Editing Robin Hood (section)

==Historicity==
The [[historicity]] of Robin Hood has been debated for centuries. A difficulty with any such historical research is that Robert was a very common [[given name]] in [[Great Britain in the Middle Ages|medieval England]], and 'Robin' (or Robyn) was its very common [[diminutive]], especially in the 13th century;<ref>''Oxford Dictionary of Christian Names'', EG Withycombe, 1950.</ref> it is a French [[hypocorism]],<ref>[[Albert Dauzat]], ''Dictionnaire étymologique des noms de familles et prénoms de France'', Librairie Larousse, Paris, 1980, Nouvelle édition revue et commentée par [[Marie-Thérèse Morlet]], p. 523b.</ref> already mentioned in the ''[[Roman de Renart]]'' in the 12th century. The surname Hood (by any spelling) was also fairly common because it referred either to a hooder, who was a maker of [[Hood (headgear)|hoods]], or alternatively to somebody who wore a hood as a head-covering. It is therefore unsurprising that medieval records mention a number of people called "Robert Hood" or "Robin Hood", some of whom are known criminals.

Another view on the origin of the name is expressed in the [[Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition|1911 ''Encyclopædia Britannica'']] which remarks that "hood" was a common dialectical form of "wood" (compare [[Dutch language|Dutch]] {{Lang|nl|hout}}, {{IPA|hʌut}}, also meaning "wood"), and that the outlaw's name has been given as "Robin Wood".<ref name=LTK/> There are a number of references to Robin Hood as Robin Wood, or Whood, or Whod, from the 16th and 17th centuries. The earliest recorded example, in connection with May games in [[Somerset]], dates from 1518.<ref>Dobson and Taylor, p. 12, 39n, and chapter on place-names.</ref>

===Early references===
[[File:Robin shoots with sir Guy by Louis Rhead 1912.png|thumb|upright|"Robin shoots with Sir Guy" by [[Louis Rhead]]]]

The oldest references to Robin Hood are not historical records, or even ballads recounting his exploits, but hints and allusions found in various works. From 1261 onward, the names "Robinhood", "Robehod", or "Robbehod" occur in the rolls of several English Justices as nicknames or descriptions of malefactors. The majority of these references date from the late 13th century. Between 1261 and 1300, there are at least eight references to "Rabunhod" in various regions across England, from [[Berkshire]] in the south to [[York]] in the north.<ref name=Holt>Holt</ref>

Leaving aside the reference to the "rhymes" of Robin Hood in [[Piers Plowman]] in the 1370s,<ref name="Stapleton1899">{{cite book|first=Alfred |last=Stapleton|title=Robin Hood: the Question of His Existence Discussed, More Particularly from a Nottinghamshire Point of View|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1_EVAAAAYAAJ&pg=PT17|year=1899|publisher=Sissons and son|pages=17–}}</ref><ref name="Davis2016">{{cite book|first=John Paul |last=Davis|title=Robin Hood: The Unknown Templar|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DebSDAAAQBAJ&pg=PT21|date=20 July 2016|publisher=Peter Owen Publishers|isbn=978-0-7206-1865-5|pages=21–}}</ref> and the scattered mentions of his "tales and songs" in various religious tracts dating to the early 15th century,<ref name="Dean 1991"/><ref name="Blackwood 2018, p.59"/><ref name="James 2019, p.204"/> the first mention of a quasi-historical Robin Hood is given in [[Andrew of Wyntoun]]'s ''Orygynale Chronicle'', written in about 1420. The following lines occur with little contextualisation under the year 1283:

{{Poem quote|Lytil Jhon and Robyne Hude
Wayth-men ware commendyd gude
In [[Inglewood Forest|Yngil-wode]] and Barnysdale
Thai oysyd all this tyme thare trawale.<ref>{{cite book|title=The Orygynale Cronykil Of Scotland. By Androw of Wyntoun|volume=2|page=263|first=Wyntown|last=Alexander|date=1872|editor1-last= Laing|editor1-first= David|publisher=Edmonston and Douglas|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JKIpPL53Yy0C}}</ref>
}}

In a petition presented to [[Parliament of England|Parliament]] in 1439, the name is used to describe an itinerant [[felon]]. The petition cites one Piers Venables of Aston, Derbyshire,{{efn|There are three settlements in Derbyshire called Aston: [[Aston, Derbyshire Dales]], [[Aston, High Peak]] and [[Aston-on-Trent]]. It is unclear which one this was.}} "who having no liflode, ne sufficeante of goodes, gadered and assembled unto him many misdoers, beynge of his clothynge, and, in manere of insurrection, wente into the wodes in that countrie, like as it hadde be Robyn Hude and his meyne."<ref>''Rot. Parl.'' v. 16.</ref>

The next historical description of Robin Hood is a statement in the ''[[Scotichronicon]]'', composed by [[John of Fordun]] between 1377 and 1384, and revised by [[Walter Bower]] in about 1440. Among Bower's many interpolations is a passage that directly refers to Robin. It is inserted after Fordun's account of the defeat of [[Simon de Montfort]] and the punishment of his adherents, and is entered under the year 1266 in Bower's account. Robin is represented as a fighter for de Montfort's cause.<ref>Dobson and Taylor, p. 5.</ref> This was in fact true of the historical outlaw of Sherwood Forest [[Roger Godberd]], whose points of similarity to the Robin Hood of the ballads have often been noted.<ref>J. R. Maddicott, "Sir Edward the First and the Lessons of Baronial Reform" in Coss and Loyd ed, ''Thirteenth century England:1 Proceedings of the Newcastle Upon Tyne Conference 1985'', Boydell and Brewer, p. 2.</ref><ref>Maurice Hugh Keen ''The Outlaws of Medieval England'' (1987), Routledge.</ref>

<blockquote>Then arose the famous murderer, Robert Hood, as well as Little John, together with their accomplices from among the disinherited, whom the foolish populace are so inordinately fond of celebrating both in tragedies and comedies, and about whom they are delighted to hear the jesters and minstrels sing above all other ballads.<ref>{{cite book|title=Scotichronicon|volume=III|page=41|translator-last=Jones|translator-first=A.&nbsp;I.|first=Walter|last=Bower|date=1440|editor1-last=Knight|editor1-first=Stephen|editor2-last=Ohlgren|editor2-first=Thomas&nbsp;H.|publisher=Medieval Institute Publications|publication-date=1997|url=https://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/bower-continuation-of-scotichronicon|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190516110934/https://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/bower-continuation-of-scotichronicon|archive-date=16 May 2019|access-date=May 5, 2020|url-status=live}}</ref></blockquote>

The word translated here as 'murderer' is the Latin ''sicarius'' (literally 'dagger-man' but actually meaning, in classical Latin, 'assassin' or 'murderer'), from the Latin ''sica'' for 'dagger', and descends from its use to describe the [[Sicarii]], assassins operating in [[Roman Judea]]. Bower goes on to relate an anecdote about Robin Hood in which he refuses to flee from his enemies while hearing [[Mass (liturgy)|Mass]] in the greenwood, and then gains a surprise victory over them, apparently as a reward for his piety; the mention of "tragedies" suggests that some form of the tale relating his death, as per ''A Gest of Robyn Hode'', might have been in currency already.<ref>Passage quoted and commented on in Stephen Knights, ''Robin Hood; A Mythic Biography'', Cornell University Press (2003), p. 5.</ref>

Another reference, discovered by Julian Luxford in 2009, appears in the margin of the "[[Polychronicon]]" in the [[Eton College]] library. Written around the year 1460 by a monk in Latin, it says:

<blockquote>Around this time [i.e., reign of [[Edward I]]], 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.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Luxford |first=Julian&nbsp;M. |year=2009 |title=An English chronicle entry on Robin Hood |journal=[[Journal of Medieval History]] |volume=35 |issue=1 |pages=70–76 |doi=10.1016/j.jmedhist.2009.01.002 |s2cid=159481033  | issn=0304-4181 }}</ref></blockquote>

Following this, [[John Major (philosopher)|John Major]] mentions Robin Hood within his ''Historia Majoris Britanniæ'' (1521), casting him in a positive light by mentioning his and his followers' aversion to bloodshed and ethos of only robbing the wealthy; Major also fixed his ''[[floruit]]'' not to the mid-13th century but the reigns of [[Richard I of England]] and his brother, [[John, King of England|King John]].<ref name="Robin Hood page 63"/> Richard Grafton, in his ''Chronicle at Large'' (1569) went further when discussing Major's description of "Robert Hood", identifying him for the first time as a member of the gentry, albeit possibly "being of a base stock and linaege, was for his manhood and chivalry advanced to the noble dignity of an Earl" and not the yeomanry, foreshadowing Anthony Munday's casting of him as the dispossessed Earl of Huntingdon.<ref name="Knight and Ohlgren, 1997"/> The name nevertheless still had a reputation of sedition and treachery in 1605, when [[Guy Fawkes]] and his associates were branded "Robin Hoods" by [[Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury|Robert Cecil]]. In 1644, jurist [[Edward Coke]] described Robin Hood as a historical figure who had operated in the reign of King Richard I around Yorkshire; he interpreted the contemporary term "roberdsmen" (outlaws) as meaning followers of Robin Hood.<ref>{{cite book|title=The Third Part of the Institutes of the Laws of England|first=Edward|last=Coke|date=1644|chapter=90, Against Roberdsmen}}</ref>

===Robert Hod of York===
The earliest known legal records mentioning a person called Robin Hood (Robert Hod) are from 1226, found in the York [[Assizes]], when that person's goods, worth 32 shillings and 6 pence, were confiscated and he became an outlaw. Robert Hod owed the money to St Peter's in [[York]]. The following year, he was called "Hobbehod", and also came to known as "Robert Hood". Robert Hod of York is the only early Robin Hood known to have been an outlaw. In 1936, L.V.D. Owen floated the idea that Robin Hood might be identified with an outlawed Robert Hood, or Hod, or Hobbehod, all apparently the same man, referred to in nine successive Yorkshire [[Pipe Rolls]] between 1226 and 1234.<ref>Crook, David "The Sheriff of Nottingham and Robin Hood: The Genesis of the Legend?" In Peter R. Coss, S.D. Lloyd, ed. ''Thirteenth Century England'' University of Newcastle (1999).</ref><ref>[http://aalt.law.uh.edu/AALT4/H3/E372no70/bE372no70dorses/IMG_7060.htm E372/70, rot. 1d] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110720084638/http://aalt.law.uh.edu/AALT4/H3/E372no70/bE372no70dorses/IMG_7060.htm |date=20 July 2011 }}, 12 lines from bottom.</ref> There is no evidence however that this Robert Hood, although an [[outlaw]], was also a [[bandit]].<ref>Dobson and Taylor, p. xvii.</ref>

===Robert and John Deyville===
Historian Oscar de Ville discusses the career of John Deyville and his brother Robert, along with their kinsmen Jocelin and Adam, during the [[Second Barons' War]], specifically their activities after the [[Battle of Evesham]]. John Deyville was granted authority by the faction led by [[Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester]] over [[York Castle]] and the Northern Forests during the war in which they sought refuge after Evesham. John, along with his relatives, led the remaining rebel faction on the [[Isle of Ely]] following the [[Dictum of Kenilworth]].<ref>{{cite journal |last=de Ville |first=Oscar |year=1998 |title=John Deyville: A Neglected Rebel |journal=Northern History|volume=34 |issue=1 |pages=17–40 |doi=10.1179/007817298790178420}}</ref> De Ville connects their presence there with Bower's mention of "Robert Hood" during the aftermath of Evesham in his annotations to the ''Scotichronicon''.

While John was eventually pardoned and continued his career until 1290, his kinsmen are no longer mentioned by historical records after the events surrounding their resistance at Ely, and de Ville speculates that Robert remained an outlaw. Other points de Ville raises in support of John and his brothers' exploits forming the inspiration for Robin Hood include their properties in Barnsdale, John's settlement of a mortgage worth £400 paralleling Robin Hood's charity of identical value to Sir [[Richard at the Lee]], relationship with Sir Richard Foliot, a possible inspiration for the former figure, and ownership of a fortified home at Hood Hill, near [[Kilburn, North Yorkshire]]. The last of these is suggested to be the inspiration for Robin Hood's second name as opposed to the more common theory of a head covering.<ref>{{cite journal |last=de Ville |first=Oscar |year=1999 |title=The Deyvilles and the Genesis of the Robin Hood Legend |journal=Nottingham Medieval Studies|volume=43 |pages=90–109 |doi=10.1484/J.NMS.3.295}}</ref> Perhaps not coincidentally, a "Robertus Hod" is mentioned in records among the holdouts at Ely.<ref>Rennison, Nick. ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=5fWEAAAAQBAJ Robin Hood: Myth, History and Culture]'' (Oldcastle Books, 2012).</ref>

Although de Ville does not explicitly connect John and Robert Deyville to Robin Hood, he discusses these parallels in detail and suggests that they formed prototypes for this ideal of heroic outlawry during the tumultuous reign of Henry III's grandson and Edward I's son, [[Edward II of England]].<ref>de Ville 1999, pp. 108–09</ref>

===Roger Godberd===
[[David Baldwin (historian)|David Baldwin]] identifies Robin Hood with the historical outlaw [[Roger Godberd]], who was a die-hard supporter of [[Simon de Montfort]], which would place Robin Hood around the 1260s.<ref name=BBC>See BBC website. Retrieved 19 August 2008 on the Godberd theory. "[http://www.bbc.co.uk/nottingham/content/articles/2008/04/30/real_robin_hood_feature.shtml The Real Robin Hood] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151203172304/http://www.bbc.co.uk/nottingham/content/articles/2008/04/30/real_robin_hood_feature.shtml |date=3 December 2015 }}".</ref><ref name="ODNB">{{cite ODNB|first=J.&nbsp;C.|last=Holt|title=Hood, Robin|id=13676|volume=27|page=928}}</ref> There are certainly parallels between Godberd's career and that of Robin Hood as he appears in the Gest. [[John Maddicott]] has called Godberd "that prototype Robin Hood".<ref>J.R. Maddicott, "Edward the First and the Lessons of Baronial Reform" in Coss and Loyd ed, ''Thirteenth century England: 1 Proceedings of the Newcastle Upon Tyne Conference 1985'', Boydell and Brewer, p. 2.</ref> Some problems with this theory are that there is no evidence that Godberd was ever known as Robin Hood and no sign in the early Robin Hood ballads of the specific concerns of de Montfort's revolt.<ref name=DATI>Dobson and Taylor, introduction.</ref>

===Robin Hood of Wakefield===
The antiquarian [[Joseph Hunter (antiquarian)|Joseph Hunter]] (1783–1861) believed that Robin Hood had inhabited the forests of Yorkshire during the early decades of the fourteenth century. Hunter pointed to two men whom, believing them to be the same person, he identified with the legendary outlaw:

# Robert Hood who is documented as having lived in the city of [[Wakefield]] at the start of the fourteenth century.
# "Robyn Hode" who is recorded as being employed by [[Edward II of England]] during 1323.

Hunter developed a fairly detailed theory implying that Robert Hood had been an adherent of the rebel [[Thomas, 2nd Earl of Lancaster|Earl of Lancaster]], who was defeated by Edward II at the [[Battle of Boroughbridge]] in 1322. According to this theory, Robert Hood was thereafter pardoned and employed as a bodyguard by King Edward, and in consequence he appears in the 1323 court roll under the name of "Robyn Hode". Hunter's theory has long been recognised to have serious problems, one of the most serious being that recent research has shown that Hunter's Robyn Hood had been employed by the king before he appeared in the 1323 court roll, thus casting doubt on this Robyn Hood's supposed earlier career as outlaw and rebel.<ref>Hunter, Joseph, "Robin Hood", in ''Robin Hood: An Anthology of Scholarship and Criticism'', ed. by Stephen Knight (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1999) pp. 187–96. Holt, pp.&nbsp;75–76, summarised in Dobson and Taylor, p. xvii.</ref>

===Alias===
It has long been suggested, notably by [[John Maddicott]], that "Robin Hood" was a [[Stock character|stock alias]] used by thieves.<ref>Dobson and Taylor, pp. xxi–xxii.</ref> What appears to be the first known example of "Robin Hood" as a stock name for an outlaw dates to 1262 in [[Berkshire]], where the surname "Robehod" was applied to a man apparently because he had been outlawed.<ref>D. Crook ''English Historical Review'' XCIX (1984) pp. 530–34; discussed in Dobson and Taylor, pp. xi–xxii.</ref> This could suggest two main possibilities: either that an early form of the Robin Hood legend was already well established in the mid-13th century; or alternatively that the name "Robin Hood" preceded the outlaw hero that we know; so that the "Robin Hood" of legend was so called because that was seen as an appropriate name for an outlaw.