The Real Robin Hood
The Real Robin Hood
By Jeremy Hendricks
Robin Hood is England's most famous outlaw, who robbed from the rich to give to the poor. In Robin Hood's long history, his story has appeared in many forms, from verse to film. His path to outlawry, friends and enemies has been just as diverse. I will first describe the parts of the Robin Hood legend that have remained constant throughout his entire 800 or more year history.
Robin Hood was a Saxon noble, living near the castle of Nottingham. By various means he was forced into a life of banditry, using his cunning and skill-at-arms to relieve bishops, nobles, and servants of the king of gold and jewels levied from the oppressed peasants. Robin collected a band of supporters, his "Merry Men" around him, dressed in green.
This small Cistercian priory of Kirklees was founded in 1155AD during the reign of Henry II by Reiner le Fleming, lord of the manor of Wath-upon-Dearne. Apart from some scandal regarding the three nuns, Alice Raggid, Elizabeth Hopton, and Joan Heton between the years 1306 to 1315 life will have been fairly uneventful until the Black Death, when among those who died of the plague were Robert Hood of Wakefield, his next-door neighbour and attorney Thomas Alayn, also William of Goldsborough and others. They were buried in the cemetery of the priory where the Prioress layed "a very fayre stone" with all their names The original slab is almost completely gone, all that remains is what you can see in the centre with another stone place on top] In 1665 the stone is recorded and sketched by Dr. Nathaniel Johnston and is recorded again by Thoresby c.1715AD.
Then in 1850 Sir George Armytage II placed a headstone with a date 1247 and an epitaph that reads: “Hear undernead dis laitl stean laiz Robert earl of Huntingtun near arcir ber az hei sa geud an pipl kauld im robin heud sick utlawz az hi an iz men vil england nibr si agen obiit 24 kal dekembris 1247" which when translated into modern English reads: "Robert
By Jeremy Hendricks
Robin Hood is England's most famous outlaw, who robbed from the rich to give to the poor. In Robin Hood's long history, his story has appeared in many forms, from verse to film. His path to outlawry, friends and enemies has been just as diverse. I will first describe the parts of the Robin Hood legend that have remained constant throughout his entire 800 or more year history.
Robin Hood was a Saxon noble, living near the castle of Nottingham. By various means he was forced into a life of banditry, using his cunning and skill-at-arms to relieve bishops, nobles, and servants of the king of gold and jewels levied from the oppressed peasants. Robin collected a band of supporters, his "Merry Men" around him, dressed in green.
This small Cistercian priory of Kirklees was founded in 1155AD during the reign of Henry II by Reiner le Fleming, lord of the manor of Wath-upon-Dearne. Apart from some scandal regarding the three nuns, Alice Raggid, Elizabeth Hopton, and Joan Heton between the years 1306 to 1315 life will have been fairly uneventful until the Black Death, when among those who died of the plague were Robert Hood of Wakefield, his next-door neighbour and attorney Thomas Alayn, also William of Goldsborough and others. They were buried in the cemetery of the priory where the Prioress layed "a very fayre stone" with all their names The original slab is almost completely gone, all that remains is what you can see in the centre with another stone place on top] In 1665 the stone is recorded and sketched by Dr. Nathaniel Johnston and is recorded again by Thoresby c.1715AD.
Then in 1850 Sir George Armytage II placed a headstone with a date 1247 and an epitaph that reads: “Hear undernead dis laitl stean laiz Robert earl of Huntingtun near arcir ber az hei sa geud an pipl kauld im robin heud sick utlawz az hi an iz men vil england nibr si agen obiit 24 kal dekembris 1247" which when translated into modern English reads: "Robert