Gest of Robyn Hode

Author: Traditional

Time Period: 1001 CE–1500 CE

Country or Culture: England

Genre: Folktale

Overview

Of all antique heroes, Robin Hood is arguably the most popular today. Since its inception in the late Middle Ages, the story of the good outlaw who robs the wealthy to benefit the poor has been retold extensively in ballads, short stories, plays, and dozens of films and television shows. The oldest surviving long version of the story, A Gest of Robyn Hode, offers an intriguing snapshot of the early tradition and the hero’s cultural significance. Dating back to about the mid-fifteenth century, the Gest (which means “adventure”) was first printed in the early sixteenth century and was later collected by the nineteenth-century American scholar and folklorist Francis James Child in his five-volume English and Scottish Popular Ballads (1882–98).

The Gest is divided into eight fits, or sections, but the plot consists of three main parts with interlaced events: Robin Hood’s adventures with the knight, with the Sheriff of Nottingham, and with the king. When Robin first sends his men to find a victim to rob, they produce a humble knight who, after borrowing money to save his son’s life, is indebted to a loan-sharking abbot. Robin lends him money and other goods, enabling the knight to save his lands. Robin’s companion Little John then assumes an alias and enters the service of the corrupt Sheriff of Nottingham. After fighting the sheriff’s butler and cook, Little John steals the sheriff’s silver and money and return to Robin. They then proceed to capture the sheriff and exact a promise of peace from him. Next, Robin robs two wealthy monks and considers the money repayment from the faithful knight, whom Robin eventually releases from his debt and even rewards with more money.

Meanwhile, Robin wins a shooting contest arranged by the sheriff, who then attacks the outlaw band, but they escape to the humble knight’s castle. The sheriff appeals to the king and imprisons the knight in Nottingham after Robin and company return to the woods. The king arrives, disguises himself as an abbot, and is captured by Robin in the forest. After the king wins an archery contest, the band recognizes him, and Robin agrees to serve him at court. Yet Robin eventually returns to the forest, where he lives happily with his outlaw band for twenty-two more years before he is killed treacherously by his kinswomen and a knight named Sir Roger.

The figure of Robin Hood in the Gest is quite different from modern portrayals of the hero, and the meaning of his identity as an outlaw and his antiauthoritarianism are particularly intriguing in this medieval version. Often linked to the aristocracy in later renditions, Robin Hood in the Gest is of much lower station as a yeoman, or farmer, but the story is ambiguous about the meaning of his hostility toward authority figures. Some readers have insisted that the Gest, with its remarkable kindness toward the knight, is in fact relatively conservative, while others have aligned it with the radical sentiments underlying the English Peasants’ Revolt of 1381. A thematic interpretation of antiauthoritarianism explores the meaning and extent of the hero’s rebellion in the story and in the broad context of the medieval culture that produced the poem. Such an interpretation helps to identify the story’s likely audience and its important differences from more recent creations in the Robin Hood tradition.

Summary

The poem sets up the first adventure by introducing the good yeoman Robin and his companions Little John, William Scarlock, and Much the miller’s son, who dwell in a forest in Barnesdale. When Little John suggests that Robin should dine, Robin replies that they have not yet found a suitable “guest” to rob to pay for the dinner, so Little John asks Robin to advise him on the matter. Robin sends his men out to find a suitable victim, instructing them not to harm ploughmen, good yeomen, or knights or squires “that wol be a gode felawe” (“that would be a good fellow”; 57, st. 14), but they should target these types if necessary and should seek other members of the gentry, such as earls and barons, higher clergymen such as bishops and archbishops, and the Sheriff of Nottingham. The three men head off and return to Robin with a sorry-looking knight who dines with them readily but turns out to possess only ten shillings. The knight reports that after his son murdered a knight and squire, he mortgaged his property to save his son’s life and now owes four hundred pounds to Saint Mary’s Abbey, effectively the knight’s loan shark. Robin lends the money to the knight on the security of a pledge to the Virgin Mary, to whom Robin himself is especially devoted. He outfits the knight with new clothes and a horse and sends him back to settle the debt with the abbey, with Little John as his attendant.

“‘Therof no force,’ than sayde Robyn; / ‘We shall do well inowe; / But loke ye do no husbonde harme, / That tilleth with his ploughe. // ‘No more ye shall no gode yeman / That walketh by grenë-wode shawe / Ne no knyght ne no squyer / That wol be a gode felawe. // ‘These bisshoppes and these archebishoppes, / Ye shall them bete and bynde; The hyë sheriff of Notyingham, / Hym holde ye in your mynde.’”

The abbot of Saint Mary’s and the high justice are eager to seize the knight’s lands, but the prior of the abbey argues against this corruption and urges them to wait for the knight. When the knight arrives, he first asks for more time to pay, but the abbot and justice instead offer money for his land. The knight then produces the four hundred pounds and happily returns to his wife, planning to recover the money to repay Robin. He sets out to return to Robin with one hundred men, for whom he has bought bows and arrows, but he is delayed by a wrestling match, where he defends a yeoman who has won but is being denied his victory. Then, Little John’s shooting prowess attracts the attention of the Sheriff of Nottingham. With the knight’s permission, Little John enters the sheriff’s service and assumes the alias Reynald Greenleaf. Little Jon and the sheriff’s cook fight after the cook refuses to give Little John food and drink, but the two soon reconcile, steal the sheriff’s silver and three hundred pounds, and return to Robin Hood. Little John next lures the sheriff to the forest with promises of plentiful deer to hunt. The outlaws then capture the sheriff and dine with him using his silver. Robin tells the sheriff he must stay for a year to learn to be an outlaw but finally agrees to release him on an oath that he will not harm Robin or his men.

Wondering why the knight has not returned, Robin is reassured by Little John of the man’s upstanding character. Robin sends his three comrades out for another victim, and they find two wealthy monks from Saint Mary’s accompanied by fifty-two men, who flee after the outlaws insist they join them for dinner with Robin himself. Upon questioning, one of the monks swears that he has only twenty marks, but Little John discovers that he actually has over eight hundred pounds. Robin praises Saint Mary for effectively repaying the knight’s loan, but then the knight finally returns. Robin informs him that Mary has already repaid the loan, so the knight gives him his bows and arrows, and Robin gives him another four hundred pounds that remained from the robbery of the monks.

Intent on revenge, the sheriff holds an archery contest, which Robin and his entire band attend. When Robin wins the gold and silver arrows, the sheriff tries to capture him, prompting a battle between the outlaws and the sheriff’s men. When Little John is wounded, he begs Robin to kill him so that the sheriff will not take him prisoner. Instead, Robin and company carry Little John on their horses, and they all fight and eventually escape to the castle of the knight, now identified as Sir Richard at the Lee. The sheriff and his men attack the castle, declare the knight a traitor, and finally seek the assistance of the king, who promises to come and capture both Robin Hood and the knight. Robin Hood and his men eventually return to the forest, and the sheriff captures the knight and imprisons him at Nottingham. The knight’s wife informs Robin of the trap, so the outlaws go to Nottingham, and Robin himself kills the sheriff. Robin frees the knight, and they all return to the forest to await the king’s arrival.

When the king arrives in Nottingham, he seizes the knight’s lands and promises them to whoever beheads the knight. An old knight advises the king that as long as Robin Hood prevails, no one will capture Sir Richard. After six months of dwelling in Nottingham, Robin hunts all of the king’s deer, and the king disguises himself as an abbot and five of his men as monks. A forester leads them into the woods, where Robin promptly captures the men. The king swears truthfully that he has only forty pounds. Robin gives half to his men and returns the rest to the king, who urges Robin and his men to come to Nottingham. Robin declares allegiance to the king, who is struck by the extraordinarily loyalty of Robin’s men to their leader. They have an archery contest, which Robin narrowly loses. He receives the customary buffet, or blow, from the king, whose true identity the men finally perceive. Robin and his men all agree to serve the king at court, but Robin stipulates that he will leave if he dislikes court life. The king assumes a green livery and returns the knight’s lands at Nottingham, where a feast is held. Robin serves the king for one year and three months but finds court life expensive and dull, so he obtains the king’s permission to visit the chapel of Mary Magdalene in Barnesdale for seven days. The story concludes as Robin returns to the forest to hunt deer and rule with his loyal band of outlaws. He never returns to court but lives happily for twenty-two years in the forest until he is murdered by the prioress of Kyrkesly, his kinswoman, and a knight named Sir Roger. The poem concludes by praising Robin as “a good outlawe” who “dyde pore men moch god” (“did poor men much good”; 78, st. 456).

Bibliography

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