In the late 1590s Anthony Munday wrote a pair of Robin Hood plays which popularized the concept of Robin Hood as a disgraced or fallen noble in place of his traditional background as an outlawed yeoman. Robin's Gentrification and The Restoration According to a handful of tales his first love interest was the shepherdess Clorinda, who is said in some later tales to have been Marian in disguise.Īfter becoming an outlaw Robin gathered his Merry Men including Little John, Will Scarlet, Will Stutely, Much the Miller's Son, Friar Tuck, Alan a Dale, the bride, George a Greene, Wat O' the Crabstaff, Arthur a Bland, Gilbert with the White Hand, David of Doncaster and sometimes Maid Marian.

In Elizabethan times Robin was being written as having been born the son of nobility but in the original stories he was a yeoman who had become an outlaw forester leading his band of Merry Men in Barnsdale, later Sherwood, Forest. The earliest surviving ballad is a fragmented copy of Robin Hood and the Monk dating from about 1450. It is unknown if the ballads or the May Day Fair plays and games featuring Robin came first, though as time went on each clearly referenced stories told in the other medium. The earliest surviving clear mention of 'the rhymes of Robin Hood' is from the 1370s and paints him as an already established and well known piece of folklore. Robin's cousin the Prioress of Kirklees was the foe that put an end to his life. Robin's opponents are the Sheriff of Nottingham, Guy of Gisbourne, the Bishop of Hereford, the King's brother Prince John was added to his stable of repeating villains in the late 16th century. Later Robin Hood's story was transported to a different period of English history to make the folk hero a supporter of King Richard The Lionheart who was declared an outlaw while the king was away fighting in the Third Crusade. In the early ballad A Gest of Robyn Hode Robin is said to have gained a pardon from King Edward. Robin and his group of outlaws known as the Merry Men lived in and operated out of Sherwood Forest. The central figure in the folk-lore Robin Hood is an outlaw and excellent archer known for stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. 3.1 Robin's Gentrification and The Restoration.

Tales of Robin Hood by Tony Allan