In the footsteps of Robin Hood
The king's servant
The Lancastrian revolt is the only time and place where the ballads fit political history. When historians realised this, they set about the task of trying to find a real Robin Hood from this period in the medieval archives.
Matilda's husband
In 1852, the assistant keeper of the Public Record Office, Joseph
Hunter, found such a one in the court rolls of the manor of Wakefield
in 1316-17, during the reign of Edward II. This discovery was followed
up by J W Walker, in his article 'The True History of Robin Hood' in the
Yorkshire Archaeological Journal in 1944. The individual they both
pointed to was a tenant of the earl of Surrey called Robert (or Robertus)
Hood. Here is the evidence from these ancient records:
- Between 1265 and 1295, Adam Hood, a forester in the service of John de Warenne, earl of Surrey, and his wife had their child Robert christened at Wakefield.
- In 1316, Robert Hood's handmaid was fined for taking wood from Old Park.
- On 25 January 1316, Robert and his wife Matilda paid two shillings in return for a piece of the earl's waste ground on Bichill (the market place) between the houses of Phillip Damyson and Thomas Alayn. This land was 30 feet (9 metres) long and 16ft (4.9m) wide, enough 'to hold to the aforesaid Robert and Matilda and their heirs rendering yearly six pence at the three terms of the year to the lord'. The records show that in 1322, 1357 and 1358 there was a five-roomed house on this site.
- In 1316, Robert was fined for not obeying the earl of Surrey's summons to join his force in Edward II's abortive invasion of Scotland two years earlier.
- In 1320, Thomas, earl of Lancaster took over Wakefield, where he raised a new army. Robert's name is not mentioned among the defaulters, so it is possible that he joined Lancaster's army.
- In 1323, Lancaster was defeated at Boroughbridge and his followers were all outlawed. A list of seized property made in the same year included a 'building of five rooms of a new construction on Bichill, Wakefield'.
Using this evidence, Hunter suggested that this Hood became one of the Lancastrian rebels who were outlawed after the rebellion. As a result, he lost his property in Wakefield and disappeared from history.
Life in the greenwood
It was likely that, like his father, Robert Hood was a forester and
so would have been well equipped for life as an outlaw in the forests
of Barnsdale. At Papplewick Church in Sherwood
Forest, there is a medieval forester's grave that gives us an idea of
the essential forester's kit. Carved on the gravestone are a bow and arrow,
as well as a shoulder strap with a horn hanging from it, which is called
a 'baldric'!
But living out in the forest required more than this. According to medieval survival expert Richard Rutherford-Moore, Robin and his Merry Men would have had to carry their homes on their backs. Their equipment would have included:
- a flask – water was very hard to find
- a cup made from an ox horn
- a blanket for wrapping themselves up in at night
- an antler for digging a hole to go to the toilet in (toilet paper hung on trees!)
- an axe for making a woodland shelter
- some eating utensils
- salt and flour
- a yew bow in a hunting case
- hunting arrows
- two knives, one to eat with and one to kill with
- a hunting horn, to maintain communication in the forest.
There is one more surprise in store if you're still clinging to the image of the Merry Men living out in the greenwood: they probably went home in winter. They would have died of hypothermia if they had stayed out overnight in January. So we have a plausible if surprising candidate for our real Robin Hood: a yeoman Yorkshireman living as an outlaw during the summer and sneaking back home to his wife Matilda in Wakefield in the winter!
The king's porter
But that's not quite the end of the story. The ballad says that the
king forgave Robin and took him into his service, but after 15 months,
Robin was so depressed that he left to return to his former life.
The records tell us that, in 1323, a year after the Lancastrian revolt, there was still political unrest. From April to November, the king went on royal progress to the north. In November, he arrived in Nottingham, where he offered an amnesty to the outlaws, some of whom he took into his own ranks.
Enter our second candidate: Robyn Hod, a porter who appears on the payroll at Edward II's court from 24 March to 22 November 1324, when he receives a final payment: 'Robyn Hodjadis un des porteurs por cas qil ne poait plus travailler de donn par commandement, vs.' ['To Robyn Hod, formerly one of the porters, because he can no longer work, five shillings as a gift, by command.']
Coincidence?
Let's recap. The ballad tells us that the king forgave Robin Hood
of his crimes, that Robin went to work for him, but he left the king's
service a year or so later because he felt fed up and depressed. Joseph
Hunter tells us that this man, Robert Hood of Wakefield, fought in the
Lancastrian revolt and disappeared. Then, shortly afterwards, Robyn Hod
appears, who works for the king for about a year, and then he too disappears.
Could these two men be the same person?
In 1985, the historian J C Holt found another document in the Public Record Office that shows that Robyn Hod was already employed by the king from April to July 1323. As this was before the king could have given Robin Hood amnesty in Nottingham in November, it rather weakens Hunter's case. But the coincidence remains intriguing.
What you can see now
Sandal Castle, West Yorkshire
After the Conquest, Wakefield was held by the De Warenne earls of
Surrey. However, by 1157, they had abandoned their castle there for a
stronger position two miles south, overlooking the River Calder, at Sandal
Magna. In the late 12th century, work began on replacing the original
wooden motte and bailey with a stone fortress and continued for the next
100 years. The keep was defended by an elaborate defensive system consisting
of a high-walled passage guarded by twin turrets, a drawbridge and massive
D-shaped barbican. Extensive excavations in the 1960s revealed the well-preserved
footings that can be seen today. The castle was nearing completion when
a 'Robert Hood' appears in the Wakefield court rolls as the son of a forester
in the service of the earl of Surrey. This Robert must have visited the
castle often. Sandal is also where the 'Grand Old Duke of York' marched
his men up and down the hill in 1460.
In the village centre, off Manygates Lane, 2 miles south of Wakefield
on the A61 (Barnsley Road), in the centre of a park. Owned by Wakefield
District Council and open to the public. OS ref: SE337182.
Wakefield, West Yorkshire
Only 10 miles from Barnsdale and nine miles from Pontefract, Wakefield
played an important part in the life of Robert Hood, one of the real individuals
who might have been the famous man of legend. He was particularly active
around 1308-16 and is known to have lived in a property at Bichill in
Wakefield's Market Place, which is now the site of the city's bus station.
The city was also, according to early ballads, the home of Robin Hood's
follower George A'Green, the 'Jolly Pinder of Wakefield' (a pinder was
the keeper of the pen that held stray domestic animals). He would have
lived north of the present-day Pinderfields Hospital.
Nine miles south of Leeds. OS ref: 333208.
Papplewick Church, Nottinghamshire
In the Middle Ages, the village of Papplewick was the southern gateway
to Sherwood Forest and an administrative centre of it. It was also the
headquarters of the Sherwood Foresters and St James' Church was their
burial place. Known locally as the 'Foresters' Church', it was almost
entirely rebuilt in 1795. However, two of the medieval foresters' grave
slabs, each showing a bow and arrow, hunting horn and belt (baldric),
can still be seen, and the tower, too, is from the 14th century. The foresters
(and, it is believed, Robin Hood) are said to have cut their bows from
the yews in the churchyard (the one there now is about 350 years old).
Alan-a-Dale's true love Ellen is also supposed to have been forced to
marry an aged nobleman at this church. Robin arrived just in time and
she was married, by Friar Tuck, to Alan instead. (Alternatively the groom
might have been Will Scarlet.)
A nearby 'cave' dug out of the sandstone to a height of 16 feet (4.9
metres) is known as 'Robin Hood's Stables'. The name derives from the
old legend that the outlaw kept his horses there when robbing the wealthy
on the King's Great Way nearby.
Papplewick is 7 miles north of Nottingham and 1 mile north-east of
Hucknall, at the junction of the B6011 and B683.To check the church's
opening times, ring 0115 963 3496. OS ref: 565652.
