Detailed research into documentary sources offers an exciting new
identification of the "real" Robin Hood.
For over a century and a half scholars have debated whether or not the
legend of Robin Hood was based on an actual outlaw and, if so, when and
where he lived. One view is that he was not a legend as such but a myth:
an idea, rather than a person who could possibly be identified in
historical records and placed in a real historical and geographical
context. Other writers have gone even further, arguing that he is a
literary concoction, with no traceable original, and that seeking to pin
him down to a particular time and location is futile and unnecessary.
This survey begins by tracing the development of the legend, and
contemporary views about it, between the thirteenth and early
twenty-first centuries, taking account both of new interpretative
literature on the subject and fresh discoveries from the author's own
research in the early records of the English royal administration and
common law. It then gives a detailed account of the places that came to
be associated with the legend, and of evidence illustrating the
importance of the outlaw's name in the development of English surnames.
The concluding chapters deal with the administration of criminal law in
medieval England, and the evidence that points to the possible origins
of the legend in the activities of a notorious Yorkshire criminal,
tracked down and beheaded in the county in 1225.
