The Adventures of Robin Hood

I loved it when I was a kid, oh, let’s not say how long ago. I think the dumb theme music still is stuck in my brain, however … “Robin Hood, Robin Hood, riding through the glen ….”

Denis Moore, Denis Moore, Denis Moore…

I always thought that the 1938 Warner Brothers picture had more of a cozier Popular Front feel. Robin was the CIO–not Sidney Hillman or John L. Lewis, but the much younger rank-and-filers who were willing to take bold gambles, infiltrating the court to surprise Prince John, the Sheriff and Count Guy the way the UAW tricked GM before it occupied Chevy Plant No. 1. King Richard, for his part, had that same familiarity with the peasants, despite the widest class differences you could imagine, the same eagerness to make alliances with them to battle his enemies and the same cheerful confidence combined with authority that FDR displayed.

We find out in the last few reels, however, that, while Robin Hood may have been fighting the rich, it was all in the larger cause of restoring King Richard. They didn’t make the sequel in which Robin, now the Baron of Locksley, expels the more radical members of his Merry Men, but it almost writes itself.

I think the dumb theme music still is stuck in my brain, however … “Robin Hood, Robin Hood, riding through the glen ….”

I have that theme music stuck in my head, and I’m about 20 years too young to have watched it when it came out in the 1950s. I’ve got no memory of ever seeing it, but is it possible that it was rebroadcast on the BBC during the 1970s? If not, I have no idea how I know the theme, unless it had become part of the kid culture passed down from generation to generation on the playground.

I should clarify that I, the nick in comment 7, am a different person than the nick in comment 6. Comment 6 nick obviously has seen the show.

The promotion of Robin Hood as a rob-the-rich-to-pay-the-poor prototype socialist outlaw is nothing more than ideological propaganda founded on myth with virtually no basis in recorded history. On any reasonably enlightened interpretation of the propagated myth, Robin Hood was a vicious terrorist and the repeated replaying of the constructed myth fosters tolerance of terrorism.

For any who might be curious about real historiography, there appears to be a wide selection of potential candidates who could qualify for the historic Robin Hood. A summary account of the various possibilities, based on J. C. Holt’s Robin Hood (Thames and Hudson, 1982 and 1989) is here:
http://www.clydeburger.com/1300sand/timeline.htm

I’ve absolutely little interest in medieval history or the mythology concerning Robin Hood but as best I can judge, a currently prevailing consensus – as presented in a TV documentary of a few years back – favours this selection among the alternative candidates:
http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/H/history/n-s/robin04.html

The events concerning the most plausible candidate for the historic Robin Hood relate to the reign of (the infamous) Edward II in the 14th century, by which time the evil King John (1166-1216) was long dead.

nick#2 in #9: I have indeed seen the shows, they were a regular childhood delight. What bothers me is that the bagpipes/bull scene is the only thing I can actually remember about the entire series.
& bob b in #11, given your lack of interest in medieval history & Robin Hood, I’m assuming your analysis of the TV series is, erm, ironic . . .

Bob B, don’t be so ignorant. Robin Hood was the son of Herne the Hunter, a shamanistic fighter for the freedom of English workers at a time of coal mine closures, offshoring of manufacturing and the destruction of the post-war welfare state. Further, Will Scarlet went on to become Beowulf.

You should get your history right.

#8: “Robin Hood, Dr Who, Top of the Pops and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. What more could a young lad ask for?”

A television

#15: “You should get your history right.”

LOL! Until recently, along one bus route to my currently favoured superstore, I noted the presence along the way of a sandwich bar which prominently featured the name of “Edward II sandwich bar”.

Now the fortunes, propensities and eventual spectacular misfortune of our past sovereign Edward II are not a regular talking points nowadays. In fact, these are likely to be appreciated only by the relatively few who have at least some nodding familiarity with the illustrious medieval history of England:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_II_of_England

I was therefore curious as to why anyone entrepreneurially disposed to open a sandwich bar would want to name it after Edward II, especially since sandwiches are so named after the Earl of Sandwich, who came along several centuries later and whose latterday descendents still flourish:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_of_Sandwich

Alas, a few months ago the said sandwich bar closed down but has since reopened with a new name and new management. I wish it success.

Btw I absolutely disclaim any expertise on the history of Robin Hood but thought it might be entertaining here to post links to comparatively recent developments in the historiography.

(Bob b, I’m not sure if you realise this but I was hinting at the best Robin Hood ever made, Robin Of Sherwood. It was made in the 80s in England).

In Australia there is a Shakespeare’s Pies…

You forgot Pretty Boy Floyd:

It was in the town of Shawnee
It was on one Christmas day,
Came a whole carload of groceries
And a letter that did say:

“You say that I’m an outlaw,
And you say that I’m a thief;
Here’s a Christmas dinner
For the families on relief.”

It was Woody Guthrie, in that case.

bob b at #22 – presumably you also blame the BBC for promoting the career of these guys:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piranha_Brothers
leading to the current prevalence of sarcasm in our society?

I have that theme music stuck in my head, and I’m about 20 years too young to have watched it when it came out in the 1950s. I’ve got no memory of ever seeing it, but is it possible that it was rebroadcast on the BBC during the 1970s? If not, I have no idea how I know the theme, unless it had become part of the kid culture passed down from generation to generation on the playground.

Presumably you saw it as repeats in the 60s, as I did growing up in Adelaide. Now I’ll have that dratted theme song in my head all day – but great thread, thanks Harry!

Sounds like a new one for the Decents, for me. ‘While constantly deploring so-called American ‘atrocities’ in Iraq, I noticed that no-one else at the dinner party had a bad word to say about Robin Hood.’

Another keyboard ruined, thanks James P

#26: “I very much doubt that they all got the idea from tales of Robin Hood and Sherwood Forest.”

Over decades, there have been countless movies and TV serials supposedly based on the Robin Hood legends – eg for starters, try:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Robin_Hood_(film)

Excepting the names of the central characters, their common feature is not a vestige of historical accuracy or even consistency but to glamorize outlaws, glorify violence and promote the ethic: Rob the rich to pay the poor. The target audience is young people.

What is the likely downstream influence?

Compare the treatment of violence in Martin Scorsese’s movie: GoodFellas.

The depicted violence is repellent and the central characters are not glamorized.

So what you are saying, bob b, is that Robin Hood was the original Liberal Fascist? The prototypical uberSocialistIslamoNazi?

I always wondered why nazir was in the team. In one fell swoop they have racial diversity, Islamofascism, and someone whose name sounds like Nazi. What I don’t understand, though, is why this lot fought against their French invaders?

What is the likely downstream influence?

A passing obsession with archery and make-believe games involving “sword fighting” with sticks?

Several distinct issues are conflated here, IMO.

The sheer persistence of national legends, whether the Arthurian legends, the Robin Hood legends, Dick Whittington or Dick Turpin, are themselves interesting historical facts worthy of scrutiny.

The curious feature of the Robin Hood legends is their lack of consistency and the uncertainty even as to the century in which the central character was located. Rebellion against the Norman ascendency in England – a theme in the version recounted in Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe (1819), for instance – makes sense in the early 13th century versions of the legend but not if the historic Robin Hood was located in the 14th century as currently prevailing historiography suggests. By then, the Normans were fairly well assimilated. Whatever the eccentricities of the monarch Edward II, his son, Edward III, was one of our more illustrious kings and an early, if misguided, pioneer of statutory incomes policies. But then he reigned over the cataclymic demographic consequences of the Black Death plague 1348-.

20th century visual media representations of the Robin Hood legend – the main focus of my complaint – are mostly careless about the historic roots and detail and mostly glamorize a violent mythology as well as extol a pernicious redistributive ethic which seems to have been adopted by a series of criminal gangs and insurgency movements.

That seems to be beyond coincidence and is surely an issue worthy of analysis.

#36: “The relationship, if any, would be difficult to prove.”

I readily concede that after noting the perennial, intractable debates over whether violent behaviour in cartoons and video games induces imitative behaviour on the part of those who watch cartoons or play video games. However, I can only venture that any here who think my suggested connection is OTT might like to go through this on: The Robin Hood Syndrome:
http://www.hsdinstitute.org/e-clarity/asp_documents_0001/Documents_Publish/83.pdf

As for the topicality of the violent gang issue, this was breaking news in Britain during Thursday:

“Schools are dealing with the ‘side effects’ of gang culture including weapons, according to research. Although gang culture affects a minority of schools, it is feared children as young as nine are being recruited to such groups. . . Following a spate of teenage murders, the extent of youth gang culture in the UK is a growing concern. It is also a growing problem, with experts estimating that the number of gang members under the age of 16 has doubled in the last five years, the report says.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7352977.stm

#36: “As to the hazy origins of RH, is it not possible that the archetype existed in the popular imagination before any historical progenitor figure?”

It is certainly possible – indeed, likely – that issues associated with the RH legends, such as lingering popular resentment of the Norman ascendency, had a prior independent existence and I’ve mentioned above that persistence of particular national legends is worthy of research in its own right. Why is it that Dick Whittington and his cat is a regular theme of London pantomimes?

Perhaps I could add that there is nothing new about my concerns regarding the social values depicted in popular visual media representations of the RH legends. I recall being embroiled in a similar online discussion about 10 years ago and that was before I became aware of recent developments in the historiography and just how fragile are the historic roots of the many – and contradictory – media representations of the legends.

Never mind Mrs White’s paranoia about Communism. Had she been a tad more perceptive, she might have remarked that media presentations of the legend of Robin Hood and his “merry men”, with their practice of armed robbery to live off the proceeds, had become a regular model for criminal gangs where side pay-offs are made in poor communities to buy cover and protection from law enforcement agencies.

There is a vast difference in prescriptive outlook between media presentations of violence by gangs who practised this MO between, say, Scorsese’s GoodFellas (1990) and the Errol Flynn version of one Robin Hood movie (1938), where RH is charactised as a heroic outlaw aristocrat rather than the more usual upstart peasant with a grudge against the Normans and a flair for charismatic leadership and archery.

The Scorsese movie does not convey a suggestion that emulation would be a good idea, whereas most media presentations of the RH legends foster an impression that RH is a heroic role model and emulation would be glamorous. Arguably, the conflicting narratives of the various presentations suggest that historic detail is an insignificant consideration in relating the legends.

OK, Bob, I’ve had a chance to reflect, and I concede that you do have a point: people do seem to behave according to genres of action, those genres sometimes being drawn from fiction. Also, very often we see ‘criminal’ acts justified by narratives, and RH can be seen as one such narrative (he actually usually occupies a space between state and ‘natural’ law, which is probably what’s most interesting about him, but that’s secondary to this discussion). It may be (though here we’re on thinner ice) that supplying such ready-made narratives provides an environment that encourages certain criminal acts, or that presents those acts in a socially-acceptable light. So: stories of the RH ilk may contribute in some way to certain kinds of gang violence, and may help validate redistributive practices that would otherwise be seen for what they are: informal payments for popular consent in criminal activity.

I personally suspect that this points to a deeper structure, in which the adult man fulfills his duties to ‘natural justice’ by providing for the tribe/longhouse/mead-hall/whatever, through hunting and activities analogous to hunting, such as raiding, rustling, purloining property of others in some way… I confess my instinct is to pursue this line of reasoning across multiple cultures (at least Geat and early English, optionally Nuer, Bedu, Timawa and others) rather like Fraser, but that I acknowledge arguments raised against this mode of armchair anthropology.

Whether this structure can be overcome by repeated applications of propaganda against criminal organisations and their methods, I do not know.

“Which historical details would you like to choose?”

I’ve already admitted that I’ve no personal expertise in the histiography of RH. My concern is the likely social consequences of the serial media presentations of the legends. For comparatively recent developments in the histiography, try the links suggested in #11 and #12.

As best I can tell, media presentations of the legends tend to locate RH in the early 13th century, during the reign of “evil” King John, whereas the currently prevailing consensus histiography puts RH early in the 14th century during the reign of (the eccentric) Edward II, who met with an unfortunate demise. A glaring problem with the 14th century version is that popular resentment in England against the Norman ascendency had rather worn off by then as the descendents of the Norman families, who came over with William, Duke of Normandy, in 1066, had become assimilated. We therefore need to find an alternative credible motivation for the reported frictions between the RH gang and the Sheriff of Nottingham.

I certainly wouldn’t suggest that the RH legends are the basis of an original prototype for gang behaviour but mythical legends may be influential and consider just how many popular media dramas, targeted on young audiences, are located in the medieval period. For many folk, media presentations of RH legends are very likely the principal or only source of popular knowledge about the history of medieval England. And that is a pity because features of later English history are rooted in that period.

I’ve not dwelt so far on the wider significance of RH’s reported archery skills, which may have been a factor explaining the persistence and popularity of the early RH ballads.

The English were good at archery with long bows, an inexpensive technology, the effectiveness of which depended on regular practise. This was a critical factor in victorious battles in wars in France – Crecy (1346), Poitiers (1356) and Agincourt (1415). Archery practise was officially encouraged:

“Cause public proclamation to be made,” declared an Act of 1369, “that everyone of said City of London strong in body, at leisure times and on holydays, use in their recreation bows and arrows.” Popular amusements such as handball and football were banned on pain of imprisonment.
[Entry for “Archery” in Weinreb and Hibbert (eds): The London Encyclopaedia (1993)]

The interesting insight is that the authorities in England were evidently not concerned about the prospect of any number of practised, skilled and armed archers wandering around – and the long bow is a very deadly weapon in skilled hands. There seems to have been no fear that the prevalence of trained archers might constitute a threat to political stability in England – or become a potent cause of crime.

An obvious question: How come there have been so many ballads, movies and TV serials about RH when historians have so much difficulty finding unequivocal documentary evidence of his origins, life events and fate given all the trouble he supposedly caused the Sheriff of Nottingham?

Compare Richard Whittington (1354-1423), a regular subject of pantomimes in London during the Christmas season:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Whittington#Dick_Wittington_-_Pantomime_character

Why no movies about Dick Whittington, who is surely a better role model than RH?

“Also, I think we should ban Guy Fawkes Night.”

C’mon. Guy Fawkes (1570-1606) was a true-life terrorist caught setting up gunpowder charges to blow up the Houses of Parliament at the state opening in November 1605. Guy Fawkes night is a celebration of uncovering the conspiracy and the capture of the conspirators. Recent estimates, based on the amount of gunpowder, show the consequences of the plot would have been devastating:

“Guy Fawkes could have changed the face of London if his 1605 plot had not been foiled, explosion experts have said. His 2,500 kg of gunpowder could have caused chaos and devastation over a 490-metre radius, they have calculated. Fawkes’ planned blast was powerful enough to destroy Westminster Hall and the Abbey, with streets as far as Whitehall suffering damage, they say.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3240135.stm

Guy Fawkes and his fellow conspirators were hanged, drawn and quartered, the prescribed lawful punishment for high treason at the time and which wasn’t abolished until 1790. Guy Fawkes and his fellow conspirators, who were executed at various sites around London, were by no means the last victims of this appallingly cruel means of public execution:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanged,_drawn_and_quartered

We can only speculate about the official motives for introducing this savage sentence for high treason but our ancestors were evidently wiser than is commonly supposed. If hanging was a regular judicial sentence for a wide range of crimes on conviction, such as petty theft as well as rape, robbery and murder, it was presumably appreciated that some extra refinement of deterrence was essential for especially heinous crimes, such as treason. We have an old saying relating back to those times which illustrates the perverse incentive effect: “Might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb.”

My favourite, documented story relating to hanging, drawing and quartering:

In 1447 five men had already been hanged, cut down while still alive and stripped ready for quartering when their Royal pardon arrived but the hangman refused to return their clothes – a legitimate perk of his job – so they were obliged to walk home naked.
[source: entry for Tyburn in: Weinreb and Hibbert (eds): The London Encyclopaedia (1993)]

Which only shows how ancient is the tradition of custom and practice in British trade unionism.

#46: “the British are a bunch of nationalist wankers who are willing to overlook almost any sin for a guy who is willing to stick it to the French”

I know of no source linking RH legends with the wars in France. More to the point, RH legends link him with lingering popular resentment against Norman rule in the north of England and associated insurgency there for well established historic reasons:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrying_of_the_North

By many accounts, the Bennington Riflemen were more substantive and substantiated than Robin Hood and his merry men. I know of no special reason that might account for the emergence of RH ballads in the 18th century unless it be a sign of social unrest in the north of England at the time, most likely due to a run of bad harvests – at any rate, that is what I’m inclined to guess and would be inclined to research.

Many years ago, wandering around the graveyard of the Church in Howarth, Yorkshire, where the parson at one time had been the father of the Brontë sisters (Charlotte (1816-55), Emily (1818-48) and Anne (1820-49)), I was taken by the conspicuously (and horrifically) large number of grave stones recording the deaths of infants less than five years old.

This was a case where the Church and the village had all been well preserved because of present tourism generated by the literary fame of the sisters so this manifestation of high infant mortality c. 1800 was therefore more evident than it likely is in other, less preserved Church graveyards. Come to that, the Brontë sisters all had relatively short lives by today’s standards.

Hanging as judicial punishment in England for a wide range of offences, petty and serious, has already been mentioned in the thread. Consider this on the thesis that crime waves relate to cycles in living standards:

“Some thirty-five thousand people were condemned to death in England and Wales between 1770 and 1830, and seven thousand were ultimately executed, the majority convicted of crimes such as burglary, horse theft, or forgery. Mostly poor trades people, these terrified men and women would suffer excruciating death before large and excited crowds.”
http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/HistoryWorld/British/19thC/?view=usa&ci=9780192853325

At the first census in Britain in 1801, the population was about 10½ million.

The Robin Hood legend as we know it really emerged in the 19th c.

Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivanhoe
is responsible for locating Robin in the reign of King John and also for introducing / combining the theme of the resentment of the older Anglo-Saxon populace against the invading Normans and their laws (particularly the ban on hunting) with the bad government of King John. Fifty years ago or so virtually everyone had to read Ivanhoe in school.

Robin Hood resists bad government. That is supposed to be a bad thing?

In the end, though, he bows to “the rightful king” — i.e., the one with the mandate of heaven.

Scott was a conservative, by the way — or at least a Burkean moderate.

Not that in real life the people of Northern England didn’t have reason to complain of Norman rule. Or all Britain of the continued immiseration and famine and disease (not only in Ireland) that accompanied industrialization and land enclosure. Not to mention the onerous ban on poaching (which is why Americans who emigrated here during the 18th c. cling so passionately to their guns.) It’s not surprising that the sense of grievance about all this should have been simmering away in British folklore over the centuries.