FT259

In the heart of Yorkshire lies a grave different from any other in England. Guarded by heavy iron bars in the grounds of a private residence in the old parish of Dewsbury and hidden within the shadows of ancient woodland, it stands forlorn and dilapidated after centuries of exposure to the elements.

According to 18th-century folklore, the slab that covered the grave, already severely damaged by that time, poss­essed magical powers; passers-by would take away pieces of the stone as a cure for ailments, depleting what remained of the outer shell. While the site itself might be of interest to the archæologist, for the historian the grave presents a different challenge. The flat stone slab is decorated with a long cross ending with a stepped base, as used in the Middle Ages to represent Christ’s death on Calvary, and flanked by a vague inscription that has long ceased to exist. In its place now stands an 18th-century tombstone marked with a curious epitaph commem­orating the life of the man whose remains are said to be interred below. Although the inscription is written in an unrecognisable form of archaic English, the message is clear. In modern English it reads:

Here underneath this little stone
Lies Robert, Earl of Huntingdon
No archer as he was so good
And people called him Robin Hood
Such outlaws as he and his men
England will never see again.
               Died 24 December 1247

Traditionally, the legendary outlaw Robin Hood met his end in the gatehouse of Kirklees Priory after he was bled to death by an evil prioress and her forbidden lover, Roger of Doncaster, while receiving medical attention at the priory. Some versions of the legend tell that with his last act Robin shot an arrow through the gatehouse window, and with his dying wish was buried where the arrow fell. The death scene is among the oldest of the Robin Hood legends and is recorded in two of the earliest surviving accounts of the outlaw, namely the ballads Robin Hood’s Death, and A Gest of Robyn Hode. Its credibility is enhanced by the location of the grave some 600 metres from the old gatehouse, albeit out of range for a dying archer, and its existence was even noted by several antiquarians during the 16th and 17th centuries. Yet despite the site being famed as Robin Hood’s final resting place, questions regarding whether the outlaw even existed continue to persist. And with each passing century, the gulf between history and legend continues to grow.


THE ROBIN HOOD LEGEND
We all know the story. During the reign of Richard I, Robin Hood is famously outlawed, usually for poaching deer or for opposing the rule of Prince John, while the true king, Richard the Lionheart (Cœur de Lion), is away fighting in the Crusades. In England, Prince John, the king’s younger brother, seeks to capitalise on Richard’s absence and begins to augment his power, resulting in merciless treatment of Richard’s subjects, notably the Saxons. With this, Robin Hood, sometimes described as the Earl of Huntingdon or Sir Robert of Locksley, becomes involved in a hostile feud with the prince and his followers, particularly the tyrannical Sheriff of Nottingham. Now a wanted man, Robin is forced to seek refuge in Sherwood Forest where he encounters a group of outlaws, with whom he fights before being welcomed into their company. Here the outlaws live merrily on the king’s deer while stealing the wealth of passing Norman noblemen and redistributing the money into the pockets of the poor. United in their hatred for the prince and the sheriff, Robin moulds the group into a band of formidable fighters, referred to as his Merry Men, and leads them in rebellion against the prince. In some versions of the story, the outlaws assist King Richard in reclaiming the throne, whereas in others they also play an active role in raising the ransom of 150,000 marks for his release while he is being held captive in Austria, before his triumphant return to England. With Prince John defeated, Richard restores the rights and liberties of the common man, and, of course, Robin wins the hand of Maid Marian.

Although the story is well known, the way in which the outlaw is portrayed continues to vary considerably, usually according to the actors who play him. Errol Flynn famously starred as a wronged Saxon nobleman in opposition to Prince John; Richard Todd portrayed an Earl of Huntingdon disinherited following the death of his father; Kevin Costner’s Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves followed the Robin of Locksley legend, only now with an American accent, but began a new trend of Robin having fought in the Crusades. The recent television series starring Jonas Armstrong continued the returning crus­ader theme, only this time with Robin as a member of the King’s Guard.

Yet some things never change. In every modern version of the story, Robin represents the epitome of courage. He is the finest of archers; he steals from the wealthy but, unlike a typical outlaw, distributes the money far and wide; he is violent, but only to those who oppose his values; he is a great leader, a formidable warrior, and an instigator of a peasant revolt, but his loyalty to the true king remains unquestioned throughout.

While the Robin Hood familiar to modern-day audiences is portrayed in cinema and other media as a gallant Saxon nobleman dressed in Lincoln green, robbing from the rich to aid the poor and capable of bringing down the Norman authority with little more than a flick of the wrists and a cheeky smile, historians have continuously failed to find any reasonable proof that this heroic outlaw ever existed. To the sceptical, this is hardly surprising. If the antics of Fairbanks, Flynn and company are to be believed, Robin was a flamboyant mediæval superman, capable of winning archery tournaments by splitting the arrow of an opponent with his final shot, swinging effortlessly through the trees like Tarzan and winning swordfights against highly skilled Normans while tap dancing down a spiral staircase. Yet this has not dissuaded some optimists from continuing to defy the historians in their bids to authenticate the legend. And many of them have been unwilling to let little things like a lack of evidence get in the way.

So what is the truth about the legendary outlaw? Should we believe the words of the historians who have studied the evidence for several years, or the optimists? Is it truly feasible that an outlaw named Robin Hood really existed during the reign of Richard the Lionheart, evading the clutches of the Sheriff of Nottingham while terrorising wealthy noblemen with his band of Merry Men, giving the proceeds of his thievery to the poor, and choosing, willingly, to endure the cold wet nights of Sherwood Forest? Could this man really have existed? The answer, most definitively, is no. But there are other possibilities…


ROBIN OF THE BALLADS
Modern popular culture might portray Robin Hood as an outlawed nobleman, usually a disinherited Earl of Huntingdon or a Saxon knight, but this wasn’t always the case. In the earliest versions of the Robin Hood story, the outlaw is described spec­ifically as a yeoman, a term with several variations, all of which denote a person of common status, lower than a squire, yet higher than a page. Nor is Robin Hood described as a Saxon. In fact, if we go by the early tales alone, he was not an enemy of Prince John, an ally of Richard I, or even recorded as living during that period of history.

When considering the origin of the Robin Hood legend, nothing is more important than the ballads. In total, 38 of these exist, generally dated between the 15th and 18th centuries, each providing an entertaining insight into the activities of the outlaw.

While the later ballads are products of popular culture, the events of the earliest five may hold important clues to any poss­ible identity for Robin Hood. The ballad A Gest of Robyn Hode in particular provides a reasonable overview of his life as an outlaw. The Gest is perhaps the earliest of the surviving ballads, dated sometime between 1400–1520, around the same time as the ballads of Robin Hood and the Monk, Robin Hood and the Potter, Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne and Robin Hood’s Death.

The early ballads each paint a similar picture. Robin Hood is an outlaw of yeoman status who is active in both Sherwood Forest and Barnsdale Forest in Yorkshire. He already has the company of his Merry Men, including Little John, Will Scarlock and Much the Miller’s son, but there is no sign of Friar Tuck or Maid Marian. A rivalry with the Sheriff of Notting­ham is obvious from the start, yet with no indication why Robin was outlawed. Robin Hood is already cele­brated as a formidable opponent, the most outstanding of archers, a fair leader and although he does not specifically ‘rob from the rich to give to the poor’, the Gest in particular illustrates his tendency to separate the corrupt from the honest when it comes to stealing their money and his generosity in helping those in need.

Similarities between the Robin Hood of legend and the yeoman outlaw of the ballads clearly exist, but a time period for the original outlaw is unfortunately not given. In the ballad of Robin Hood and the Monk, Little John cleverly outsmarts the king with false papers when attempting to free Robin from jail, yet the king on this occasion is unnamed. A king, however, is named in the Gest: not Richard the Lionheart, but an Edward.

To accept that the king of the Robin Hood saga was an Edward has two notable effects on the legend. Firstly, it removes the absurd idea that Robin Hood was an ally of Richard I. In total, Richard spent less than eight months of his 10-year reign (1189–1199) in England, choosing instead to embark on the unsuccessful Third Crusade of the 1190s and defending the Duchy of Normandy. Richard’s comm­itment to England in his earlier life is equally dubious. When still a prince, he is recorded as having rebelled against his father, Henry II, and even joined Philip II of France in waging war against England.

Secondly, it means if there was a histori­cal Robin Hood, he must have lived during the reign of an Edward. There are three likely candidates here. The reign of Edward I lasted from 1272 until his death in 1307. His son Edward II succeeded him and ruled for 20 years before being murdered by his wife Isabella and her lover Roger Mortimer, and subsequently replaced by his son, Edward III, who ruled until 1377. While each is possible, the identity of the king in question can be narrowed down further. The early ballads would not have been in print until the early 15th century, but by 1354 there is clear indication that the legend was already well known: when a man was arrested in Rockingham Forest for poaching and trespassing, he answered with quick wit that he was Robin Hood. Although doing little in terms of identifying the legendary figure, it does at least demonstrate that a legend was already in place by the reign of Edward III.

In the Gest, the king personally travels to Nottingham in a bid to capture Robin Hood. Potentially, any of the Edwards could have done this. Edward I was known to have passed by Nottingham in 1300; Edward II is recorded as being present twice, first in 1323 and then again in 1324, while Edward III was in Nottingham in 1330 when preparing to kidnap his mother and Mortimer. The personality of the king, as recorded in the Gest, might also provide a clue: here, disguised as an abbot, he feasts with the Merry Men and is entertained by their archery. Enjoying the company of a band of yeomen outlaws might seem a strange royal personality trait – yet it is curiously in keeping with the character of one King of England who was known to favour the lower classes throughout his reign. This same king has the most likely connection to Nottingham. All signs point to Edward II.

While the personality of the king can be used to provide insight into the identity of the Edward in question, the personalities of the outlaws do the same. While the Robin Hood portrayed in films is a selfless freedom fighter willing to overthrow unjust authority, the Robin Hood of the ballads is less ready to take up the sword. Despite clear understanding of military proced­ure, in keeping with that of a soldier, and being a strong and fearless swordsman, Robin’s devotion lies not with the freedoms of the peasant class or to his monarch, but with his faith. The yeoman outlaw is a committed Christian with particular reverence for the Virgin Mary. Further, he honours his religion with strict dedication to chastity, poverty, and obedience.

This is strange behaviour for an outlaw; devotion of this kind seems more in keeping with the piety of a monk. Equally surprising is Robin Hood’s knowledge of banking, illustrated in the Gest when, from his own resources, he gives a poor knight a loan to recover his debts. What these monk-like warriors had done to end up living on the margins of society is not explained in the ballads. But a possible answer might be found in the legacy of another famous band of outlaws.


TEMPLARS IN THE GREENWOOD
Less than five months into the reign of Edward II of England, Pope Clement V issued a Papal Bull to the Christian monarchs of Europe announcing the excomm­unication of the Knights Templar (see FT193:28–30, 38–41; 231:4–5). Charged with 104 articles relating to crimes such as Devil worship and heresy, several key Templars in France were arrested on the morning of Friday, 13 October 1307, tortured, and eventually executed by Philip IV for their alleged crimes. The process continued across Europe, though the order faired much better outside of France. In England, the Papal Bull, sent out in November, was not carried out until the end of December, with arrests finally being made on 9 and 10 January 1308. All in all, the number of arrests did not exceed 153, and many of those taken were aged or infirm.

When it comes to the excommunication of the Templars, historians usually fall into two camps. On the one hand, there are those who see the paucity of arrests as undeniable proof that the order had subsided by this time and no longer possessed much significance. Indeed, the number of arrests throughout Europe is a far cry from the estimated 20,000 members of the order at its peak. Yet, for those on the other side of the fence, the lack of arrests provides a firm indication that many Templars had already escaped by the time the county sheriffs came to round them up.

Let’s consider the possibilities. An order the size of the Templars does not simply disappear. Nor do well-trained soldiers threatened with the possibility of torture and execution simply sit around waiting to be arrested. There was a significant time lag between the Templars being arrested in France and the arrests being carried out in England – and the English Templars must have known what was coming. This is where the conspiracy theories usually begin. Maybe they did all escape to some far off place, with the Holy Grail or the Ark of the Covenant among their possess­ions. More likely, they simply dispersed from their respective preceptories in small numbers to evade the authorities.

That some members escaped, whether due to their own shrewdness or the neglig­ence of the sheriffs, is evident. In York, the king actually ordered the sheriff to round up the Templars in his jurisdiction as they were wandering around flouting the law. A similar account is given in a letter to the Sheriff of Kent. Here alone, we already have firm indication that county sheriffs were failing to capture fleeing Templars, and that these newly outlawed warrior monks were roaming the country.

According to complaints made by the Pope to the Archbishop of Canterbury, some Templars were integrating into civilian society. While this could certainly be achieved with the aid of family or friends in nearby towns, the majority of the order would have had simply to make do, avoiding the inquisitors by seeking refuge in the forests. Nevertheless, this might not have been difficult. Many of the order were experienced in espionage and counter-espionage, and to the average passer-by they would have come across as simple, hooded religious men, like monks or friars – or, as described in the Gest, like Robin Hood and his men.

By the time the Templars were excomm­unicated, the forests of England were renowned as havens for outlaws; yet, with the exception of a small number, the stor­ies of these men are now lost to history. Could the pious, monk-like warriors who lived their lives in devotion to their faith – renowned for being the bravest and fiercest soldiers of their time, having a fine understanding of banking yet accepting lives of poverty – be amongst their number? Possibly – and by understanding that innocent Templar outlaws were roaming the forests of England and evading the county officials during the reign of a King Edward, history can at least recognise that while the legendary order had come to an end, the stories of some of these individuals continued to circulate. And perhaps in doing so, they themselves became legends – like the Merry Men of the Robin Hood ballads.

When it comes to finding evidence to validate the existence of these outlaws, though, the trail usually goes cold. Their deaths and unconsecrated burials went unrecorded by the registries – hardly surprising, considering they were forced to live their lives avoiding the authorities. For the fleeing Templars, there is similarly little to go on. However, some previous writers have argued that evidence of their survival can be found in the graves that supposedly hold them. The presence of crusader symbols on graves located in various cemeteries, from the Highlands of Scotland to the far reaches of Nova Scotia, has convinced some commentators that the outlawed warrior monks did indeed slip the net. While such a suggestion should never be accepted as fact without further investigation, neither should it be rejected as idle conjecture – particularly when the historians who dismiss such ideas haven’t even investigated what it is they’re dismissing.

Evidence that a grave situated in the grounds of Kirklees Priory was once decor­ated with something reminiscent of a Templar cross ending with a Calvary-stepped base, as depicted on thousands of Templar graves throughout the Middle Ages, is well documented. The original slab might long since have disappeared, but record of its existence survives in the diagrams drawn by a number of conscient­ious antiquaries and in the chronicles of those who witnessed the grave in its prime. Cert­ainly there is no Robert, Earl of Huntingdon lying ‘underneath that little stone’, but perhaps the bones of an outlawed Templar or a poor yeoman forced to flee unjust persecution still rests in peace beneath where the slab once lay.

And perhaps by understanding the story of Robin Hood an important lesson can be learned. Many famous legends stem from history that the historians of the past got wrong. By accepting that it is sometimes necessary to ignore the historian and return to original sources, we may find that the jigsaw of past events fits together more neatly. Particularly when you look in the right place.





THE LIONHEART MYTH
The idea that Robin Hood lived during the reign of Richard the Lionheart was first put forward in 1521 by the Scottish philosopher and chronicler John Major in his epic work Historia Majoris Britann­iae. Major estimated the time period as being around 1193–94, although he did not attempt to portray Robin Hood as an ally of Richard the Lionheart or opponent of Prince John.

In 1569, another chronicler, Richard Grafton, supported Major’s date estim­ate and also claimed that Robin Hood was an earl outlawed for being unable to pay his debts. Grafton’s work was taken further toward the end of the cent­ury by the playwright Anthony Munday, who portrayed Robin as Robert, Earl of Huntingdon (spelt Huntington at the time) who was disinherited of his position by Prince John. Firm acceptance of Robin Hood as the Earl of Huntingdon is provided in a ballad entitled A True Tale of Robin Hood written by Martin Parker in 1632 shortly after an overview of Robin Hood’s life was recorded in an anonymously written document called the Sloane Life stating that Robin Hood was born in 1160 in a town called Locksley.





A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE KNIGHTS TEMPLAR
The Knights Templar were a Christian religious military society established in 1118 by nine knights inspired by the vocation of protecting Christian pilgrims travell­ing the notoriously danger­ous roads leading to and from the Holy Land. Led by a French nobleman, Hugues de Payens, this humble group of committed Christ­ians was welcomed to Jerusalem by King Baldwin II, and accommodated in the palace of the king, situated on the alleged site of the former Temple of Solomon. In the early years, the order led a relatively quiet existence. However, this began to change after their mission received official sanction at the Council of Troyes in 1129. Although the members were individually poor, the new order survived on the alms and generosity of Baldwin – yet over the coming decades their influence expanded following offic­ial endorsement by Pope Innocent II. Among their privileges, the church excused them from paying taxes while also permitting them to receive their own tithes on propert­ies they owned and keep spoils of war from battles against the Saracens (Muslims). Despite the order’s humble beginning, these privileges, supple­mented by regular donations from grateful pilgrims and wealthy Christian noblemen who endorsed the order for their dedication to the protection of the Holy Land, resulted in the Templars becoming increasingly wealthy.

Although the Templar Rule forbade them from using the wealth for personal gain, the order strengthened its position by using the new fortune to build several fortifi­cations throughout Europe and the Holy Land, benefiting the Christian cause. In later years, the Templars used their wealth to build their own churches, castles, vineyards and farms throughout Europe and they event­ually began to lend money to European monarchs, earning extra money by charging deposit fees.

As their influence increased, the Templars grew in number. Dedicated Christians, initially only those of noble birth and unmarried, were granted permission to join the order and willingly consent to uphold vows of obedience, chastity, and poverty while remaining wholly devoted to the Christian cause. In time, Christians of lower status were also permitted to join. In keeping with their vows of poverty, new recruits were required to sign over their lands and possessions to the order, further adding to the Templars’ overall assets.

The Templar influence in the Holy Land reached its height in the 1170s but declined significantly after defeat by Saladin (Salah ad-Din) in the Battle of the Horns of Hattin in 1187 wiped out most of the order. Despite the subsequent loss of Jerusalem, the order maintained a presence in the Holy Land until the city of Acre was taken in 1291, the final major incident of the Crusades.

At the height of their power, the Templars owned large swathes of property across Europe and were collectively wealthier than any European monarch. Their military strength at its peak, estim­ated to be 20,000 throughout Europe, was unrivalled by any other army at the time. All were ardently committed to the Christian cause and highly trained in the arts of war. Their contributions to banking and unique architecture have had a lasting effect on European culture and, despite their controversial demise, the Templars remain famed for the piety and discipline they displayed throughout their 200-year history. For more on the Templars, see FT193:38–41.





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