Two deaths related to Robin Hood have put the fictional medieval outlaw in the news recently. The release of The Death of Robin Hood featuring Hugh Jackman as the titular hero has coincided with the sad news of the death of the Major Oak in Sherwood Forest, the tree that legend has it was one the outlaw’s hideouts.
But why is Robin Hood a household name the world over when the names of other medieval outlaws remain largely unknown?
Robin Hood’s earliest literary death is a rather rushed affair at the end of the 15th-century story, A Gest of Robyn Hode, when the prioress of Kirklees kills him in a botched attempt at bloodletting. This ending has in part inspired director Michael Sarnoski’s grittier take on the hero in The Death of Robin Hood.
Although early stories of Robin Hood do not connect the outlaw with the Major Oak of Sherwood specifically, they do portray the outlaw and his men repeatedly meeting under a “trystle”, or meeting tree. It is not difficult to imagine how such legends would coalesce around a distinctive Sherwood tree like the Major Oak.
Not your Disney Robin Hood
Robin’s fellow medieval outlaws remain largely unknown today. How many know the exploits of Fulk FitzWarin, Hereward the Wake, Eustace the Monk, Gamelyn, Adam Bell, Clim of the Clough or William Cloudesley?
In part, Robin has endured because he was all things to all men, appealing to a wide range of audiences in medieval society. The legend has always been mutable, even in its earliest iterations – and the hero has been reimagined with every retelling.
National Library of Scotland
The Robin Hood of the earliest surviving stories, for example, looks decidedly different to most modern adaptations. There is no Maid Marian love interest, for example. Instead, the outlaw is devoted to the Virgin Mary. For love of her he would hurt no women.
Robin rewards honesty and fights corruption, but hardly along clear-cut class lines. Although he is said to have done “pore men moch god”, Robin does not hand out alms to peasants. Instead, he loans money to a poor, honest knight who was down on his luck.
Robin Hood is also capable of surprising acts of violence. Although the violence of the early stories is often used for comedic effect, there is a darker undertone to some of the stories.
After fighting Guy of Gisborne, for example, Robin beheads him, puts Guy’s head on his bow staff and mutilates his face so that no one would recognise him. It is this more brutal and tortured Robin Hood that Hugh Jackman’s character seeks to embody.
Forgotten medieval outlaws
It is difficult to eulogise the actions of real outlaws of medieval England, because they often led brutal lives that would sit ill at ease with modern sensibilities.
Real outlaw gangs, such as the Coterels and Folvilles of the early 14th century, carried out many robberies, murders, kidnappings, and ran protection rackets and carried out extortion schemes. Such was the infamy of the latter that their brand of rough justice became known as “Folville’s law”.
Yet, there were other stories of legendary outlaws circulating in medieval England. One such, Adam Bell, Clim of the Clough and William Cloudesley, tells the story of three northern outlaws of Inglewood Forest in the north-west of England. The three titular heroes are outlawed for poaching, an act which would have elicited sympathy among many lower down the social order.
After being outlawed, William Cloudesley sneaked into Carlisle town to see his wife and three small children. Betrayed and besieged, Alice, his “true wedded wyfe”, took up a poleaxe to defend the front door while William shoots at the sheriff’s men who have come to arrest him. The sheriff set fire to their house and William held off the sheriff’s men, allowing his family to escape from a window.
After his bowstring lies in ruins because of the fire, William was captured and condemned to hang, and Carlisle locked down. Enter the town swineherd, a young boy, who snuck out of Carlisle to inform the other outlaws, Adam and Clim, of William’s capture. The pair mount a daring last-minute gallows rescue straight out of the film Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves. They then kill 300 officials in their bid to escape. Seeking a royal pardon, William demonstrates his archery prowess by shooting an apple off his seven-year-old son’s head in a dramatic finale, akin to the legend of William Tell.
It is thus in William Cloudesley that we find the fullest articulation of pride in the archery skills of those from the “north countree”. It is in Alice that we see the struggles of an outlaw’s wife. It is in the town swineherd that we see the reciprocal bonds of social banditry at work. And it is in the relationship between the three outlaws that we see heroic feats of daring camaraderie as when, beset on all sides by the officials of Carlisle, William declares to his brethren: “Thys daye let us togyder lyve and deye.”
Such scenes have long since been incorporated into the Robin Hood tradition, and yet many did not begin there. They began with three largely unknown outlaws of Inglewood Forest.
Perhaps it is time for them to step out of Robin’s considerable shadow and, in so doing, showcase the varied and rich culture of medieval English outlaws.
Alex Brown receives funding from the Leverhulme Trust for the research project grant, ‘Modelling the Black Death and Social Connectivity in Medieval England’.