''[[The Adventures of Robin Hood|Adventures of Robin Hood]]'' with [[Errol Flynn]] as Robin (which contemporary reviewer [[Frank Nugent]] links specifically with ''Ivanhoe''<ref>{{cite news |last=Nugent |first=Frank S. |author-link=Frank Nugent |date=13 May 1939 |title=The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) |url=http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=EE05E7DF173FB72CA0494CC5B67994886896 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120715171815/http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=EE05E7DF173FB72CA0494CC5B67994886896 |archive-date=15 July 2012 |newspaper=The New York Times |department=Reviews}}</ref>), and the 1991 box-office success ''[[Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves]]'' with [[Kevin Costner]]. There is also the [[Mel Brooks]] spoof ''[[Robin Hood: Men in Tights]]''.

In most versions of Robin Hood, both Ivanhoe and Robin, for instance, are returning Crusaders. They have quarrelled with their respective fathers, they are proud to be Saxons, they display a highly evolved sense of justice, they support the rightful king even though he is of Norman-French ancestry, they are adept with weapons, and they each fall in love with a "fair maid" (Rowena and Marian, respectively).

This particular time-frame was popularised by Scott. He borrowed it from the writings of the 16th-century chronicler [[John Major (philosopher)|John Mair]] or a 17th-century [[ballad]] presumably to make the plot of his novel more gripping. Medieval balladeers had generally placed Robin about two centuries later in the reign of [[Edward I]], [[Edward II of England|II]] or [[Edward III of England|III]].

Robin's familiar feat of splitting his competitor's arrow in an archery contest appears for the first time in ''Ivanhoe''.