Robin Hood - The Man, The Myth, and The History - Part 1: Of Tales and Legends
There is perhaps no other literary character from Medieval Europe so readily and widely recognized the world over than the notorious forest outlaw of Robin Hood. The stories of his adventures – and those of his band of “Merry Men” – have been adapted to nearly every form of artistic media from the 14th Century to the present day. In each specific era, the tales of the “Hooded Man” retain the core elements of the medieval myth.
But in each era they are also adapted to the tastes of that era. This has resulted in a wildly varied genre: in modern times alone, we have all manner of adaptation from Errol Flynn’s swashbuckling hero from the Golden Age of cinema, to Walt Disney’s beloved and dashing anthropomorphic fox, to the grittier (and factually uneven) attempts at a more “historical” outlaw like that seen in Ridley Scott’s vision. However, the core character – that of a forest outlaw, masterfully adept with a longbow, terrorizing the upper classes in defense of the medieval English commoner – remains virtually unchanged since the first Robin Hood ballads came to be.
This series will seek to delve into the history behind the legends and to investigate the critical questions that they raise: who was the real Robin Hood? Did he even exist? And what can these stories we know so well today tell us about the real-world society that spawned them.
https://www.medievalists.net/2020/08/robin-hood-man-myth-history-1/