Robin Hood: The Early Poems, 1465-1560, Texts, Contexts, and Ideology

by Thomas H. Ohlgren, Lister M. Matheson

While references to Robin Hood began to appear as early as the thirteenth century in legal records, the earliest surviving poems did not appear in manuscripts and early printed books until the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Several fourteenth-century allusions in the works of William Langland and Geoffrey Chaucer suggest that the "rymes of Robyn Hood" were widely circulating by the 1370s, but, it is vital to note, none of these late fourteenth-century works survives. A better approach, Thomas H. Ohlgren argues, is to focus on what has actually survived rather than on what might have existed. As a result, the poems Robin Hood and the Monk and Robin Hood and the Potter, which survive in two different Cambridge manuscripts of the last third of the fifteenth century, and A Lytell Gaste of Robyn Hode, which was printed at least seven times in the sixteenth century, must receive pride of place in the canon because they have a physical reality as material artifacts--in short, they exist and provide valuable information about the places and times of their composition and dissemination.

278 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 2007

Reviews

[Kimberly · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book provides a detailed overview into the Robin Hood early manuscripts. Ohlgren has put much personal effort into studying the original poems and fragments, which are scattered across the UK, and has been able to shed new light on them. The first two chapters of the book deal with two early poems "Robin Hood and the Monk" and "Robin Hood and the Potter." Ohlgren provides detailed analysis of the poems histories, owners, and compiler/poets. He has been able to determine relatively exact dates for the writing/printing of these poems due to internal clues and individual marks and notes added to the documents. The third chapter explores some of the early printed editions of the poems, and the publishers who printed them. The final, and longest, chapter addresses the mercantile forces and references scattered throughout the poems. Guilds, rituals, and yeoman v. knightly behaviour are compared and contrasted. A dozen illustrations are included, mostly of the original manuscripts.