Akademik

(A Lytel Geste of Robin Hode)

(ca. 1450)

   A Gest of Robyn Hode is the longest medieval poem about the heroic English outlaw. It survives in five early printed books, including two from approximately 1510.However, the poem itself contains references and allusions that suggest it was composed in the middle of the 15th century. This was a period when the BALLAD emerged as a form of popular literature. Like ballads, the Gest is written in four-line stanzas with an abcb rhyme scheme. It also includes many phrases like “Lyth and lystyn, gentilmen, / All that nowe be here” that give the illusion of oral performance. The Gest, however, is much longer and more complex than most ballads, making it a difficult work to categorize.

   The structure of the Gest suggests that the poem may have been created by combining several shorter poems about ROBIN HOOD into a more complex narrative. The printed texts are divided into eight sections called fitts and most of these correspond to shifts in action in the narrative itself. In the first fitt, Robin sends a party of his men out of Barnesdale forest to look for traffic on Watling Street. They encounter an impoverished knight and bring him home to Robin, who promptly loans him the money to pay off his debt to the abbot of St. Mary’s Abbey. In the second fitt, the knight goes to the abbot, pays his debt, and then goes home for a year to raise the funds to repay Robin. His return to Barnesdale, however, is delayed when he stops at a wrestling match to sort out an injustice. The third fitt turns to Little John, who, under the name Reynolde Grenelefe, has won a shooting contest and impressed the Sheriff of Nottingham and joined his retinue. One day on a hunting expedition in Barnsdale, John promises to lead the Sheriff to “a right fayre harte, / His coloure is of grene.”This marvelous deer turns out to be Robin Hood and the Sheriff is relieved of his property, forced to spend a night sleeping in the forest, and then sent home humiliated. Fitt four returns to the story of the knight, who fails to turn up at the appointed time to repay his loan. Discouraged, Robin sends his men out to search the countryside. They return with a party of monks from St. Mary’s Abbey, whom they relieve of 800 pounds.When the tardy knight arrives, Robin tells him that his debt has been paid and gives him an extra 400 pounds as well.

   A new plot thread begins in the fifth fitt when Robin and his men enter an archery contest in Nottingham, where they are ambushed by the Sheriff. Robin escapes and takes refuge at the castle of the knight, now identified as Sir Richard at the Lea, whom he had helped. The Sheriff complains to the king in the sixth fitt and Edward promises to come deal with Robin Hood and Sir Richard himself. Meanwhile, Robin and his men return to the forest, but the Sheriff manages to surprise and capture Sir Richard. Alerted by the knight’s wife, Robin and his men ride to Nottingham, kill the Sheriff, and rescue Sir Richard. At the same time, King Edward arrives and begins to search the county for Robin Hood and Sir Richard.When a straightforward military approach fails, the king disguises himself as an abbot and rides through the forest with a party of knights disguised as monks. When Robin Hood waylays the group, the king is impressed with his loyalty, generosity, and sense of justice.Revealing his true identity to the outlaws, Edward grants them pardon and invites Robin Hood to join his court. In the final fitt, Robin lives at court for 15 months but longs for the greenwood. Begging leave for a sevenday pilgrimage from Edward, he returns to Barnesdale and takes up again with his band of men. For 22 years Robin lives in the forest until he is betrayed and murdered by the prioress of Kirkley Abbey and Sir Roger of Donkesly.

   The distinct stories of tricking the Sheriff, the archery contest, the disguised king, and Robin Hood’s death do not survive in manuscripts or books contemporary with the Gest, but similar stories are recorded later, and episodes like the disguised king are widespread in medieval folklore and literature. Only the substantial involvement with the distressed knight is out of keeping with the early ballads. Aside from the Sheriff, Robin generally encounters tradesmen and other members of the commercial class. In aiding Sir Richard, the outlaw moves outside his social group and, at the same time, undermines the nobility’s presumption of superiority. By asserting that a yeoman could rescue a knight from financial ruin, the Gest makes a case for the superiority of wits and skill over an inherited title. This social ideology suggests that the audience for the Gest was neither discontented peasants nor rural gentry but the newly affluent and socially empowered mercantile classes of the towns. By the early 16th century, the publishing industry was printing many devotional, historical, and literary works for this new market, and the multiple printings of the Gest by several publishers suggests that it was a success with these new readers.

   Bibliography

   ■ Dobson, R. B., and John Taylor, eds. Rymes of Robin Hood: An Introduction to the English Outlaw. 3rd. ed. Stroud: Sutton, 1997.

   ■ Knight, Stephen, and Thomas Ohlgren, eds. Robin Hood and Other Outlaw Tales. Kalamazoo, Mich.: Medieval Institute Publications, 1997.

   ■ Ohlgren, Thomas H. “The ‘Marchaunt’ of Sherwood: Mercantile Ideology in A Gest of Robyn Hode.” In Robin Hood in Popular Culture, edited by Thomas Hahn, 175–190. Cambridge, U.K.: Brewer, 2000.

   ■ Ohlgren, Thomas H., ed.Medieval Outlaws: Ten Tales in Modern English. Stroud: Sutton, 1998.

   Timothy S. Jones