June 5, 2013 • 22 mins
Robin Hood-style characters have been showing up in literature since the 14th century. Historians disagree about whether there was any truth to the legend, and we're wondering: Was Robin Hood real, and if so, who was he?
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I am Tracy Wilson in on Holly Crying. Today. We
have a listener requests. We have many who was the
real Bloody Blaw? Yeah, so we have who was the
(00:24):
real Moriarty that kind of thing? Yeah. And and one
of our off requested things in this case by Michael
and many other listeners is who was the real Robin Hood? Yeah? Yeah,
Which is a tricky question. In point of fact, it
kind of is. Robin Hood style characters have been showing
up in literature since the fourteenth century, but as a concept,
he's kind of been around longer than that, at least
(00:47):
seven hundred years um. But his earliest appearance in literature
was in English ballads that were singing the tales of
a Sherwood Forest criminal who squared off against the Sheriff
of Nottingham made Mary In and Friar Tuck came on later,
but Sherwood Forest and the sheriff and Little John and
Will Scarlett are all there pretty early on, along with
(01:08):
the idea of robbing rich people but not necessarily giving
that up to the poor and it comes long later
to historians who actually lived during the medieval period. Uh,
it seemed to have assumed that Robin Hood was actually
a real person who lived in the twelfth or thirteenth century.
But their accounts aren't consistent at all, and modern historians
(01:29):
aren't so sure about any of that. Um. There's just
not evidence to support it necessarily. There's a lot of
question marks, and some of the grander elements of the
robin Hood lore are also pretty tricky when you get
into the logic of them. Seven score Merrimen may have
been able to feed and clothe themselves just working with
the spoils of their robbing, but surviving the winter and
(01:51):
staying warm without shelter would have been a little bit trickier. Yeah,
it's not a very warm part of the world without
some kind of permanent structure to take some kind of
refuge from the climbing in which then would have been
easily rated. So it brings it to the question of
is Robin Hood a fictional blend of outlaw, daring do
and some wish fulfillment because lots of people like to
(02:14):
see other people get get their come up. It's oh yeah,
or was he a real person or a combination of both.
It's a great question that might not be answered ever. Nope,
but we're going to examine all of the various possibilities.
So in the Middle Ages, places like Sherwood Forest weren't
just vast landscapes of tree cover like we might think
(02:35):
of the word forest today. They were kind of a
hodgepodge of wooded areas and cultivated ground, so the nobility
could use them to hunt and to grow food. Uh,
And there are also laws about how everyone else was
allowed to use the forest. But the places that were
best for game hunting were also great for hiding, So
places like Sherwood Forest were perfect for outlaws to call home.
(02:58):
It was a great place to hide doubt, and it
was extra great because it was illegal for them to
even be doing that, So it was a perfect setting
for these robin Hood style adventure stories that have persisted
throughout the Ages. The earliest known written reference to robin
Hood is a passing reference in William Langlan's allegorical poem
The Vision of Pierce Plowman, which was written in a
(03:21):
late thirteen seventies. He says, I don't know perfectly my
our father as the priest sings it, I know rhymes
of Robin Hood and Randolph Earl of Chester, but neither
of our Lord nor of our lady. The least that
ever was written. So he's basically saying, I don't really
know my prayers, but I do know Robin Hood. Uh.
(03:41):
And after that there's a series of ballads and stories
that came along throughout the fourteenth and fifteen centuries, great
hits like Robin Hood and the Monk, The Little Gest
of Robin Hood, Robin Hood his Death, Robin Hood, and
Guy of Gisborne, that Robin Hood and the Colonel Fryar.
(04:02):
So there's not so much of a really noble rob
from the rich give to the poor focus, and a
lot of these older stories there is definitely a lot
of robbing, not necessarily a lot of giving. In some
of the early stories. Robin's just really violent and he's
not a fallen noble in these stories, which is an
idea that was attributed to him a later. He's a commoner,
(04:25):
a peasant, or at the highest a yeoman, which was
kind of a middle class situation. The king mentioned in
these early works is Edward, probably meaning Edward the Second.
While a lot of the more modern portrayals talk about
a Prince John or a King John, and Little John
and Will Scarlett are also early names that show up
(04:45):
in the context of being Robin's merry men. But as
we said before, there was no Maid Marian in these
early ballads or Friar Tuck. Those really got added in
later in the context of literature. Robin Hood got upgraded
to a noble in sixteen o one, and Anthony Monday's
plays the Downfall of Robert Earl of Huntington's and the
(05:05):
death of Robert Robert Earl of Huntington's around seventeen seventy.
Robin Hood's Garland being a complete history of all the
notable and mary exploits performed by him and his men
on diverse occasions, to which is added a preface giving
a more full and particular account of his birth, etcetera.
Than here any hitherto published came out. That's quite a title.
(05:27):
I love this extremely long title. Uh. And this particular
piece of literature added more stories and more characters to
the Robin Hood lore. So there was lots of Robin
Hood meeting somebody in the woods, fighting with that person,
and then eventually inviting him to join him and the
Merrymen in their exploits. By the nineteenth century, robin Hood
(05:48):
stories were everywhere. Howard Piles The Merry Adventures of robin
Hood of Great Renown in Nottinghamshire came out in eighty three.
This gathered lots of robin Hood stuff until one ace
and also adapted it for children, and it became a
source material for a lot of the later robin Hood writing.
This was an illustrated book. It was really expensive for
(06:10):
its time compared to other books, and it was wildly successful.
And following that there were plays, operas, comic books, films, films, films,
films and more films, robin Hood movies, uh, costumes, merchandise.
Robinhood was like a marketing juggernaut. Yeah, he's become kind
of just an iconic figure, especially in in the world
(06:33):
of English story. So is there any truth to all
of this? Um? The earliest One of the earliest historical
notations of robin Hood was from John Major, a Scottish
historian who wrote his Great His History of Greater Britain.
In he claims robin Hood did his criminal living in
(06:55):
Sherwood Forest UH in eleven ninety three and eleven war.
Should I read what he says about? Yes, give us
a little passage. He says about this time. It was
as I conceive that they're flourished, those famous robbers Robert Hood,
an Englishman and little John, who lay weight in the woods,
but spoiled of their goods those only that were wealthy.
(07:17):
They took the life of no man unless either he
attacked them or offered resistance in defense of his property.
Roberts supported by his plundering one hundred bowmen ready fighters,
everyone with whom four hundred of the strongest would not
dare to engage in combat. The fiefs of this Robert
are told in Sons all over written. He would allow
no woman to suffer injustice, nor would he spoil the poor,
(07:40):
but rather enriched them from the plunder taken from abbots.
The robberies of this man I condemn, But of all robbers,
he was the humanist and the chief. He's pretty much
solidly in favor of Robin Robin Hood not cool for stealing,
but definitely cool for all that other stuff. And other
historians of the time, including Andrew of Wyntun and Walter
(08:02):
Bauer Uh concurred that Robin Hood was active during the
middle and late twelve hundred's, so they all sort of
have this consensus about him being a real person, although
their dates are different. Yeah. Um, much of today's historical
writing is not quite so sure that he was a
real person, and most of that research has involved sifting
(08:25):
through old court records, which is what we will talk
about next. But the court records, even though they're legal documents,
don't entirely support the literary and historical writings. Um. So
I'm sure some people are not so enthused about no,
because some people want to believe They want to find
the true Robin Hood in the mix. So, the name
(08:48):
Robert Hodd appears in court documents in twelve twenty five,
and this is the earliest known record of a criminals
name that may have morphed its way into Robin Hood.
There is another man that appears in the court records
from twelve sixty one in twelve sixty two, and in
the twelve sixty one document he's named williams, son of
Robert Lafaverre, and in twelve sixty two he's William Robod,
(09:12):
suggesting that the court transcriber knew of the Robin Hood
legend and possibly ascribed his name to an outlaw. From there,
there are other Robods and robin Hoods in legal records,
including people who deliberately took Robod or robin Hood as
their last names in the thirteenth and fourteen centuries, and
people who adopted Little John as pseudonyms. And so it's
(09:35):
basically people who heard this famous name and decided that
should be their name too, because they were outlaws. And
all of these Robods and robin Hood's muddy the waters
when you're actually trying to look for a real source
of the stories. It certainly makes it seem like Robin
Hood was enough of a legend by the thirteenth century
that people wanted to adopt his name as theirs. There
(09:58):
are also a couple of the examples of Robin Hood
who were definitely criminals, But there's some reason the historians
say he was not the right guy. He either lived
too far away or he was just a straight up
murderer and and you know, didn't do the kind of
thieving that that Robin Hood was known for. And apart
from that, in eighteen fifty two, Joseph Hunter published a
(10:20):
book citing a Robin Hood who worked as a porter
in the King's court in thirteen twenty four, and he
connected this to a journey the king is described as
taking in the ballad a Jest of Robin Hood. Hunter
speculates that this is the same person as a Robin
Hood who was outlawed in thirty two, but there's no
proof that these are actually the same person, and without
(10:42):
the connection it doesn't really seem to add up or
hold up. Then we get into the suspects whose names
do not sound like the words Robin and Hood. Roger
Godbird was a thirteenth century farmer turned baron turned criminal
who ambushed rich travelers with his band of men. That
she Riff of Nottingham captured him and held him in
Nottingham Castle, and his criminal dealings went on from around
(11:06):
twelve sixty seven to twelve seventy two. A couple of
writers have published books claiming that Roger Goldbird was the
real Robin Hood, including David Baldwin and Brian Benson. Baldwin
also claims that he discovered a thirteenth century grave belonging
to Godbird. Baldwin's book is Robin Hood the English Outlaw Unmasked,
(11:27):
and Benson's book is titled robin Hood The Real Story,
but Robod and other pseudonyms meaning robin Hood were already
in use before Goldbird appeared in the historical record, so
writing for history today, Sean McGlenn actually cites William of
Kencham a k a. Willikin of the Wield, and he
(11:48):
was loyal to the crown and led a resistance band
of about one thousand archers against French invaders in twelve sixteen.
His resistance was quite successful, and as a reward he
was granted wardenship of the seven hundreds of the Wield,
a division of land, with Wield being a heavily wooded place.
McGlenn argues that he has the ripe blend of hero
(12:10):
and outlaw qualities because the English would have viewed him
as a hero while the French would have viewed him
as an outlaw. And there are also some other real
outlaws who aren't that often cited as a real robin Hood,
but whose activities may have influenced some of the stories
of Robin of robin Hood shannigans that came along later. Um, really,
(12:31):
you don't really have to look far during that period
of history to find people who were fighting in the
woods using bows and arrows, right that that was a
pretty common thing. So one is folk fitz Lauren, who
spent some time living in the forest and fighting against
King John. Another is harrow Ward the Wake, an outlaw
who fought the Normans not long after the Battle of Hastings,
(12:52):
And a third is Eustace the Monk, who I think
I might want to do an episode on later on,
because Eustace the Monk just sounds like a delightful thing
to talk about, and it's not really delightful though. He
became a mercenary after leaving the monastic life to avenge
his murdered father. Even William Wallace fits this dairy general
description of guy who was an outlaw and fought from
(13:15):
the woods. Yeah, and Robin hood changes and evolves with
the times, so in his earliest incarnations he was tied
to the violence that was common in the Middle Ages.
But then, in a trend that is probably quite familiar
to modern audiences, public sentiment was beginning to see royalty
and wealthy people in general as a bunch of tyrants
who were abusing the law and making life harder for
(13:38):
the commoner. So that, you know, mindset was ripe for
criminals who would try to take these people down a notch,
and stories that would celebrate that kind of activity. And
nowadays robin Hood is a challenger of authority and he
rights wrongs, and the people who do these kinds of
things are celebrated as robin Hood figures. We don't. Sometimes
(13:59):
they're animated as cute little fox. I know, I was
going to ask you if you had a favorite robin Hood,
and I thought that that might be the one that
you would say a tie on the list. Don't get
me wrong, Yeah, but I don't. I have a a
detested robin Oh no, who is it. It's the Kevin
Costner version. Yeah, it's one of the movies. I just
(14:19):
I had to leave. I couldn't make it through the
whole thing. Yeah. I think there are people, uh, this
is not about that comment. There are people who get
really angry about portfrails of robin Hood that they're like,
that's not how it was, when how it was. Yeah, Well,
the earliest depictions, a lot of the things that we
just sort of assume have always been the case about
(14:41):
robin Hood weren't really so much there, Like the giving
to the poor part, not always present. A lot of
times it was just robbing. I just thought it was
a portly made movie that it could have been about
anything valid. But I do really like the Disney version,
even though of course it's completely um populated to be
really cutesye, and history kind of gets tossed out the
(15:04):
window a bit, mostly because Foxes don't wear clothes now
they typically do not do that. Um. I like Robin Hood.
I need to. It's such a fun story, and I
like that it is something that evolves and kind of
becomes what any any part of history and culture needs
it to be. And I would kind of rather we
(15:26):
never know if there was a definite number one real
person who was quote the real Robin Hood. I like
him to be kind of mythic and legendary. Well, unless
somebody discovers a magical historical artifact, you get your wish. Okay,
let's not ever do that. Hey, do you also have
some listener mail friends? I do. Uh. This is from
(15:50):
Kira and it is about our recent episode on cannibalism
at Jamestown and I was delighted to read it because
it has awesome information in it. So Era says, I'm
writing to you in regards to the Cannibalism at Jamestown
podcast knowing a little bit about a topic myself. I
just graduated with my bastards in history this past month,
and my senior thesis was on the trade interactions between
(16:12):
the Jamestown colonists and the Palatans. It was a long,
laborious and difficult topics since there isn't a whole lot
of primary sources to go off of, as you well
know by now. That being said, my topic originally included
elements of cannibalism at Jamestown, although I was asked to
remove that portion because there wasn't enough evidence to fully
support my use of it. It took me a couple
(16:33):
of weeks to listen to this podcast because frankly, I
was a little tired of the topic and needed a break,
but mostly because I was a team sy bit frustrated
that after I had researched the topic of cannibalism so extensively,
then was asked to remove it. Then more evidence surfaced
in the news two days after I turned in my
final draft. That's just cruel, I know, and I that
one of the first things that I said in my
response was I really ampathize with you, Kira, because that
(16:56):
happens to us at work on a pretty regular basis.
So there were two little points in the podcast that
I wanted to correct you on, however. The first was
the use of the term Algonquin towards the beginning of
the podcast. It was used as though the Algonquins were
a specific tribe, when in fact, is an umbrella term
for all of the Native Americans in the area. It
(17:16):
would be similar to referring to Eskimos as the name
of a tribe when they're actually a broader group of
people than that. You were correct in your usage of
poatans as being an encompassing term for all of the
tribes that chief Popotan, which was his nickname. Incidentally, his
real name was Jahansen aclum I. Hope I said that correctly,
so he was Poetan was a term for all the
(17:37):
tribes that he ran over. Thank you for sending that,
because one of my biggest frustrations and working on this
podcast was how loose and inaccurate all of the writing,
not all, but much of the writing from sources who
wants to have known better, uh, was about the various
Native Americans who were in the area. Well, and it's inconsistent.
So you can't like compare to sources to validate each
(17:59):
other without getting into a really deep conundrum pretty quickly. Yeah, uh.
And and Kira said that it also took her some
time to figure that out when she was working on
her thesis. Um so, yeah, a lot of the writing
about the Native Americans in the area at the time,
some of it just straight up says the Indians, as
though that is accurate. Uh, And a lot of it
(18:24):
that those writers were having the same problem probably, So
how can I word this where it's technically correct but
maybe not accurate, right, And and then there's a lot
of things that are used interchangeably that are not actually interchangeable.
So thank you for providing that clarification here. So now
on to the second part. The second and more important
point was when you mentioned that during that awful winter
(18:45):
of sixteen o eight and o nine, the colonists had
run out of copper and blue beans and stated this
as being the reason why they could not secure adequate
trade deals with the Powatans. This actually could not be
any farther from being correct. The emphasis of my thesis
dealt with the starving time in particular, and this was
one of the more difficult portions to find tune, so
I understand where someone could go wrong with the presented information.
(19:07):
What actually happened was that the English, as well as
the French and Dutch colonists throughout North America, had oversaturated
the Native American market with copper and blue beads. The
market was so overly saturated that the items no longer
held monetary value that the English had planned on, so
they still retained their spiritual significance, but because they were
so easy to come by, the power Tans were quite
(19:29):
the competent businessman, and then the English were in desperate straits.
The English actually had a large supply of beads and
copper on hand, but their value had decreased so much
that they were trading large bags full of blue beads
for a few bustles of corn, when in the past
they had been able to get the same amount of
corn for only a handful of beads. This problem actually
(19:49):
led to John Smith threatening to chew to shoot Chief
Powatan's brother opekan Canoe. It is speculated that Opi con Canoe, ever,
never forgave him for this and how the perpetual grudge
against the colonists until the massacre of or at least
that's what I concluded in my thesis. Um. She talked
about authors Karen Cooperman, Helen Rowntree, and Carl Brandenball do
(20:12):
a fantastic job of illustrating these issues in their various
books about Jamestown. Thank you so much for providing this. Also, Yeah,
it's so cool to Haven and Jamestown scholars. Yeah, and
that was straight up my error. Uh, the sources that
I had used kind of glossed over the way part
of why they had gone from trading copper and beads
(20:33):
and instead we're trading extremely valuable items that they could
not really bear to part with, like swords that are
needed for survival. Um. And that was sort of my
incorrectly filling in that blank because it had been sort
of not really acknowledged in my sources. So thank you
so much, Kira for writing to us. This is awesome information. UM.
(20:55):
I love owning mistakes when we make genuine, genuine mistakes,
because that that makes us have better knowledge. If you
would like to write to us about this or any
other topic, you can at History podcast at discovery dot com.
We're also on Twitter at misston History and on Facebook
at Facebook dot com slash history, class Stuff. You can
(21:17):
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Hood and you will find who was the real Robin Hood.
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(21:40):
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(22:02):
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Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I am Tracy Wilson in on Holly Crying. Today. We
have a listener requests. We have many who was the
real Bloody Blaw? Yeah, so we have who was the
(00:24):
real Moriarty that kind of thing? Yeah. And and one
of our off requested things in this case by Michael
and many other listeners is who was the real Robin Hood? Yeah? Yeah,
Which is a tricky question. In point of fact, it
kind of is. Robin Hood style characters have been showing
up in literature since the fourteenth century, but as a concept,
he's kind of been around longer than that, at least
(00:47):
seven hundred years um. But his earliest appearance in literature
was in English ballads that were singing the tales of
a Sherwood Forest criminal who squared off against the Sheriff
of Nottingham made Mary In and Friar Tuck came on later,
but Sherwood Forest and the sheriff and Little John and
Will Scarlett are all there pretty early on, along with
(01:08):
the idea of robbing rich people but not necessarily giving
that up to the poor and it comes long later
to historians who actually lived during the medieval period. Uh,
it seemed to have assumed that Robin Hood was actually
a real person who lived in the twelfth or thirteenth century.
But their accounts aren't consistent at all, and modern historians
(01:29):
aren't so sure about any of that. Um. There's just
not evidence to support it necessarily. There's a lot of
question marks, and some of the grander elements of the
robin Hood lore are also pretty tricky when you get
into the logic of them. Seven score Merrimen may have
been able to feed and clothe themselves just working with
the spoils of their robbing, but surviving the winter and
(01:51):
staying warm without shelter would have been a little bit trickier. Yeah,
it's not a very warm part of the world without
some kind of permanent structure to take some kind of
refuge from the climbing in which then would have been
easily rated. So it brings it to the question of
is Robin Hood a fictional blend of outlaw, daring do
and some wish fulfillment because lots of people like to
(02:14):
see other people get get their come up. It's oh yeah,
or was he a real person or a combination of both.
It's a great question that might not be answered ever. Nope,
but we're going to examine all of the various possibilities.
So in the Middle Ages, places like Sherwood Forest weren't
just vast landscapes of tree cover like we might think
(02:35):
of the word forest today. They were kind of a
hodgepodge of wooded areas and cultivated ground, so the nobility
could use them to hunt and to grow food. Uh,
And there are also laws about how everyone else was
allowed to use the forest. But the places that were
best for game hunting were also great for hiding, So
places like Sherwood Forest were perfect for outlaws to call home.
(02:58):
It was a great place to hide doubt, and it
was extra great because it was illegal for them to
even be doing that, So it was a perfect setting
for these robin Hood style adventure stories that have persisted
throughout the Ages. The earliest known written reference to robin
Hood is a passing reference in William Langlan's allegorical poem
The Vision of Pierce Plowman, which was written in a
(03:21):
late thirteen seventies. He says, I don't know perfectly my
our father as the priest sings it, I know rhymes
of Robin Hood and Randolph Earl of Chester, but neither
of our Lord nor of our lady. The least that
ever was written. So he's basically saying, I don't really
know my prayers, but I do know Robin Hood. Uh.
(03:41):
And after that there's a series of ballads and stories
that came along throughout the fourteenth and fifteen centuries, great
hits like Robin Hood and the Monk, The Little Gest
of Robin Hood, Robin Hood his Death, Robin Hood, and
Guy of Gisborne, that Robin Hood and the Colonel Fryar.
(04:02):
So there's not so much of a really noble rob
from the rich give to the poor focus, and a
lot of these older stories there is definitely a lot
of robbing, not necessarily a lot of giving. In some
of the early stories. Robin's just really violent and he's
not a fallen noble in these stories, which is an
idea that was attributed to him a later. He's a commoner,
(04:25):
a peasant, or at the highest a yeoman, which was
kind of a middle class situation. The king mentioned in
these early works is Edward, probably meaning Edward the Second.
While a lot of the more modern portrayals talk about
a Prince John or a King John, and Little John
and Will Scarlett are also early names that show up
(04:45):
in the context of being Robin's merry men. But as
we said before, there was no Maid Marian in these
early ballads or Friar Tuck. Those really got added in
later in the context of literature. Robin Hood got upgraded
to a noble in sixteen o one, and Anthony Monday's
plays the Downfall of Robert Earl of Huntington's and the
(05:05):
death of Robert Robert Earl of Huntington's around seventeen seventy.
Robin Hood's Garland being a complete history of all the
notable and mary exploits performed by him and his men
on diverse occasions, to which is added a preface giving
a more full and particular account of his birth, etcetera.
Than here any hitherto published came out. That's quite a title.
(05:27):
I love this extremely long title. Uh. And this particular
piece of literature added more stories and more characters to
the Robin Hood lore. So there was lots of Robin
Hood meeting somebody in the woods, fighting with that person,
and then eventually inviting him to join him and the
Merrymen in their exploits. By the nineteenth century, robin Hood
(05:48):
stories were everywhere. Howard Piles The Merry Adventures of robin
Hood of Great Renown in Nottinghamshire came out in eighty three.
This gathered lots of robin Hood stuff until one ace
and also adapted it for children, and it became a
source material for a lot of the later robin Hood writing.
This was an illustrated book. It was really expensive for
(06:10):
its time compared to other books, and it was wildly successful.
And following that there were plays, operas, comic books, films, films, films,
films and more films, robin Hood movies, uh, costumes, merchandise.
Robinhood was like a marketing juggernaut. Yeah, he's become kind
of just an iconic figure, especially in in the world
(06:33):
of English story. So is there any truth to all
of this? Um? The earliest One of the earliest historical
notations of robin Hood was from John Major, a Scottish
historian who wrote his Great His History of Greater Britain.
In he claims robin Hood did his criminal living in
(06:55):
Sherwood Forest UH in eleven ninety three and eleven war.
Should I read what he says about? Yes, give us
a little passage. He says about this time. It was
as I conceive that they're flourished, those famous robbers Robert Hood,
an Englishman and little John, who lay weight in the woods,
but spoiled of their goods those only that were wealthy.
(07:17):
They took the life of no man unless either he
attacked them or offered resistance in defense of his property.
Roberts supported by his plundering one hundred bowmen ready fighters,
everyone with whom four hundred of the strongest would not
dare to engage in combat. The fiefs of this Robert
are told in Sons all over written. He would allow
no woman to suffer injustice, nor would he spoil the poor,
(07:40):
but rather enriched them from the plunder taken from abbots.
The robberies of this man I condemn, But of all robbers,
he was the humanist and the chief. He's pretty much
solidly in favor of Robin Robin Hood not cool for stealing,
but definitely cool for all that other stuff. And other
historians of the time, including Andrew of Wyntun and Walter
(08:02):
Bauer Uh concurred that Robin Hood was active during the
middle and late twelve hundred's, so they all sort of
have this consensus about him being a real person, although
their dates are different. Yeah. Um, much of today's historical
writing is not quite so sure that he was a
real person, and most of that research has involved sifting
(08:25):
through old court records, which is what we will talk
about next. But the court records, even though they're legal documents,
don't entirely support the literary and historical writings. Um. So
I'm sure some people are not so enthused about no,
because some people want to believe They want to find
the true Robin Hood in the mix. So, the name
(08:48):
Robert Hodd appears in court documents in twelve twenty five,
and this is the earliest known record of a criminals
name that may have morphed its way into Robin Hood.
There is another man that appears in the court records
from twelve sixty one in twelve sixty two, and in
the twelve sixty one document he's named williams, son of
Robert Lafaverre, and in twelve sixty two he's William Robod,
(09:12):
suggesting that the court transcriber knew of the Robin Hood
legend and possibly ascribed his name to an outlaw. From there,
there are other Robods and robin Hoods in legal records,
including people who deliberately took Robod or robin Hood as
their last names in the thirteenth and fourteen centuries, and
people who adopted Little John as pseudonyms. And so it's
(09:35):
basically people who heard this famous name and decided that
should be their name too, because they were outlaws. And
all of these Robods and robin Hood's muddy the waters
when you're actually trying to look for a real source
of the stories. It certainly makes it seem like Robin
Hood was enough of a legend by the thirteenth century
that people wanted to adopt his name as theirs. There
(09:58):
are also a couple of the examples of Robin Hood
who were definitely criminals, But there's some reason the historians
say he was not the right guy. He either lived
too far away or he was just a straight up
murderer and and you know, didn't do the kind of
thieving that that Robin Hood was known for. And apart
from that, in eighteen fifty two, Joseph Hunter published a
(10:20):
book citing a Robin Hood who worked as a porter
in the King's court in thirteen twenty four, and he
connected this to a journey the king is described as
taking in the ballad a Jest of Robin Hood. Hunter
speculates that this is the same person as a Robin
Hood who was outlawed in thirty two, but there's no
proof that these are actually the same person, and without
(10:42):
the connection it doesn't really seem to add up or
hold up. Then we get into the suspects whose names
do not sound like the words Robin and Hood. Roger
Godbird was a thirteenth century farmer turned baron turned criminal
who ambushed rich travelers with his band of men. That
she Riff of Nottingham captured him and held him in
Nottingham Castle, and his criminal dealings went on from around
(11:06):
twelve sixty seven to twelve seventy two. A couple of
writers have published books claiming that Roger Goldbird was the
real Robin Hood, including David Baldwin and Brian Benson. Baldwin
also claims that he discovered a thirteenth century grave belonging
to Godbird. Baldwin's book is Robin Hood the English Outlaw Unmasked,
(11:27):
and Benson's book is titled robin Hood The Real Story,
but Robod and other pseudonyms meaning robin Hood were already
in use before Goldbird appeared in the historical record, so
writing for history today, Sean McGlenn actually cites William of
Kencham a k a. Willikin of the Wield, and he
(11:48):
was loyal to the crown and led a resistance band
of about one thousand archers against French invaders in twelve sixteen.
His resistance was quite successful, and as a reward he
was granted wardenship of the seven hundreds of the Wield,
a division of land, with Wield being a heavily wooded place.
McGlenn argues that he has the ripe blend of hero
(12:10):
and outlaw qualities because the English would have viewed him
as a hero while the French would have viewed him
as an outlaw. And there are also some other real
outlaws who aren't that often cited as a real robin Hood,
but whose activities may have influenced some of the stories
of Robin of robin Hood shannigans that came along later. Um, really,
(12:31):
you don't really have to look far during that period
of history to find people who were fighting in the
woods using bows and arrows, right that that was a
pretty common thing. So one is folk fitz Lauren, who
spent some time living in the forest and fighting against
King John. Another is harrow Ward the Wake, an outlaw
who fought the Normans not long after the Battle of Hastings,
(12:52):
And a third is Eustace the Monk, who I think
I might want to do an episode on later on,
because Eustace the Monk just sounds like a delightful thing
to talk about, and it's not really delightful though. He
became a mercenary after leaving the monastic life to avenge
his murdered father. Even William Wallace fits this dairy general
description of guy who was an outlaw and fought from
(13:15):
the woods. Yeah, and Robin hood changes and evolves with
the times, so in his earliest incarnations he was tied
to the violence that was common in the Middle Ages.
But then, in a trend that is probably quite familiar
to modern audiences, public sentiment was beginning to see royalty
and wealthy people in general as a bunch of tyrants
who were abusing the law and making life harder for
(13:38):
the commoner. So that, you know, mindset was ripe for
criminals who would try to take these people down a notch,
and stories that would celebrate that kind of activity. And
nowadays robin Hood is a challenger of authority and he
rights wrongs, and the people who do these kinds of
things are celebrated as robin Hood figures. We don't. Sometimes
(13:59):
they're animated as cute little fox. I know, I was
going to ask you if you had a favorite robin Hood,
and I thought that that might be the one that
you would say a tie on the list. Don't get
me wrong, Yeah, but I don't. I have a a
detested robin Oh no, who is it. It's the Kevin
Costner version. Yeah, it's one of the movies. I just
(14:19):
I had to leave. I couldn't make it through the
whole thing. Yeah. I think there are people, uh, this
is not about that comment. There are people who get
really angry about portfrails of robin Hood that they're like,
that's not how it was, when how it was. Yeah, Well,
the earliest depictions, a lot of the things that we
just sort of assume have always been the case about
(14:41):
robin Hood weren't really so much there, Like the giving
to the poor part, not always present. A lot of
times it was just robbing. I just thought it was
a portly made movie that it could have been about
anything valid. But I do really like the Disney version,
even though of course it's completely um populated to be
really cutesye, and history kind of gets tossed out the
(15:04):
window a bit, mostly because Foxes don't wear clothes now
they typically do not do that. Um. I like Robin Hood.
I need to. It's such a fun story, and I
like that it is something that evolves and kind of
becomes what any any part of history and culture needs
it to be. And I would kind of rather we
(15:26):
never know if there was a definite number one real
person who was quote the real Robin Hood. I like
him to be kind of mythic and legendary. Well, unless
somebody discovers a magical historical artifact, you get your wish. Okay,
let's not ever do that. Hey, do you also have
some listener mail friends? I do. Uh. This is from
(15:50):
Kira and it is about our recent episode on cannibalism
at Jamestown and I was delighted to read it because
it has awesome information in it. So Era says, I'm
writing to you in regards to the Cannibalism at Jamestown
podcast knowing a little bit about a topic myself. I
just graduated with my bastards in history this past month,
and my senior thesis was on the trade interactions between
(16:12):
the Jamestown colonists and the Palatans. It was a long,
laborious and difficult topics since there isn't a whole lot
of primary sources to go off of, as you well
know by now. That being said, my topic originally included
elements of cannibalism at Jamestown, although I was asked to
remove that portion because there wasn't enough evidence to fully
support my use of it. It took me a couple
(16:33):
of weeks to listen to this podcast because frankly, I
was a little tired of the topic and needed a break,
but mostly because I was a team sy bit frustrated
that after I had researched the topic of cannibalism so extensively,
then was asked to remove it. Then more evidence surfaced
in the news two days after I turned in my
final draft. That's just cruel, I know, and I that
one of the first things that I said in my
response was I really ampathize with you, Kira, because that
(16:56):
happens to us at work on a pretty regular basis.
So there were two little points in the podcast that
I wanted to correct you on, however. The first was
the use of the term Algonquin towards the beginning of
the podcast. It was used as though the Algonquins were
a specific tribe, when in fact, is an umbrella term
for all of the Native Americans in the area. It
(17:16):
would be similar to referring to Eskimos as the name
of a tribe when they're actually a broader group of
people than that. You were correct in your usage of
poatans as being an encompassing term for all of the
tribes that chief Popotan, which was his nickname. Incidentally, his
real name was Jahansen aclum I. Hope I said that correctly,
so he was Poetan was a term for all the
(17:37):
tribes that he ran over. Thank you for sending that,
because one of my biggest frustrations and working on this
podcast was how loose and inaccurate all of the writing,
not all, but much of the writing from sources who
wants to have known better, uh, was about the various
Native Americans who were in the area. Well, and it's inconsistent.
So you can't like compare to sources to validate each
(17:59):
other without getting into a really deep conundrum pretty quickly. Yeah, uh.
And and Kira said that it also took her some
time to figure that out when she was working on
her thesis. Um so, yeah, a lot of the writing
about the Native Americans in the area at the time,
some of it just straight up says the Indians, as
though that is accurate. Uh, And a lot of it
(18:24):
that those writers were having the same problem probably, So
how can I word this where it's technically correct but
maybe not accurate, right, And and then there's a lot
of things that are used interchangeably that are not actually interchangeable.
So thank you for providing that clarification here. So now
on to the second part. The second and more important
point was when you mentioned that during that awful winter
(18:45):
of sixteen o eight and o nine, the colonists had
run out of copper and blue beans and stated this
as being the reason why they could not secure adequate
trade deals with the Powatans. This actually could not be
any farther from being correct. The emphasis of my thesis
dealt with the starving time in particular, and this was
one of the more difficult portions to find tune, so
I understand where someone could go wrong with the presented information.
(19:07):
What actually happened was that the English, as well as
the French and Dutch colonists throughout North America, had oversaturated
the Native American market with copper and blue beads. The
market was so overly saturated that the items no longer
held monetary value that the English had planned on, so
they still retained their spiritual significance, but because they were
so easy to come by, the power Tans were quite
(19:29):
the competent businessman, and then the English were in desperate straits.
The English actually had a large supply of beads and
copper on hand, but their value had decreased so much
that they were trading large bags full of blue beads
for a few bustles of corn, when in the past
they had been able to get the same amount of
corn for only a handful of beads. This problem actually
(19:49):
led to John Smith threatening to chew to shoot Chief
Powatan's brother opekan Canoe. It is speculated that Opi con Canoe, ever,
never forgave him for this and how the perpetual grudge
against the colonists until the massacre of or at least
that's what I concluded in my thesis. Um. She talked
about authors Karen Cooperman, Helen Rowntree, and Carl Brandenball do
(20:12):
a fantastic job of illustrating these issues in their various
books about Jamestown. Thank you so much for providing this. Also, Yeah,
it's so cool to Haven and Jamestown scholars. Yeah, and
that was straight up my error. Uh, the sources that
I had used kind of glossed over the way part
of why they had gone from trading copper and beads
(20:33):
and instead we're trading extremely valuable items that they could
not really bear to part with, like swords that are
needed for survival. Um. And that was sort of my
incorrectly filling in that blank because it had been sort
of not really acknowledged in my sources. So thank you
so much, Kira for writing to us. This is awesome information. UM.
(20:55):
I love owning mistakes when we make genuine, genuine mistakes,
because that that makes us have better knowledge. If you
would like to write to us about this or any
other topic, you can at History podcast at discovery dot com.
We're also on Twitter at misston History and on Facebook
at Facebook dot com slash history, class Stuff. You can
(21:17):
find our tumbler at mist in history dot tumbler dot com,
and we are on Pinterest too. If you would like
to learn more about Robin Hood, you can come to
our website and you can search for the word Robin
Hood and you will find who was the real Robin Hood.
You can do this and a whole lot more at
our site, which is how Stuff works dot com for
(21:40):
more on this and thousands of other topics. Because it
has to have works dot com. Audible dot com is
the leading provider of downloadable digital audio books and spoken
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(22:02):
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