Mystery Files (2010–…): Season 1, Episode 3 - Robin Hood - full transcript
The legendary RobinHood
and his band of merry men
who battle the sheriff
ofNottingham, hugely popular
and enduring stories,
but recent evidence
suggests that he may be
morethan just folklore fantasy.
Robin Hood definitely existed.
Can the evidence finally
confirm the infamousoutlaw
and his arch rival
are not just imaginary figures?
Unpicking the past to reveal
the identity of the men
behind the myth.
We open the mystery
files on Robin Hood.
This is
SherwoodForest, Nottinghamshire.
Nestled in the
center of England,
it is home to the
legend of Robin Hood.
Popular as ever,
Robin helpsto attract around 500,000
visitors every year.
His adventures still
spark the imagination,
but his story has evolvedover the centuries
and now, the genesis
of his character
is almost completely
obscuredby the folk tale hero
he has become.
Searching the
archives, historians
have discovered multiplereferences
to real Robin Hoods.
Graham Phillips hasspent
years investigating
medieval documents.
The legend of Robin
Hood, probably brought
about more books, poems,
andfilms and television series
than any other character
in English history.
To try and find a
real Robin Hood,
then what you've
really got to do
is to find the earliest
reference to Robin Hood,
whether it's fictionalor
in historical records.
Robin Hood's legend first
appears in the Middle Ages.
Few people can read,
so stories are spread
by minstrels singing ballads.
They tell of the outlaws
Robin and Little John,
living free in the
forest, fighting
the evil sheriff of Nottingham.
It's a time of
poverty and oppression
and the people take
Robin to their hearts.
There are a few writtenaccounts
of Robin's deeds.
The two of the earlyballots
that have survived,
hold clues to his identity.
The first is Robin
Hood and the Monk.
It is over 500 years old.
Set in St. Mary's Church
inthe center of Nottingham,
it's where our
investigation begins.
Pauline Miller hasdocumented
the church's past.
The connection of Robin
Hood with Mary's Church
appears in a 14th century
balladcalled Robin Hood and the Monk.
Robin Hood came into
Nottingham on his own
and was kneeling in
St. Mary's Church
when a monk recognized him,
because Robin and his merry men
had robbed him in the forest.
The monk quietly
left the church,
walked down the street
to the sheriff's house,
and told him where he was.
The sheriff brought his men,
arrested Robin, and threw him
in the prison cave, but
fortunately Little John
knew where he'd been and
theyrescued Robin and disappeared
back into the forest.
Today,
St. Mary's Church
is surrounded by buildings,
but in Robin Hood's day
Sherwood Forest came
right up to the city.
It was a dangerous woodland.
Highway men, thieves,
and poachers roamed
it's 400 square kilometers.
The perfect place for
medieval bandits to pick
off better equipped soldiers.
It's where the ballot
pitsRobin and his loyal band
of merry men against
their nemesis,
the Sheriff of Nottingham.
Although Robin Hood and theMonk
sets Robin in a real time,
when outlaws marauded
through these forests.
The verses where Robinprays in St.
Mary's Church
casts doubt over its accuracy.
This building is only finishedafter
the ballot is written.
Though, many years later,
duringwork to strengthen the columns,
architects found that
St.Mary's had a predecessor.
There's one spot and onespot
only where you can see
a piece of the
old Norman church,
and it's at the base
of this pillar here.
And here it is.
The foundationsdate
back to the 1100s.
They prove an earlier
the church did stand
here well before the ballad.
So Robin could indeedhave
prayed at St. Mary's.
Close by is an even
morecompelling piece of evidence
of Robin's presence.
Only 20 meters from thechurch
is the old county jail,
now the Galleries
Of Justice Museum.
It's a labyrinth of
underground caves
and has been voted the
mosthaunted place in Britain.
Curator Gary Holmes has madea
remarkable discovery that
could well be the
vault where the ballad
says Robin was locked up.
Basically, we're in a
cavesystem that is the very,
sort of, lowest parts
ofthe Galleries Of Justice.
The Galleries Of Justiceused
to be the county jail
for the shire of Nottingham.
This is whereordinary
prisoners are held,
but the latest find is a
specialcell for captives like Robin.
It's called an oubliette
andit's a deep pit below all
the other prison caves.
From the French oubliette,
meaning to forget,
convicts are
lowered down by rope
and left to starve to death.
It is pitch black
and escape proof.
At this point, we're--
we'll actually be
standing in the--
in the neck of, if
you can imagine,
the oubliette being the
shape of a wine bottle,
actually standing in theneck
of the wine bottle here,
and then, as the neck fallsaway
to the shoulder of the wine
bottle, the floor that
we're standing on,
it would be, sort
of, 10 to 15 feet
before we actuallydropped and hit the floor
of the-- of the oubliette.
In the ballad
ofRobin Hood and the Monk,
Robin is thrown
into a prison pit,
but it also specificallyclaims
that when he's rescued,
his men hang down a rope
for him to climb up.
This method of escape is
theonly way out of an oubliette.
The fact that we'vediscovered
an oubliette recently
on our sites and the fact
thatwe are a mere 20 yards away
from St. Mary's
Church, we strongly
believe that the
oubliette we found
is quite probably the
oubliette that Robin
Hood was incarcerated in.
This archaeologicalsite
shows the ballad
of Robin Hood and
the Monk may be more
than a fictional folk tale.
There is another
surviving ballad,
which also holds clues tothe
identity of a real Robin.
It's called, The Little
Gest of Robin Hood.
In this narrative,
Robin has a home town.
Most people think Robin
comes from Nottingham,
but it recounts how he's
from the neighboring
county of Yorkshire.
At the end of TheLittle Gest of Robin Hood,
we're told that
he's been wounded
and he's taken to a
prairiecalled Kirklees Priory.
Little John takes
him there in the hope
that he will be cured by
theabbess, but she betrays him
and what she does ispartly
treating his wounds,
when they used to
have bloodletting,
she bleeds him to death.
Kirklees Priory is a real place
and it is in Yorkshire.
According to The
Little Gest, this is
the gatehouse where Rabin dies.
This is believed
to be the window
where he shot his last arrow.
He asks Little John tobury
him wherever it lands.
And within the priory grounds,
there is a mysterious grave.
If you look at the inscription,
it's got a old Englishtype
inscription telling us
that Robin Hood was buried
here, but the problem
is, this is clearly a
stylizedway in which 19th century
romantics thought that old--
old English was written.
It's not genuine.
It was put there in the 1800s.
The text on
theheadstone is a forgery.
The grave is also over600
meters from the house,
too far for a long
bow shot, even
from an alleged medievalmaster
bowman, like Robin Hood,
but historians have uncovered
a period illustration,
revealing that a Robin
Hood may once have
been interred in these grounds.
There is evidence that there was
a grave there before
the current one that
was put there in the 1800s.
In fact, as early as the1600s,
people make reference
to a grave being there.
Drawn in 1665,
itdepicts an earlier burial,
now replaced by the fake tomb.
On that grave it said,
here lies Robert Hode.
Robin is actually a
nickname for somebody
called Robert and
Hode, HODE, is one
of the old spellings of hood.
So, yes, we do know
therewas early grave there
belonging to a Robin Hood.
The Little Gest
tellshow Robin dies in Yorkshire.
The ballads also connect him
toNottingham and Sherwood Forest.
But there is documented
evidence to suggest
that a real Robin Hood notonly
died, but actually
lived in Yorkshire.
The county has archives datingall
the way back to the Middle
Ages and one place
in particular,
called Wakefield,
records a Robert Hood.
In these ancient rolls is
proofthat a Robin, or Robert, Hood
did exist.
This dates from the
year 1309 and here we
have two references here
toRobert Hood of Wakefield.
Now, this is written
in medieval Latin,
but we have here are
a translation made
by the Yorkshire
archaeological society
and we can see clearly here,
the first reference says,
Robert Hode drew blood
fromthe wife of Henry Archer
and for this he
was fined 12 Pence.
So he was already a bit
of a villain in 1309.
Robert Hode appears a total
of 20 times for petty crimes,
like fighting and poaching,
right up to 1322.
His name and location
matchThe Little Gest ballad
and he could also be the basisfor
another part of the tale.
Although later versions portrayRobin
fighting for King Richard
the Lionheart, in
the original story,
Robin meets and is
pardoned by King Edward
and Edward the Second
didcome to Yorkshire in 1323.
Now, the interestingthing
is, around this time,
a Robin Hood
appears as a servant
to King Edward the Second.
He's a valet in
the royal chamber.
Accounts from Edward's visit
to Yorkshire record the names
ofeveryone in the King's service.
Robin Hood is on the payroll.
This could very
well be the same man.
Robert Hode of Wakefield
is pardoned by the King,
goes into the King's
service, and then
disappears again at that periodThe
Little Gest of Robin Hood
tells us, that Robin
Hood is again, outlawed.
Robert of
Wakefieldis a strong candidate
for a real Robin Hood,
withone significant difference
to the fabled archer.
Despite all his indiscretions,
there is no record of Robert
of Wakefield ever
being outlawed,
and the legendary
Robin Hood always is.
Weapons expert, Mike Loades,
thinks the outlaw element
of Robert's legendoriginates,
not in the 1300s,
but earlier, in the 1200s.
13th century isparticularly interesting.
What we find right from the
beginning of the century
is there are outlaw
problemsemerging in Britain.
There was even a statute inthe late
1260s, which is saying
that forests have
got to be cut back
more than 200 yards from theroad
going into a market town.
Now, a market town is
obviously somewhere
where people are coming andgoing
with money, prime ambush
territory for brigade.
The 1200s are
a time of great unrest
in England, epitomized
by a civil conflict
called the Baron's War.
Archers who rebelled
arebanished from their homes
and forced into the forests.
Unpopular laws and
impoverished people
turned fugitive's into heroes.
This is a time when the
Kingis demanding higher taxes
for the poor, creating
abreeding ground for desperadoes
and there's an historicalreason
why, in the 1200s,
outlaws may have
prospered, as depicted
in the Robin Hood ballads.
Armor starts to change.
Previously, it had been maleand
interlocking web of rings.
But towards the
end of the century,
plate starts to develop.
Plate forms a glancingsurface,
so an arrow is much
more effective against male.
The sheriff's menpredominantly
wore male armor
that offered little
protection when
attacked by Robin's arrows.
This helps place
him in the 1200s
and a book just discoveredin
Eton College library backs
up the time frame.
Julian Luxford is amanuscript
expert responsible
for this latest find.
The newest piece of evidenceis
an inscription in a history
book, and it mentions thatRobin
was a hardened criminal
and that he and hisaccomplices
infested Sherwood
and other lower bodying
regions of England
with continuous robberies.
It says that he did thissometime
between 1294 and 1299.
A criminalcalled
Robin Hood recorded
in the late 1200s, but this
document is significant
for more than just a date.
Why it's interesting and useful
is that it takes him seriouslyas
an actual historical figure.
It's not like the ballads,
whichare, essentially, folktales
and which don't bother
to try and prove
his historical existence.
This is a document,
which saysthis guy lived at this time
and this is what he
did at this time.
Dr. Luxford
also thinks this Robin
may not be the original outlaw.
By the mid 13th century,
you get criminals being called
a Robin Hood,
it's a sortof nickname being applied to
or adopted by criminals.
Now, it's extremely
unlikelythat this name would be
just invented out of nothing.
There was a criminalcalled Robin
Hood, probably
in the early 13th century,
who was sufficiently
notorious to then
pass his name on as it
were to later criminals.
It's a time when fugitives are
stripped of their possessions.
When found guilty,
money wouldbe taken by the local sheriff
and given to the King.
Records of these
financialtransactions still exist.
If an outlaw, Robin,
terrorizedYorkshire in the early 1200s,
he'll be listed in here.
Archivist, David Crook,
thinks he may have found him.
The Yorkshire account
of 1226 mentions
a man called Robert
Hood, who is a fugitive
from justice and his chattel--
that is, the movable goodshe
left behind when he fled--
are accounted for
by the sheriff.
So that's why they
appear in this account.
Written in Latin shorthand,
it's still possible to
makeout the name of England's
most famous outlaw.
In 1227, something
very strange happens.
The name Robert Hood,
whichappears in the original entry,
appears again, but it's
in a different form.
It's changed by the clerk
hewrote the roll to Hobbe-Hod.
As he gains notoriety,
then this may be when Robert
Hood first acquired a nickname.
I think the person who wrotethe
roll had heard some sort
of story or legend,
growing legend,
about a man called
Robert Hood and changed
the name to Hobbe-Hod,
a sort of pet form.
The rolls arewritten
in Westminster London,
but Robin lives over
250kilometers away in Yorkshire.
It seems this man is infamous.
In a time when most
informationpasses by word of mouth,
his reputation spreads acrossEngland
in the space of a year.
I think this is probablythe
real Robin Hood.
Yes, indeed.
So experts
haveidentified two authentic Robin
Hoods and both are from
Yorkshire, an outlaw
Robert Hood who lived
in the 1200s, and Robert
Hood of Wakefield,
almost 100 years later.
But there is a final
historicalcharacter, which ties
these two men to the legend.
The villain of the ballads,
the Sheriff of Nottingham.
Who was Sheriff of
Nottinghamat the time of Robert
Hood of Wakefield in the 1320s?
Well, it was a man
called Henry Fauconberg,
and he was, interestingly,
notonly Sheriff of Nottingham,
but Sheriff of
Yorkshire as well.
Henry Fauconberg
spansboth Yorkshire and Nottingham
and there is reason
why Robert of Wakefield
might have hated him.
Henry was something,
in hisyounger days, of a scoundrel.
He was something of
apoacher, turned gamekeeper,
and in fact, the Wakefieldrolls
mention him four times
getting into trouble
at pretty much
the same time as Robert Hood.
The town is small.
With Robert Wakefield
andHenry committing felonies
at the same time,
they could once have
known each other as equals.
I think with Henry Fauconberg,
we have a real good candidate
for the Sheriff of Nottingham,
because he is somebody who
could have had great rivalrywith
the most likely candidate,
in my opinion, for Robin Hood.
If Robert of Wakefieldis
at odds with the Sheriff
of Nottingham, our outlaw
RobertHood also has a connection
to a local sheriff.
His adversary is called
Eustace of Luddham.
He's the sheriff of Yorkshire,
but his home town of Luddham
is right next to Nottingham.
As well as Yorkshire,
Eustace has also
been Sheriff of Nottingham.
Two documented Robert,
or Robin, Hoods, one
is an outlaw, the other,
apetty criminal from Wakefield,
both with links to the
Sheriff of Nottingham.
Although romanticized
in the ballads,
elements of the storiestally
with factual accounts
in the lives of these
historical characters.
The adventures of
these men are now
celebrated as part of
the constantly evolving
legend of Robin Hood,
one of the classic tales
of good versus evil.
and his band of merry men
who battle the sheriff
ofNottingham, hugely popular
and enduring stories,
but recent evidence
suggests that he may be
morethan just folklore fantasy.
Robin Hood definitely existed.
Can the evidence finally
confirm the infamousoutlaw
and his arch rival
are not just imaginary figures?
Unpicking the past to reveal
the identity of the men
behind the myth.
We open the mystery
files on Robin Hood.
This is
SherwoodForest, Nottinghamshire.
Nestled in the
center of England,
it is home to the
legend of Robin Hood.
Popular as ever,
Robin helpsto attract around 500,000
visitors every year.
His adventures still
spark the imagination,
but his story has evolvedover the centuries
and now, the genesis
of his character
is almost completely
obscuredby the folk tale hero
he has become.
Searching the
archives, historians
have discovered multiplereferences
to real Robin Hoods.
Graham Phillips hasspent
years investigating
medieval documents.
The legend of Robin
Hood, probably brought
about more books, poems,
andfilms and television series
than any other character
in English history.
To try and find a
real Robin Hood,
then what you've
really got to do
is to find the earliest
reference to Robin Hood,
whether it's fictionalor
in historical records.
Robin Hood's legend first
appears in the Middle Ages.
Few people can read,
so stories are spread
by minstrels singing ballads.
They tell of the outlaws
Robin and Little John,
living free in the
forest, fighting
the evil sheriff of Nottingham.
It's a time of
poverty and oppression
and the people take
Robin to their hearts.
There are a few writtenaccounts
of Robin's deeds.
The two of the earlyballots
that have survived,
hold clues to his identity.
The first is Robin
Hood and the Monk.
It is over 500 years old.
Set in St. Mary's Church
inthe center of Nottingham,
it's where our
investigation begins.
Pauline Miller hasdocumented
the church's past.
The connection of Robin
Hood with Mary's Church
appears in a 14th century
balladcalled Robin Hood and the Monk.
Robin Hood came into
Nottingham on his own
and was kneeling in
St. Mary's Church
when a monk recognized him,
because Robin and his merry men
had robbed him in the forest.
The monk quietly
left the church,
walked down the street
to the sheriff's house,
and told him where he was.
The sheriff brought his men,
arrested Robin, and threw him
in the prison cave, but
fortunately Little John
knew where he'd been and
theyrescued Robin and disappeared
back into the forest.
Today,
St. Mary's Church
is surrounded by buildings,
but in Robin Hood's day
Sherwood Forest came
right up to the city.
It was a dangerous woodland.
Highway men, thieves,
and poachers roamed
it's 400 square kilometers.
The perfect place for
medieval bandits to pick
off better equipped soldiers.
It's where the ballot
pitsRobin and his loyal band
of merry men against
their nemesis,
the Sheriff of Nottingham.
Although Robin Hood and theMonk
sets Robin in a real time,
when outlaws marauded
through these forests.
The verses where Robinprays in St.
Mary's Church
casts doubt over its accuracy.
This building is only finishedafter
the ballot is written.
Though, many years later,
duringwork to strengthen the columns,
architects found that
St.Mary's had a predecessor.
There's one spot and onespot
only where you can see
a piece of the
old Norman church,
and it's at the base
of this pillar here.
And here it is.
The foundationsdate
back to the 1100s.
They prove an earlier
the church did stand
here well before the ballad.
So Robin could indeedhave
prayed at St. Mary's.
Close by is an even
morecompelling piece of evidence
of Robin's presence.
Only 20 meters from thechurch
is the old county jail,
now the Galleries
Of Justice Museum.
It's a labyrinth of
underground caves
and has been voted the
mosthaunted place in Britain.
Curator Gary Holmes has madea
remarkable discovery that
could well be the
vault where the ballad
says Robin was locked up.
Basically, we're in a
cavesystem that is the very,
sort of, lowest parts
ofthe Galleries Of Justice.
The Galleries Of Justiceused
to be the county jail
for the shire of Nottingham.
This is whereordinary
prisoners are held,
but the latest find is a
specialcell for captives like Robin.
It's called an oubliette
andit's a deep pit below all
the other prison caves.
From the French oubliette,
meaning to forget,
convicts are
lowered down by rope
and left to starve to death.
It is pitch black
and escape proof.
At this point, we're--
we'll actually be
standing in the--
in the neck of, if
you can imagine,
the oubliette being the
shape of a wine bottle,
actually standing in theneck
of the wine bottle here,
and then, as the neck fallsaway
to the shoulder of the wine
bottle, the floor that
we're standing on,
it would be, sort
of, 10 to 15 feet
before we actuallydropped and hit the floor
of the-- of the oubliette.
In the ballad
ofRobin Hood and the Monk,
Robin is thrown
into a prison pit,
but it also specificallyclaims
that when he's rescued,
his men hang down a rope
for him to climb up.
This method of escape is
theonly way out of an oubliette.
The fact that we'vediscovered
an oubliette recently
on our sites and the fact
thatwe are a mere 20 yards away
from St. Mary's
Church, we strongly
believe that the
oubliette we found
is quite probably the
oubliette that Robin
Hood was incarcerated in.
This archaeologicalsite
shows the ballad
of Robin Hood and
the Monk may be more
than a fictional folk tale.
There is another
surviving ballad,
which also holds clues tothe
identity of a real Robin.
It's called, The Little
Gest of Robin Hood.
In this narrative,
Robin has a home town.
Most people think Robin
comes from Nottingham,
but it recounts how he's
from the neighboring
county of Yorkshire.
At the end of TheLittle Gest of Robin Hood,
we're told that
he's been wounded
and he's taken to a
prairiecalled Kirklees Priory.
Little John takes
him there in the hope
that he will be cured by
theabbess, but she betrays him
and what she does ispartly
treating his wounds,
when they used to
have bloodletting,
she bleeds him to death.
Kirklees Priory is a real place
and it is in Yorkshire.
According to The
Little Gest, this is
the gatehouse where Rabin dies.
This is believed
to be the window
where he shot his last arrow.
He asks Little John tobury
him wherever it lands.
And within the priory grounds,
there is a mysterious grave.
If you look at the inscription,
it's got a old Englishtype
inscription telling us
that Robin Hood was buried
here, but the problem
is, this is clearly a
stylizedway in which 19th century
romantics thought that old--
old English was written.
It's not genuine.
It was put there in the 1800s.
The text on
theheadstone is a forgery.
The grave is also over600
meters from the house,
too far for a long
bow shot, even
from an alleged medievalmaster
bowman, like Robin Hood,
but historians have uncovered
a period illustration,
revealing that a Robin
Hood may once have
been interred in these grounds.
There is evidence that there was
a grave there before
the current one that
was put there in the 1800s.
In fact, as early as the1600s,
people make reference
to a grave being there.
Drawn in 1665,
itdepicts an earlier burial,
now replaced by the fake tomb.
On that grave it said,
here lies Robert Hode.
Robin is actually a
nickname for somebody
called Robert and
Hode, HODE, is one
of the old spellings of hood.
So, yes, we do know
therewas early grave there
belonging to a Robin Hood.
The Little Gest
tellshow Robin dies in Yorkshire.
The ballads also connect him
toNottingham and Sherwood Forest.
But there is documented
evidence to suggest
that a real Robin Hood notonly
died, but actually
lived in Yorkshire.
The county has archives datingall
the way back to the Middle
Ages and one place
in particular,
called Wakefield,
records a Robert Hood.
In these ancient rolls is
proofthat a Robin, or Robert, Hood
did exist.
This dates from the
year 1309 and here we
have two references here
toRobert Hood of Wakefield.
Now, this is written
in medieval Latin,
but we have here are
a translation made
by the Yorkshire
archaeological society
and we can see clearly here,
the first reference says,
Robert Hode drew blood
fromthe wife of Henry Archer
and for this he
was fined 12 Pence.
So he was already a bit
of a villain in 1309.
Robert Hode appears a total
of 20 times for petty crimes,
like fighting and poaching,
right up to 1322.
His name and location
matchThe Little Gest ballad
and he could also be the basisfor
another part of the tale.
Although later versions portrayRobin
fighting for King Richard
the Lionheart, in
the original story,
Robin meets and is
pardoned by King Edward
and Edward the Second
didcome to Yorkshire in 1323.
Now, the interestingthing
is, around this time,
a Robin Hood
appears as a servant
to King Edward the Second.
He's a valet in
the royal chamber.
Accounts from Edward's visit
to Yorkshire record the names
ofeveryone in the King's service.
Robin Hood is on the payroll.
This could very
well be the same man.
Robert Hode of Wakefield
is pardoned by the King,
goes into the King's
service, and then
disappears again at that periodThe
Little Gest of Robin Hood
tells us, that Robin
Hood is again, outlawed.
Robert of
Wakefieldis a strong candidate
for a real Robin Hood,
withone significant difference
to the fabled archer.
Despite all his indiscretions,
there is no record of Robert
of Wakefield ever
being outlawed,
and the legendary
Robin Hood always is.
Weapons expert, Mike Loades,
thinks the outlaw element
of Robert's legendoriginates,
not in the 1300s,
but earlier, in the 1200s.
13th century isparticularly interesting.
What we find right from the
beginning of the century
is there are outlaw
problemsemerging in Britain.
There was even a statute inthe late
1260s, which is saying
that forests have
got to be cut back
more than 200 yards from theroad
going into a market town.
Now, a market town is
obviously somewhere
where people are coming andgoing
with money, prime ambush
territory for brigade.
The 1200s are
a time of great unrest
in England, epitomized
by a civil conflict
called the Baron's War.
Archers who rebelled
arebanished from their homes
and forced into the forests.
Unpopular laws and
impoverished people
turned fugitive's into heroes.
This is a time when the
Kingis demanding higher taxes
for the poor, creating
abreeding ground for desperadoes
and there's an historicalreason
why, in the 1200s,
outlaws may have
prospered, as depicted
in the Robin Hood ballads.
Armor starts to change.
Previously, it had been maleand
interlocking web of rings.
But towards the
end of the century,
plate starts to develop.
Plate forms a glancingsurface,
so an arrow is much
more effective against male.
The sheriff's menpredominantly
wore male armor
that offered little
protection when
attacked by Robin's arrows.
This helps place
him in the 1200s
and a book just discoveredin
Eton College library backs
up the time frame.
Julian Luxford is amanuscript
expert responsible
for this latest find.
The newest piece of evidenceis
an inscription in a history
book, and it mentions thatRobin
was a hardened criminal
and that he and hisaccomplices
infested Sherwood
and other lower bodying
regions of England
with continuous robberies.
It says that he did thissometime
between 1294 and 1299.
A criminalcalled
Robin Hood recorded
in the late 1200s, but this
document is significant
for more than just a date.
Why it's interesting and useful
is that it takes him seriouslyas
an actual historical figure.
It's not like the ballads,
whichare, essentially, folktales
and which don't bother
to try and prove
his historical existence.
This is a document,
which saysthis guy lived at this time
and this is what he
did at this time.
Dr. Luxford
also thinks this Robin
may not be the original outlaw.
By the mid 13th century,
you get criminals being called
a Robin Hood,
it's a sortof nickname being applied to
or adopted by criminals.
Now, it's extremely
unlikelythat this name would be
just invented out of nothing.
There was a criminalcalled Robin
Hood, probably
in the early 13th century,
who was sufficiently
notorious to then
pass his name on as it
were to later criminals.
It's a time when fugitives are
stripped of their possessions.
When found guilty,
money wouldbe taken by the local sheriff
and given to the King.
Records of these
financialtransactions still exist.
If an outlaw, Robin,
terrorizedYorkshire in the early 1200s,
he'll be listed in here.
Archivist, David Crook,
thinks he may have found him.
The Yorkshire account
of 1226 mentions
a man called Robert
Hood, who is a fugitive
from justice and his chattel--
that is, the movable goodshe
left behind when he fled--
are accounted for
by the sheriff.
So that's why they
appear in this account.
Written in Latin shorthand,
it's still possible to
makeout the name of England's
most famous outlaw.
In 1227, something
very strange happens.
The name Robert Hood,
whichappears in the original entry,
appears again, but it's
in a different form.
It's changed by the clerk
hewrote the roll to Hobbe-Hod.
As he gains notoriety,
then this may be when Robert
Hood first acquired a nickname.
I think the person who wrotethe
roll had heard some sort
of story or legend,
growing legend,
about a man called
Robert Hood and changed
the name to Hobbe-Hod,
a sort of pet form.
The rolls arewritten
in Westminster London,
but Robin lives over
250kilometers away in Yorkshire.
It seems this man is infamous.
In a time when most
informationpasses by word of mouth,
his reputation spreads acrossEngland
in the space of a year.
I think this is probablythe
real Robin Hood.
Yes, indeed.
So experts
haveidentified two authentic Robin
Hoods and both are from
Yorkshire, an outlaw
Robert Hood who lived
in the 1200s, and Robert
Hood of Wakefield,
almost 100 years later.
But there is a final
historicalcharacter, which ties
these two men to the legend.
The villain of the ballads,
the Sheriff of Nottingham.
Who was Sheriff of
Nottinghamat the time of Robert
Hood of Wakefield in the 1320s?
Well, it was a man
called Henry Fauconberg,
and he was, interestingly,
notonly Sheriff of Nottingham,
but Sheriff of
Yorkshire as well.
Henry Fauconberg
spansboth Yorkshire and Nottingham
and there is reason
why Robert of Wakefield
might have hated him.
Henry was something,
in hisyounger days, of a scoundrel.
He was something of
apoacher, turned gamekeeper,
and in fact, the Wakefieldrolls
mention him four times
getting into trouble
at pretty much
the same time as Robert Hood.
The town is small.
With Robert Wakefield
andHenry committing felonies
at the same time,
they could once have
known each other as equals.
I think with Henry Fauconberg,
we have a real good candidate
for the Sheriff of Nottingham,
because he is somebody who
could have had great rivalrywith
the most likely candidate,
in my opinion, for Robin Hood.
If Robert of Wakefieldis
at odds with the Sheriff
of Nottingham, our outlaw
RobertHood also has a connection
to a local sheriff.
His adversary is called
Eustace of Luddham.
He's the sheriff of Yorkshire,
but his home town of Luddham
is right next to Nottingham.
As well as Yorkshire,
Eustace has also
been Sheriff of Nottingham.
Two documented Robert,
or Robin, Hoods, one
is an outlaw, the other,
apetty criminal from Wakefield,
both with links to the
Sheriff of Nottingham.
Although romanticized
in the ballads,
elements of the storiestally
with factual accounts
in the lives of these
historical characters.
The adventures of
these men are now
celebrated as part of
the constantly evolving
legend of Robin Hood,
one of the classic tales
of good versus evil.