"We didn't land on Sherwood Forest, Sherwood Forest landed on US!"
Posted on 03/14/2009 11:16:04 AM PDT by Turret Gunner A20
LONDON - A British academic says he's found proof that Britain's legendary outlaw Robin Hood wasn't as popular with the poor as folklore suggests.
Julian Luxford says a newly found note in the margins of an ancient history book contains rare criticism of the supposedly benevolent bandit.
According to legend, Hood roamed 13th-century Britain from a base in central England's Sherwood Forest, plundering from the rich to give to the poor.
But Luxford, an art history lecturer at the University of St. Andrews, in Fife, Scotland, says a 23-word inscription in a history book, written in Latin by a medieval monk around 1460, casts the outlaw as a persistent thief.
"Around this time, according to popular opinion, a certain outlaw named Robin Hood, with his accomplices, infested Sherwood and other law-abiding areas of England with continuous robberies," the note read when translated into English, Luxford said.
Luxford said he found the entry while searching through the library of England's prestigious Eton College, which was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI.
"The new find contains a uniquely negative assessment of the outlaw, and provides rare evidence for monastic attitudes towards him," Luxford said in a statement about his find issued on Friday.
He said the note about Hood - uncovered in the margin of the "Polychronicon," a history book which dates from the late 1340s - may be the earliest written reference to the outlaw.
First mentions of Hood, depicted in Hollywood movies by both Kevin Costner and Errol Flynn, are commonly believed to have been in late 13th-century ballads. Some academics claim the stories refer to several different medieval outlaws, while others believe the tales are pure fantasy.
Luxford said his discovery may put to rest debates in England about exactly where Hood may have lived.
The northern England county of Yorkshire has long claimed Hood was based there, rather than neighboring Nottinghamshire - even naming a local transport hub Robin Hood Airport in tribute.
But folklore has most commonly placed Hood in Sherwood Forest - where he is reputed to hidden from his nemesis, the Sheriff of Nottingham. The forest once spanned 100,000 acres (40,500 hectares) across Nottinghamshire, but has shrunk in modern time to about 450 acres (180 hectares).
"By mentioning Sherwood, it buttresses the hitherto rather thin evidence for a medieval connection between Robin and the Nottinghamshire forest with which he has become so closely associated," Luxford said.
That's impossible. A lot of people on this very website have assured me that there are more trees now than there ever were.
It would be impossible for there to be more trees now then there ever were. So I doubt you are being accurate.
However in the United State there are a lot more trees growing now then there were in the recent past. In certain areas there are now more trees then there were anywhere from two to three hundred years ago.
Part of this is due to tree farming, part is due to trees no longer being a primary source of energy and part is due to people moving to the cities and marginal farm land returning to nature.
Your right it wouldn't make a very good book, to unbelievable. A non-american president...yeah right.
An academic says he’s found evidence that Britain’s legendary outlaw Robin Hood wasn’t as popular as folklore suggests.
Julian Luxford says a note discovered in the margins of an ancient history book contains rare criticism of the supposedly benevolent bandit.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090314/ap_on_re_eu/eu_britain_robin_hood
In addition to what Harmless Teddy Bear noted, the use of hydrocarbons in mechanized agriculture has both reduced the amount of land needed for cultivation (higher yields, and no more having to feed the muscle power that used to be used to till and harvest) despite the growth in population (if memory serves, US population has increased around fivefold since 1900). Land has gone back to the wild, and prior farmland and grazing areas turned into suburbs. Instead of 6 to 8 foot trunks on hemlocks and whatnot that used to grow in some places around here (the last of that was cut before WWI), the old timber we see today was planted along quiet village streets around a hundred years ago, usually before there were pipes in the street to worry about.
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Thanks george76 for the ping and Stayat Homemother for the link in FReepmail!"Around this time, according to popular opinion, a certain outlaw named Robin Hood, with his accomplices, infested Sherwood and other law-abiding areas of England with continuous robberies," the note read when translated into English, Luxford said.Isn't that pretty much in accord with the RH story as it has come down to us? That he also robbed the filthy rich clergy? And that Friar Tuck he couldn't beat, FT couldn't prevail either, but FT joined the Merry Band? |
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nuts, and we were doing so well here...
The 13th Century manuscript that shows
Robin Hood and his Merry Men weren’t so popular after all
Daily Mail (UK) | 14th March 2009 | Paul Sims
Posted on 03/14/2009 7:48:20 AM PDT by PotatoHeadMick
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2206506/posts
Yeah, old Robin removed the gold from one and all.
I’d look further for opinion polls reflecting opinions of the very poor he was supposed to be helping before forming an attitude against Robin.
Fixed it.
You beat me to it...
The Church taxed the peasants just like the Crown. They were co-equal targets with agents of the Crown for Robin Hood.
Needless to say, certain religious Orders might have shared the Crown’s view of Robin’s actions.
I heard they found his birth certificate.
Seems he was born in Kenya. :^)
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