![]() With the aforementioned facts in mind, a possible candidate has been put forward in the form of Robert Hood of Wakefield who lived during the reign of Edward II. The stomping ground of Robin Hood in the ballads is Barnsdale which once took up a sizable portion of West Yorkshire. There were three Edwards who ruled in succession in the Middle Ages which indicates a timeframe of 1272 to 1377 a good hundred years after the Lionheart’s reign. The only king mentioned in the early ballads is an unspecified King Edward. Forget Prince John trying to usurp the throne while his brother King Richard the Lionheart is a prisoner on his way home from the crusades. And the search has turned up some interesting candidates.įirst of all we need to reacquaint ourselves with the Robin Hood of the medieval ballads in which he makes his first appearance. To even be in the same ballpark we need to look for specific Robin Hoods whose lives bear at least a passing resemblance to the figure of the legends. Even if we accept the idea that England’s famous forest-dwelling outlaw was a real person and not a literary character or a mythological archetype, the name Robin/Robert Hood was hardly an uncommon one in medieval England. Much has been written on the possible historical basis of the Robin Hood legends and the search is problematic to say the least. ![]()
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