This revised and expanded edition of Medieval Outlaws gathers twelve outlaw tales, introduced and freshly translated into Modern English by a team of specialists. Accessible and entertaining, these tales will be of interest to the general reader and student alike.
The Newbery Medal–winning author of The Hero and the Crown brings the Robin Hood legend to vivid life. Young Robin Longbow, subapprentice forester in the King’s Forest of Nottingham, must contend with the dislike of the Chief Forester, who bullies Robin in memory of his popular father. But Robin does not want to leave Nottingham or lose the title to his father’s small tenancy, because he is in love with a young lady named Marian—and keeps remembering that his mother too was gentry and married a common forester. Robin has been granted a rare holiday to go to the Nottingham Fair, where he will spend the day with his friends Much and Marian. But he is ambushed by a group of the Chief Forester’s cronies, who challenge him to an archery contest . . . and he accidentally kills one of them in self-defense. He knows his own life is forfeit. But Much and Marian convince him that perhaps his personal catastrophe is also an opportunity: an opportunity for a few stubborn Saxons to gather together in the secret heart of Sherwood Forest and strike back against the arrogance and injustice of the Norman overlords.
Reading Robin Hood explores and explains stories about the mythic outlaw - a figure who always represents the values of natural law and stands up for true justice - from the middle ages to the present. While a few books have described the outlaw myth, usually in its earlier forms, and occasional academic essays have commented on elements of the Robin Hood story, this is the first in-depth analysis of the whole sequence and the varying elements of the adventures of Robin Hood. First, it explores the medieval tradition from early poems into the long-surviving sung ballads - and also two major early developments, the Scottish version of the outlaw hero, here called Rabbie Hood, and then around 1600 the gentrified Robin, the exiled Earl of Huntington, created by socially aspirational writers and partnered by Lady Marian. Medievalism passed into memory, and early nineteenth-century Romantic authors, followed by novelists, re-imagined Robin, as strongly involved with nature, deeply in love with Marian, definitely English, not Norman or French, and representing in the time of reform the rights of the ordinary man. That fitted Robin for the modern world, but he did not stop developing. In film, he has stood up for international Western values - even those of a crusader - and the modern Marian plays a much more substantial role: here for the first time she has a chapter to herself. The multiple Robin Hood myth flourishes, continuously producing new forms for the hero's story, and new understandings of his meaning.
Eustace the Monk and Fouke Fitz Waryn belong in the great tradition of medieval outlaws, and aspects of their lives, part-fact, part-fiction, find a reflection in the life of that most famous of all outlaws, Robin Hood. Glyn Burgess puts into modern English the two vernacular romances of the thirteenth century which relate their deeds, Li Romans de Witasse le Moine and Fouke le Fitz Waryn. He presents the historical reality of their respective 'heroes', important but neglected figures: both were born around 1170; both broke with their overlords, the Count of Boulogne and King John, at around the same time; and both spent a period as outlaws, during which they toyed with their lords and exacted revenge for the injustice they suffered. Eustace was not only an outlaw and a sea captain, but a pirate and magician; he was one of the most feared men of his day. Fouke's life was dominated by his attempt to take possession of Whittington Castle in Shropshire, to which his family laid claim. Alongsidethe historical discussion of the lives of the protagonists of the two romances, Glyn Burgess reveals the multiple layers of the romances themselves: historically verifiable facts, information which cannot be proved but rings true, and a wide range of material which is manifestly imaginary, containing stock motifs also found in other romances of the period. His bringing to life of two forgotten outlaws is a fascinating context for his spirited translation of the romances themselves. -- Historical fact and literary discussion accompany translations of medieval romances based on lives of 12c outlaws.
Introduction / Lois Potter and Joshua Calhoun -- Part I: Medieval -- Origins and others -- Robin Hood: the earliest contexts / Stephen Knight -- The outlaw's song of Trailbaston, the Green man, and the facial machine / Stuart Kane -- Reynardine and Robin Hood: echoes of an outlaw legend in folk balladry / Stephen D. Winick -- Picturing Robin Hood in early print and performance: 1500-1590 / John Marshall -- Image and society -- "Merry" and "Greenwood": a history of some meanings / Helen Phillips -- The late medieval Robin Hood: good yeomanry and bad performances / Kimberly A. Thompson -- "From the Castle Hill they came with violence": the Edinburgh Robin Hood riots of 1561 / Michael Wheare -- Part II: Post medieval -- Image and word -- The work of Robin Hood art in an age of mechanical reproduction / Henry Griffy -- Robin Hood's home away from home: Howard Pyle and his art students / Jill May -- Word and image -- "There was something about that spoke of other things than rags and tatters": Howard Pyle and the language of Robin Hood / Alan T. Gaylord -- The play's the thing: Tom Sawyer re-enacts Robin Hood / Patricia Lee Yongue -- "A song of freedom": Geoffrey Trease's Bows against the barons / Michael R. Evans -- Picturing Marian: illustrations of Maid Marian in juvenile fiction / Sherron Lux -- Image and performance -- Male cross-dressing in Kabuki: Benten the thief / Yoshiko Uéno -- Figures of "Robin Hood" in the Chinese cultural imaginary / Jianguo Chen -- The images of Robin Hood and Don Juan in George Bernard Shaw's Man and superman / Judy B. McInnis -- To steal from the rich and give to the poor: Reginald de Koven's Robin Hood / Orly Leah Krasner -- Recovering Reginald de Koven's and Harry Bache Smith's "Lost" operetta Maid Marian / Lorraine Kochanske Stock.
Liverpool’s contribution to the modern construction of the middle ages is here recognized for the first time. From the eighteenth century to the twenty-first, scholars from Merseyside have made pioneering advances in fields as diverse as Celtic philology and manuscript collecting, each in their own way contributing to our steadily deepening understanding of the real middle ages, and to the widening use to which images of the middle ages have been put. Merseyside presents in microcosm the different building blocks of the modern middle ages. In addition to its local focus, this book therefore also examines some of the most significant aspects of the modern study of the middle ages in the round. It offers fresh perspectives, from leading experts in their fields, on medieval Celtic languages, on English poetic literature, on heroes, on pageantry, on mystery plays, and on the effect of nationalist perspectives on the writing of medieval history. Tracing the burgeoning appreciation, in Merseyside and beyond, of the period in which the city was founded, this collection of essays is a fitting commemoration of Liverpool’s octocentenary.
From Errol Flynn to Kevin Costner to Daffy Duck, the bandit of Sherwood Forest has gone through a variety of incarnations on the way to becoming a cinematic staple. The historic Robin Hood--actually an amalgam of several outlaws of medieval England--was continually transformed by oral tradition to become the romantic and deadly archer-swordsman who robbed from the rich to give to the poor. This image was reinforced by popular literature, song and, in the 20th century, cinema. This volume provides in-depth information on each film based on the immortal hero. In addition, other historical figures such as Scottish rebel-outlaws Rob Roy MacGregor and William Wallace are examined. Nollen also explores nontraditional representations of the legend, such as Frank Sinatra's Robin and the Seven Hoods and Westerns featuring the Robin Hood motif. A filmography is provided, including production information, and the text is highlighted by rare photographs, advertisements, and illustrations.
Before the 1760s -- with the major exception of Chaucer -- nearly all of Middle English literature lay undiscovered and ignored. Because established scholars regarded later medieval literature as primitive and barbaric, the study of this rich literary heritage was relegated to antiquarians and dilettantes. In The Making of Middle English, 1765-1910, David Matthews chronicles the gradual rediscovery of this literature and the formation of Middle English as a scholarly pursuit. Matthews details how the careers, class positions, and ambitions of only a few men gave shape and direction to the discipline. Mostly from the lower middle class, they worked in the church or in law and hoped to exploit medieval literature for financial success and social advancement. Where Middle English was concerned, Matthews notes, these scholars were self-taught, and their amateurism came at the price of inaccurately edited and often deliberately "improved" texts intended for a general public that sought appealing, rather than authentic, reading material. This study emphasizes the material history of the discipline, examining individual books and analyzing introductions, notes, glossaries, promotional materials, lists of subscribers, and owners' annotations to assess the changing methodological approaches of the scholars and the shifts in readership. Matthews explores the influence of aristocratic patronage and the societies formed to further the editing and publication of texts. And he examines the ideological uses of Middle English and the often contentious debates between these scholars and organizations about the definition of Englishness itself. A thorough work of scholarship, The Making of MiddleEnglish presents for the first time a detailed account of the formative phase of Middle English studies and provides new perspectives on the emergence of medieval studies, canon formation, the politics of editing, and the history of the book.
By reading two bodies of literature not normally read together - the outlaw literature and espionage literature - Conor McCarthy shows how these genres represent and critique the longstanding use of legal exclusion as a means of supporting state power. Texts discussed range from the medieval Robin Hood ballads, Shakespeare's history plays, and versions of the Ned Kelly story to contemporary writing by John le Carre, Don DeLillo, Ciaran Carson and William Gibson.
With some notable exceptions, the subject of outlawry in medieval and early-modern English history has attracted relatively little scholarly attention. This volume helps to address this significant gap in scholarship, and encourage further study of the subject, by presenting a series of new studies, based on original research, that address significant features of outlawry and criminality over an extensive period of time. The volume casts important light on, and raises provocative questions about, the definition, ambiguity, variety, causes, function, adaptability, impact and representation of outlawry during this period. It also helps to illuminate social and governmental attitudes and responses to outlawry and criminality, which involved the interests of both church and state. From different perspectives, the contributions to the volume address the complex relationships between outlaws, the societies in which they lived, the law and secular and ecclesiastical authorities, and, in doing so, reveal much about the strengths and limitations of the developing state in England. In terms of its breadth and the compelling interest of its subject matter, the volume will appeal to a wide audience of social, legal, political and cultural historians.