Robin Hood: The Uses and Re-uses of the Popular Outlaw Hero - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

Robin Hood:

The Uses and Re-uses of the Popular Outlaw Hero

ENG6552: The Continuing Middle Ages

Thursday 5

th

March 2015 AS15Slide2

Structure

HistoriographyThe Medieval Robin HoodYeoman Hero

Robin Hood in the 16

th

CenturyGentrification?Robin Hood in the Seventeenth CenturyThe Eighteenth CenturyBrute, Buffoon, HeroRediscovery and ReconstructionThe Nineteenth CenturyThe Medieval RevivalRobin Hood of HollywoodSlide3

Historiography

James C. Holt,

Robin Hood

, 1982

Barrie Dobson & John Taylor,

Rymes

of Robyn

Hood, 1976

Stephen Knight,

Robin Hood: A Mythic Biography

, 1994

Stephanie

Barczewski

,

Myth and National Identity

, 2004Slide4

Historiography on Outlaws and Highwaymen

Eric

Hobsbawm

,

Bandits, 1969Gillian Spraggs

,

Outlaws and Highwaymen

, 2001

Social Bandit – someone whom the lord and state regard as criminal, but remain popular in peasant societies as champions, freedom fighters.Slide5

Peter Burke,

Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe, 1978

Participation Thesis

Between c.1500 and c.1700 there was no such thing as “high” culture and “popular” culture. All classes shared in the same entertainments.

Withdrawal ThesisMiddle and upper classes begin to withdraw from participation in “popular” culture and an “elite” culture emerges. C.1650 – late 1700sRediscovery ThesisAround late 18th

century middle-classes “rediscovered” supposedly plebeian folk tales.. Slide6

I can

noughte

parfitly

my pater noster as the prest it syngeth, but I can rymes of Robyn Hode

and

Randalf

erle

of

Chestre

–

William Langland, Piers Plowman

(c.1380).

The Medieval Robin HoodSlide7

“Lithe and

lysten

gentylmen

That be of frebore blodeI shall ye tell of a good yeman

His name was Robyn

Hode

.”

“Yeoman” – debates re: definitions:

‘independent and with a pride in themselves and their free status, who would brook interference from no man’ (Keen, 1987, p.147).

‘an intermediary social category between husbandman and gentleman’ (Pollard, 2004, p.34).

‘These men enjoyed lower social status than the knights, but they were by no means menial; they were fed and liveried and were often drawn from gentle families’ (Holt, 1989, p.117).Slide8

Robin Hood and the Monk (c.1450)

Robin Hood and Guy of

Gisborne

(c.1470-c.1506.)

Robin Hood and the Potter (c.1470).Robin Hood and the Beggar (c.1450-1500).Early Robin Hood BalladsVictorian illustration of Robin Hood killing Guy of Gisborne.Slide9

Medieval ballad singers/minstrels (13

th C.).

The Medieval Audience

Rymes

of Robin Hood originally orally recited (not sung).James C. Holt argues that a tale like the Geste was performed for the courtly classes, and notes its similarity to other long medieval Arthurian poems.

Thomas

Ohlgren

argues that the ballads were originally composed for an urban audience, pointing to the ballads’ celebration of forest life being something town dwellers wouldn’t experience.

Knight brings in the history of printing to the argument, saying that when tales such as the

Geste

began to be printed, they were aimed at an audience composed of those from a higher class of society, but notes that tales of Robin Hood were still enjoyed by lower classes through the oral traditionSlide10

Function of Robin Hood Ballads

Entertainment!!!

Carnivalesque

Entertainment?

Bakhtin, Mikhail (1941). Rabelais and his world. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

May Day Celebrations c.1600Slide11

A “Bad” Robin Hood?

The 16th

and 17

th

CenturiesWalter Bower, Scotichronicon, 15th Century“the famous murderer, Robin Hood, as well as Little John”.

John Major,

Historia

majoris

Britanniae

, tam

Angliae quam Scotiae, 1521

“About this time it was, as I conceive, that there flourished those most famous robbers Robert Hood, an Englishman, and Little John, who lay in wait in the woods, but spoiled of their goods those only that were wealthy.”Slide12

Gentrification?Robert, Earl of Huntingdon

“in

an

olde and auncient Pamphlet I finde this written of the sayd Robert Hood. This man (sayth he) discended of a nobel parentage: or rather beyng of a base stocke and linage, was for his manhoode and chivalry advaunced to the noble dignité of an Erle

.”

Richard Grafton

, A Chronicle at Large and

meere

History of the

affayres

of Englande and

Kinges of the Same, 1569Slide13

Gentrification (cont.)

Martin Parker’s ballad entitled

A True Tale of Robin Hood

(1631).

Anthony Munday, The Downfall of Robert, Earl of Huntingdon & The Death of Robert, Earl of Huntingdon

(c.1600).Slide14

Late Seventeenth/Early Eighteenth Century:Hero, Brute, Buffoon

“We may begin by positing three categories of thief: hero, brute, buffoon” – Lincoln B. Faller, Turned to Account: The Forms and Functions of Criminal Biography in Late Seventeenth- and Early Eighteenth-Century England (Cambridge UP, 1987), p.127.Slide15

Robin Hood the Brute

This bold robber, Robin Hood, was, some write, descended of the noble family of Huntingdon; but that is only fiction, for his birth was but very obscure, his pedigree

ab

origine

being no higher than poor shepherds.- Smith’s HighwaymenHe was bred up a butcher, but being of a very licentious, wicked inclination, he followed not his trade, but in the reign of King Richard the First, associate[ed] himself with several robbers and outlaws. (Ibid).‘Murder was viewed as ‘a direct attack on God, carrying with it “a sacrilegious guilt” that tainted the murderer’s society as well as himself and could threaten both with divine displeasure

’- Lincoln B. Faller (1987).Slide16

The Function of 18

th-Century Criminal BiographySlide17

Robin Hood the BuffoonSlide18

Robin Hood the HeroSlide19

Robin Hood: That Celebrated English OutlawSlide20

Robin Hood was born at Locksley, in the county of Nottingham, in the reign of King Henry the Second, and about the year of Christ 11 60. His

extraction was noble…He is frequently styled, and commonly reputed to have been Earl of Huntingdon.

In

[the] forests

, and with this company, he for many years reigned like an independent sovereign ; at perpetual war, indeed, with the King of England…with an exception, however, of the poor and needy.That our hero and his companions, while they lived in the woods, had recourse to robbery for their better support is neither to be concealed nor to be

denied…But

it is to be

remembered

… [that] he

took away the goods of rich men only ; never

killing any person … [never] took anything from the poor, but charitably fed them with the wealth he drew from the abbots.Slide21

Gentrification?Slide22

Ritson’s Legacy:The Nineteenth Century and the Medieval Revival

Scott ‘first turned men’s minds towards the Middle Ages’

– Thomas Carlyle.Slide23

The Nineteenth Century (cont.)Slide24

The Nineteenth Century (cont.)Slide25

Robin Hood of Hollywood

You the freemen of this forest swear to despoil the rich only to give to the poor, to shelter the old and the helpless, to protect all women rich and poor, Norman or Saxon, and swear to fight for a free England, to protect her loyally until the return of our king and sovereign Richard the

Lionheart

, and swear to fight to the death against all oppression.Slide26

The American Robin Hood

Most of the twentieth-century Robin Hoods of television and film are in some way a gentleman…the implied consensus is that it is perfectly appropriate to have a man of noble [rich] birth leading a popular movement – and of course the leaders of the Democrats in America and the Labour Party in Britain would agree.

(Knight, p.161).Slide27
Slide28

Conclusion

Killer and gentleman, myth and everyday hero, village symbol and international liberal, joker and rebel, nature lover and fierce hunter, boyish charmer and father figure to children, man among men and helper to strong women – Robin Hood’s identity seems to undergo endless variations in verbal and visual texts.

Stephen Knight,

Robin Hood: A Mythic Biography

(Ithaca: Cornell UP). P.204.Slide29

Any Questions?