Noble Outlaw

It was Scottish author John Major in 1521 who first forward the idea that Robin Hood was a noble outlaw: He would allow no woman to suffer injustice, nor would he spoil the poor, but rather enriched them from the plunder taken from abbots. Major had derived his view of Robin Hood as the prince of thieves from those songs and rymes that were recited by itinerant minstrels all over Britain.

By this time the sentence of outlawry had been so undermined that it was likely to bring as much sympathy as hostility due to the corruption of local law - sheriffs would empanel favourable jurors, make false returns to writs, and fail to release prisoners. The popularity of the stories of outlaw Robin Hood standing up against the injustices of the Sheriff of Nottingham could be put down to that ageless dissatisfaction with corruption in high places.

Yeoman Archer

By the mid 1300's, the power of the longbow and the skill of the bowmen had developed to a point where even the finest mail held no certain protection and the skilled archer was a professional soldier, earning and deserving high pay. A company of archers in open order could deliver a discharge of arrows so rapid, continuous, and penetrating as to annihilate a cavalry attack and the English army now rested itself equally upon the knight and the archer.

The early ballads identified Robin Hood as an exceptional archer and a gode yeoman. Confident in his social status as a yeoman, Robin never indicated that he wanted to be anything else. His 'curtesye' was what distinguished him from other outlaws, and like King Arthur, he had 'noo lust to dyne' until something strange and wonderful had happened. Never was there any hint that he was some unjustly dispossessed knight. He may have parodied the ways of a chivalric knight but it was his self-assured manner of a yeoman that gave rise to comic situations including mock-heroics.

Plays

By the end of the 15th century, Robin Hood had entered the world of dramatic plays including those associated with May Day celebrations. For some reason, he was even more popular in Scotland where he was lord of the May Game. A ship was named 'Robyne Hude' at Aberdeen in 1438. These May festivities and Morris dancing eventually included a jolly friar and a beautiful girl named Maid Marian.

Robin also found his way to royal court when HenryVIII's Maying included entering his queen's chamber with eleven of his nobles 'all appareled in short cotes of Kentish Kendal, with hodes on their heddes, and hosen of the same, everyone of them with his bowe and arrowes, and a sworde and buckler, like outlawes, or Robyn Hodes men.'

Shakepeare never wrote a Robin Hood play but made many allusions to the ballads. It was Elizabethan playwright Arthur Munday who cavalierly elevated Robin to the peerage as Robert, Earl of Huntingdon, and Marian became one of the Matilda's supposedly persecuted by King John. The outlaw had become socially acceptable.

Broadsides

The ability of cheap press brought forth the one-sheet printed broadsides and from the early 16th century they became the main vehicle for circulating Robin Hood ballads. The songs were printed on a broadside and sold in the streets by professional singers. Ballads were re-written to fit familiar melodies and like modern pop songs the ballads became repetitive. Though the broadside was in decline by the end of the 17th century, some hundred years later ballads with original words and tunes were still being sung in the English countryside. 

Just as modern sheet music has been replaced by songbooks, broadsides were replaced by chapbooks printed crudely on coarse rag-paper - penny histories that provided reading matter for poorer folks. Robin Hood Garlands containing between 16 and 28 Robin Hood songs were larger and more expensive than the ordinary chapbook and of the many Garlands produced between 1660 and 1830 no attempt was made to change the words and bring the ballads up to date.

Literary and social prejudice against foolish tales of Robin Hood took a knock in 1795 when Joseph Ritson published Robin Hood: A Collection of of All the Ancient Poems, Songs and Ballads, now extant, relative to that Celebrated Outlaw. An acquaintance of Dr. Johnson and friend of Sir Walter Scott, Ritson was noted for his high critical standards and his book was a triumph in popularising the study of Robin Hood and turning the greenwood legend into an ideological hero. Ritson's Robin Hood provided English poets and novelists with an opportunity to re-create Robin Hood in their own imagination and it remains today an indispensable handbook to the outlaw legend.

Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe, based on Ritson's book, was a huge success and ensured the fame of Robin Hood and Friar Tuck for the rest of the 19th century.  Francis Child's scholarly edition of the Gest appeared in 1888 and as an American, Childs was able to approach his subject with critical detachment.

Children's Stories

There is no doubt that children had always been avid readers of, or listeners to Robin Hood Garlands, but Victorians began to publish Robin Hood story books with more and bigger illustrations especially for children. Robin Hood tales appeared in weekly penny instalments and new characters were introduced to suit Victorian tastes. Howard Pyle's superbly illustrated The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood of Great Renown in Nottinghamshire appeared in 1883.

The Reginald de Koven-Harry B. Smith light opera version of Robin Hood was presented in 1890.

Henry Gilbert's Robin Hood and the Men of the Greenwood appeared in 1914 and E. Charles Vivian's The Adventures of Robin Hood in 1927 with their emphasis on Robin as a benevolent patron of poor serfs. More recently (1957), R. L Green's The Adventures of Robin Hood did treat the original ballad stories with respect.

How has an obscure highwayman achieved immortality? How has an outlaw figure become a folk hero with universal appeal? A swashbuckling adventurer protesting against corrupt rule and injustice has, and always will, appeal to any audience, but how has he outlasted all his rivals?

It is difficult to explain though some factors have helped: he appeared a different kind of hero to different generations and easily moved into different cultural settings; his was a dream of justice; and the land of Robin Hood created a nostalgia, an escape form modern urbanisation into medieval Sherwood Forest and perhaps a hark back to the time when we were hunter-gatherers.

Acknowledgement to Rymes of Robyn Hood - An Introduction to the English Outlaw by R. B. Dobson & J. Taylor.