The Myth Of St. Mary's Church In Nottingham

According to the ballads, Robin attended St. Mary’s church in Nottingham. Inside is a private chapel built and paid for by the city’s guildsmen among whom were knights, clerks, carpenters and drapers. Across the road is the market, and in King John’s day, the price of wool in Nottingham set the price of wool for the whole of England, such was its importance. Merchants travelled from far and wide to trade there despite the danger from Gisborne’s 1,500 men, and Sir Walter Tailboys, who in partnership with his brother-in-law Sir Geoffrey Luttrell ambushed wool merchants travelling to the coast. The sheriff’s men were everywhere and William de Trent, who featured in the ballad ‘Robin Hood and Guy of Gisbourne’ lived at Gunthorpe where a crossing existed over the River Trent, enabling him, and therefore the sheriff to know who was active in the forest.
It was safer to work from home instead of travelling from market to market through forest glades and dells and this might explain Maid Marian's absence from the early ballads.

In the ballad of Robin’s death, we read of an old woman kneeling on a plank over black water dying cloth with woad that blackened both skin and water. Such was its vile stench Queen Elizabeth I., made a decree preventing woad dyers practising their trade within five miles of wherever she was staying. Burberry, cranberry, mulberry and blueberry shrubs contain the yellow dye called arbutin. Adding arbutin to the blue produced Lincoln Green cloth. It also makes the skin lighter and it might be this that caused Gilbert's hand to turn