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| In ], also known as Highfields Wood, which lies between Hampole and ], {{coord|53|33|39.96|N|1|11|58.68|W|}} a small stream known as Robin Hood's stream springs from underneath the Roman Road and runs into the ]. | In ], also known as Highfields Wood, which lies between Hampole and ], {{coord|53|33|39.96|N|1|11|58.68|W|}} a small stream known as Robin Hood's stream springs from underneath the Roman Road and runs into the ]. | ||
| A widely acclaimed academic paper, entitled The Origins and Development of the Legend of Robin Hood, written by Mr Scott La' Chance for the award of Master of Arts by Research degree at the University of Leeds in 2014, re-examines the evidence for the genesis of the Robin Hood legend and concludes that in all probability, the Robin Hood legend stems from the social and political turmoil that beset northern England between the years 1065-70. In particular, the paper contravenes previous historical scholarship by arguing that Robin Hood was an Anglo-Saxon freedom fighter operating out modern Wentbridge in the Went Valley, a site located three miles southeast of the town Pontefract in Yorkshire. Mr La' Chance draws attention to three pieces of historical evidence in order to validate his thesis. Firstly, attention is drawn to the fifteenth century ballad entitled A Gest of Robin Hood, which cites that Robin Hood lived during the reign of an unidentified king named 'Edward'. Next, Mr La' Chance points to the King’s Remembrancer’s Memoranda Roll of Easter 1262, which records that the Prior of Sandleford had been pardoned of the offence of seizing without warrant the chattels of a William Robehod, fugitive. Similarly, the Roll of Justices on Eyre in Berkshire of 1261 records that a William, son of Robert Le Fevre (Smith), was outlawed for committing acts of robbery with his criminal gang. The document reveals that William’s chattels had been seized by the Prior of Sandleford, so it can be said with absolute certainty that the William Robehod of the Memoranda Roll and William, son of Robert Le Fevre of the Roll of Justices on Eyre were one and the same person. Such evidence is said by Mr La’ Chance to prove that the historical Robin Hood lived at least a decade before the coronation of Edward I (1272-1307), and probably a considerable period before that date, in order to generate this type of fame, disproving the popular belief that Robin Hood had lived during the reign of the Plantagenets. Finally, the thesis returns to examine the fifteenth century sources, and draws attention to the fact that the precise topography of the Went Valley is described in detail in these works, with a cryptic reference being made to Wentbridge, 'he went at a bridge where there was wrestling'. Mr La' Chance concludes that, under the assumption that these three pieces of evidence are historically accurate and verifiable, the outlaw lived in the Went Valley in Yorkshire during the reign Edward the Confessor, the penultimate monarch of Anglo-Saxon England. What follows is a summary of some of the main arguments drawn from Mr La' Chance's thesis, and how they relate to the township. | |||
| The Origins and Development of the Legend of Robin Hood paints a frightening picture of the robberies that were conducted in the mid-to-late eleventh century by forest bandits operating on the arterial roads of northern England, roads such as Watling-Street in Barnsdale, on the edge of the Went Valley, Yorkshire, where the original versions of the Robin Hood story set the legend. Attention is brought to a passage in The Life of King Edward, which notes that in the late eleventh century | |||
| 'even parties of twenty or thirty men could scarcely travel without being either killed or robbed by the multitude of robbers in wait’. | |||
| Building upon this detail, Mr La' Chance draws attention to the fact that a period of social turmoil began in 1051, which was initiated by the appointment of Tostig Godwinson to the Earldom of Northumbria. A northern rebellion, aimed at resisting the wrongful authority of the southern monarchy, saw Tostig expelled from the earldom in 1065. However, the Norman Conquest in 1066 and the crowning of a new king, William the Conqueror, saw the north rise in arms once again between 1067-70, with the same political objective. It is the rebellions of the North against the rule of the southern monarchy which directly links the reigns of Edward the Confessor and that of William the Conqueror. The near success of the northern rebellion of 1067-70 prompted William I to respond savagely with the Harrowing of the North. Thereafter, the rebels took to the forests and lived as outlaws, much in the manner of Robin Hood. The deeds of post-conquest outlaws such as Hereward the Wake and Edric the Wild became the stuff of medieval legend, and Mr La' Chance argues that, in a similar fashion, the collective deeds of England's northern outlaws contributed to a legend that was to become known to history as The Adventures of Robin Hood. Enticingly, Mr La' Chance offers historical candidates for the literary characters of Robin Hood, the Sheriff of Nottingham and the evil Roger of Doncaster, all of which are characters who appear in the earliest medieval ballads. | |||
| Historians are unanimously agreed that the original Robin Hood ballads, dating from the fifteenth century, are predominantly set in the Went Valley, and the forest of Barnsdale in the county of Yorkshire. Drawing on this factor, Mr La' Chance draws attention to the fact that in 1069 William the Conqueror travelled across Yorkshire in order to put down an uprising which had sacked York, but that upon his journey to the city he discovered that the crossing of the River Aire at what is modern-day Pontefract had been blockaded by a group of local insurgents. The Anglo-Danish rebels had broken the bridge which forded the river and held the opposite bank in force. After being held up for three weeks, the king finally managed to ford the river far upstream, most probably at Ferry Fryston. From here he continued his journey along the road to York. The Yorkshire rebels do not seem to have made any preparations in case the Normans forded the river and when this event occurred all organized resistance vanished instantly. The insurgents who had guarded the crossing adopted the standard northern military tactic of retreating to the nearby hills and forests for sanctuary. Given the immediacy of the Went Valley to the River Aire at Pontefract it is probable that the Anglo-Danish rebels who had blockaded the river fled to the Went Valley and the forest of Barnsdale for protection, as was their age-old custom. Such an act would place these outlaws in the very heart of traditional Robin Hood country. Notably, the Gest states that Robin Hood was joined in Barnsdale by seven score outlaws. Mr La'm Chance surmises that this must have been a consequence of a common calamity of some kind, such as the insurrection of the Anglo-Danes, for it is difficult to believe that each and every one of these men had had been individually convicted of a capital offence. The defeat of the rebels at Pontefract would certainly help to explain why an eleventh century Robin Hood should have been joined in the Went Valley on the edge of Barnsdale by so many men. Mr La' Chance argues that, without question, the Went Valley is ideally suited to serve as an outlaw encampment because despite its remoteness, it contains everything necessary to support life, for the presence of a stream ensured both fresh water and fish; the river plain and the Brockadale Wood ensured ample wildlife for food. Moreover, the site of the Saylis, located on high ground overlooking the Went Valley, would have served as a perfect sentry point from which to lookout for approaching Norman soldiers. Therefore, it is probable that many outlaws inhabited the Went Valley in Barnsdale in the late eleventh century, which, as aforesaid, would place them right in the beating heart of Robin Hood country. Yet this factor invites further questions, particularly, who were these men and what do we know of their deeds? Mr La' Chance posits that one of these men, an individual named Swein-son-of-Sicga, could have been the original Robin Hood. | |||
| The legend of Robin Hood owes its origins to memories of a ‘strong thefe’ who inhabited Barnsdale. Though it would seem that many brigands inhabited Yorkshire’s forests during the late eleventh century, the only direct quote in relation to the deeds of these men pertains to one Swein-son-of-Sicga, within whose gang resided a ‘cursed villain’ who robbed Abbot Benedict of Saint Mary’s and Saint German, Selby. The outlaw Swein-son-of-Sicga is a colourful figure. The Coucher Book of Selby Abbey records that, | |||
| ‘At that time there was a certain Prince of Thieves by the name of Swain, son of Sigge, who constantly prowled around the neighbouring (Yorkshire) woods with his band on perpetual raids’. | |||
| Mr La' Chance suggests that Swein must have been a particularly notorious figure in his own age to warrant both the attentions of contemporary commentators and the title of the‘ Prince of Thieves’. Pointedly, Mr La' Chance indicates that Abbot Benedict’s tormentors are said to have made their home in the neighboring Yorkshire woods. Ostensibly, this indicates the nearby forest of Barnsdale, and in particular the Went Valley, where the Anglo-Danish rebels are believed to have been holed up, for the topography of the Yorkshire landscape dictates that the abbey at Selby is just over a dozen miles from Barnsdale Bar on the route to York. In addition to Barnsdale, Mr La' Chance surmises that, on occasions, Swein must have frequented the royal Forest of Galtres near York, Sherwood Forest in Nottinghamshire and perhaps even Inglewood Forest in Cumbria, because it was very common for fugitives from justice to move around greatly, often from one forested county to another. This factor raises the question of whether Swein had been one of the notorious Yorkshire highwaymen that disturbed the peace in northern England during the reign of Edward the Confessor? Judging by Swein’s later reputation, Mr La' Chance believes that this is so, but accepts that there is no proof of this and that this is because the records that refer to Swein’s deeds no longer exist, leaving a paucity of evidence as to his outlaw career. As indicated, Swein-son-of-Sicga was just one of a number of outlaws who inhabited the forests of northern England in the late eleventh century. It is unfortunate that the particulars of Swein's outlawed peers have been lost to history because, though the copious records of the eleventh and twelfth centuries make it apparent that such men existed, it is impossible to say more of them and their deeds. However, Mr La' Chance suggests that perhaps at that time there lived a particularly infamous outlaw who went by the name of Hadd, Hadd being a common Anglo-Danish name, that is not too dissimilar from Hood in its pronunciation. He accepts that we simply cannot know. Nevertheless, it is certain, says Mr La' Chance, that outlaws such as Swein-son-of-Sicga fulfill the role of Robin Hood as it is depicted in the fifteenth century ballads. And, it is certain that these men inhabited the Went Valley on the very edge of the forest of Barnsdale in the late eleventh century. | |||
| Mr La' Chance believes that he has other evidence which ties the legend of Robin hood to Barnsdale in the period of the eleventh century. In particular, the author notes how, at the end of the Gest, after Robin Hood has tired of life at court, he informs the king of his desire to return home to the forest, explaining that, | |||
| ‘I made a chapel in Bernysdale, That seemly is to se, It is of Mary Magdaleyne And thereto wolde I be’. | |||
| This stanza has not previously been given the attention that it deserves by historians. It is one of a limited number of early references which provide Robin Hood with a local base. But why should the outlaw found a chapel and why found it in the remote region of Barnsdale, of all places? The foundation of chapels as remote hermitages was common across western Europe, and St. Mary is a saint that was particularly associated with reformed sinners, like outlaws. Now many English churches are dedicated to St. Mary Magdalene, but if the author of the Gest was referring to a real church, which is in keeping with his practice of citing legitimate locations, there is only one church in the environs of medieval Barnsdale which fits his description, that being the church of St. Mary Magdalene at Campsall, which was built in the late eleventh century by the Baron of Pontefract, Robert de Lacy. Mr La' Chance is certain that the Gest is describing the chapel at Campsall because, he states, it is the only chapel dedicated to St. Mary Magdalene that resides within what might possibly be considered to be the environs of medieval Barnsdale. Interestingly, local legend holds that Robin Hood and Maid Marian were eventually married under the arch of St. Mary’s church at Campsall. | |||
| At the heart of the tales of Robin Hood lies a simple adventure story recording the deeds of an outlaw who robbed travellers as they passed through Barnsdale upon the Great North Road, and who for these crimes was hunted by the Sheriff of Nottingham. That said, Mr La' Chance points to Hugh fitz Baldric, the late eleventh century Sheriff of Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire, as the archetypal Sheriff of Nottingham. 'Hugh fitz Baldric', says Mr La' Chance, 'is a particularly interesting historical personality because he fits to quite some degree the role of the Sheriff of Nottingham as he is depicted in the ballads'. Born in France c.1045 to Baldric, a Saxon thegn, Hugh served as the Sheriff of Nottingham from 1068 until 1086, and held the position in Yorkshire from 1069 until c.1080. Therefore, Hugh fitz Baldric held the sheriffship in Nottinghamshire for three turbulent years before he took the position in Yorkshire, which suggests that his contemporaries would have become accustomed to referring to him by the title of the Sheriff of Nottingham, a practice that may have still been employed whilst he simultaneously served in Yorkshire. In his capacity as the sheriff Hugh fitz Baldric held responsibility for arresting the North’s outlaws and bringing them to justice. The battle between Yorkshire’s forest renegades and the agencies of Norman law enforcement has a stark resemblance to the tales that were later told of Robin Hood and the Sheriff of Nottingham, because it is chronicled that Hugh fitz Baldric needed to travel around the county of Yorkshire in the company of a small army due to the threat that was posed to his safety by the region’s outlaws. Therefore, Hugh fitz Baldric matches the role of the Sheriff of Nottingham. Mr La' Chance also draws attention to Roger de Busli, who held lands at Tickhill, Doncaster, as a grant from William I, at which he established his powerbase and stronghold, as the exemplar of the Sir Roger of Doncaster of the Gest and of the ballad of Robin Hood's Death. 'The castle at Tickhill in Doncaster was built on the Nottinghamshire / South Yorkshire border, and Roger de Busli also held lands at Blyth', says Mr La' Chance. Notably, the Gest twice mentions the townships of Doncaster and Blyth in the same breath, with both the monks of York and the poor knight informing Robin Hood that their purpose was to ‘have dyned to day At Blith (Notts) or Doncastere’. So could Sir Roger de Busli have been the villain of the Gest? Mr La' Chance admits that, unfortunately, the truth is that we shall never know for certain, but adds that it may be significant that William I granted Roger de Busli great judicial powers that included infangthief, which constituted the right to have a gallows, the right to the possessions of the condemned fugitives, the assize of bread and ale and finally, the return of writs except for pleas of the crown. Taken as a whole, these powers amounted to effective police power and were granted in order to enable the restoration of law and order in the region. Such powers provided all the authority that Roger de Busli needed to be a terror to outlaws and thieves. As a result, both Roger de Busli and Hugh fitz Baldric would have played a significant role in the persecution of those outlaws who, like Swein-son-of-Sicga, inhabited both Barnsdale and Sherwood Forest during the late eleventh century, and this factor might be reflected in the narrative of the Gest. | |||
| The Origins and Development of the Legend of Robin Hood continues to suggest that if the outlaw whose deeds inspired the legend had operated in the Went Valley, he in all probability died there too. The B version of the ballad Robin Hood’s Death states that the outlaw died at Kirkley. Similarly, the Gest relates that Robin Hood died at Kyrkesly. The tourist tradition suggests that Robin Hood died at Kirklees, Yorkshire, where today a gravestone dedicated to the outlaw rests. However, the priory at Kirklees was not founded by Reiner le Fleming until c.1138. Of course, this would mean that if Robin Hood had lived during the reign of Edward the Confessor he must have lived to be at least seventy-two years of age in order to have died at Kirklees Priory. We doubt that this could have been the case, not least of all because the literary evidence tentatively suggests that Robin Hood was killed by Roger de Busli in the late eleventh century. But it is probable that the reference to the outlaw’s last resting place has been either misinterpreted by modern historians or that it was not recorded accurately in the medieval sources to begin with. Importantly, one should note that in Middle English etymology there are no standard spellings. This means that one should not expect exact spellings for names and places but rather be prepared to allow for considerable difference. Writers, transcribers and printers all tried to replicate spellings in their works in the way in which they thought that names were said, and as we recognise even today, with dialect and local variations, pronunciation and the sound of a name can differ greatly. Moreover, in the Middle Ages literature in the English tongue was something of a novelty and there was little tradition of following on spellings. It is consequently sometimes very difficult to identify the locations cited in medieval literature. Therefore it is important to recognise that in the Anglo-Saxon period Pontefract was divided into two distinct and separate localities, known respectively as Tanshelf and Kirkby. Might the place-names which refer to the location of Robin’s death that are found in the ballads, such as ‘Kirkesley’ and in particular, 'Kirkley' have originally been Kirkby? Mr La' Chance indicates that since we only know the medieval pronunciation of Middle English words and place-names through their spellings one ought not to be too quick to condemn the theory, stating that, 'it is entirely possible that a process of either natural transmission (much like that at work in a game of ‘Chinese Whispers’) or scribal error accounts for the alteration of the place-name of Kirkby to ‘Kirkley’ and subsequently to ‘Kirklees’ by the end of the Middle Ages'. It would appear to be an easy adaptation to make because the two words are only differentiated by the rhyming ley / by suffix. Three pieces of evidence can be put forward to support Mr La' Chance's supposition that the Barnsdale Bandit died at Kirkby. Firstly, the legend maintains that Robin Hood went to the priory at ‘Kirkley’ to be healed through the process of bleeding. Importantly, All Saints Church at Kirkby had a religious hospital attached to it, which, crucially, was a priory hospital. The location is approximately three miles from the site of Robin’s robberies at the Saylis at Wentbridge, and at the time which one might suggest that he lived, there was even a road which ran directly from Wentbridge to the hospital at Kirkby. To that end, the Tudor historian Richard Grafton stated that the prioress who murdered Robin Hood buried the outlaw beside the road, | |||
| ‘Where he had used to rob and spoyle those that passed that way…and the cause why she buryed him there was, for that common strangers and travailers, knowing and seeing him there buryed, might more safely and without feare take their journeys that way, which they durst not do in the life of the sayd outlaes’. | |||
| The Gest reinforces this statement by commenting, | |||
| ‘Cryst have mercy on his soule, That dyed on the rode! For he was a good outlawe, And dyde pore men moch god’. | |||
| In contrast to the Saxon village of Kirkby, Kirklees priory lies over twenty miles to the east of the Went Valley and thus cannot be reckoned to have been within proximity of the region in which the outlaw performed his robberies. The final piece of evidence comes from Drayton’s Poly-Olbion Song 28 (67-70) composed in 1622. When the song speaks of Robin Hood’s death it clearly states that the outlaw died at ‘Kirkby’. The reference to the place named Kirkby that occurs in this song could of course arise because the composer had confused the locations of Kirkby and Kirkley. But if the error was made in this instance it only strengthens the argument that it had also once occurred in the opposite direction too. Mr La' Chance suggests that, alternatively, and given its early dating, the song’s composer may have had some information at his disposal which confirmed that Robin Hood truly had died at Kirkby and that this source has since been lost. That this is so is entirely possible because it is clear that those who first told the legend of Robin Hood had knowledge of the topography of the region in which the story is set because the lesser known place names such as the Sayles would only have been known by a local man. But the fact that the place names appear in a higgledy-piggledy fashion appears to demonstrate that it was only the narrators of the older oral renditions of the legend and not the composers of the written sources that survive from the fifteenth century who knew the story so well. It is thus reasonable to conclude that when the legend was finally written down in the fifteenth century the knowledge of the outlaw’s last resting place had been distorted, which is not at all surprising given that over four hundred years of bloody medieval history may have passed since the outlaw died. Mr La' Chance suggests that if the theory that Robin Hood died at Kirkby can be validated it will be possible to definitively tie down the chronology of the legend to the period of the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries because the districts of Tanshelf and Kirkby became known as pons fractus, the place of the broken bridge, or to give the locality its modern name, Pontefract, c.1124. With the tale of the murder of Robin Hood the medieval legend of the Prince of Thieves comes to a premature end. | |||
| Sadly, the daily activities of men such as Hugh fitz Baldric and Roger de Busli were not gaudy enough to attract the attention of the chroniclers, and nothing further is known of them. Indeed, the chroniclers would have us believe that next to nothing happened in the North outside of the ecclesiastical sphere in the late eleventh century. There were no murders or revolts and Norman authority went unchallenged, or at least, it did during the daytime and away from the forests. However, the probability remains that amongst the woodland glades stood an outlaw whose fame and infamy gave birth to the legend that is Robin Hood.<ref>La' Chance, Scott A, ''The Origins and Development of the Legend of Robin Hood'' (Leeds: The University of Leeds, 2014)</ref> | |||
| == The 'Woodlands' Model Village == | == The 'Woodlands' Model Village == | ||
Revision as of 11:50, 16 July 2014
For the garden created by broadcaster Geoff Hamilton, see Barnsdale Gardens. Human settlement in England| Barnsdale | |
|---|---|
 Robin Hood's Well is on the east of the southbound carriageway of the A1, just south of Barnsdale Bar. | |
| OS grid reference | SE508136 |
| Metropolitan borough | |
| Metropolitan county | |
| Region | |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | DONCASTER |
| Postcode district | DN1-DN12 |
| Dialling code | 01302 |
| Police | South Yorkshire |
| Fire | South Yorkshire |
| Ambulance | Yorkshire |
Barnsdale, or Barnsdale Forest, is a relatively small area of South Yorkshire, England which has a rich history. The region is steeped in folklore. Barnsdale is historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire. Barnsdale lies in the immediate vicinity north and north-west of Doncaster, and which was formerly forested and a place of royal hunts, and also renowned as a haunt of the outlaw Robin Hood in early ballads.
Boundaries and features of Barnsdale
Barnsdale historically falls within the West Riding of Yorkshire within Yorkshire. The villages within Barnsdale are today part of the local government administration area South Yorkshire, the southern villages are more specifically now part of the Metropolitan Borough of Doncaster, but the villages and hamlets of northern Barnsdale fall within the City of Wakefield metropolitan borough of West Yorkshire.
The small South Yorkshire village of Hampole is generally considered to lie within the dead centre of what was once the Barnsdale Forest area 53°35′10.0″N 1°14′0.00″W / 53.586111°N 1.2333333°W / 53.586111; -1.2333333. It is recorded that Richard Rolle (1300–1349), the famous Latin and English religious writer and Bible translator, spent his final years at Hampole as a hermit, secluded in the dense forest.
The area was once thick woodland, rich with game and deer; and the monarchs of England are sometimes recorded as having gone on royal hunts in the Barnsdale forest. It is believed that at some point in the early medieval era, Barnsdale Forest was probably huge and may have covered most of South Yorkshire (in the same manner as Sherwood Forest probably once covered most of Nottinghamshire). It is possible that the large town of Barnsley, some 10 miles (16 km) to the west of Hampole, got its name from the forest.
Barnsdale Bar is the site of the junction of the A1 (the historic Great North Road), the A639, and Wrangbrook Lane, Woodfield Road and Long Lane (junction 38 of the A1). Now a service area lies just north of the junction, about eight miles north-north-west of Doncaster. Three limestone quarries exist nearby, and archeological digs at the site have turned up some fascinating materials, architecture, and preserved farmland dating back to the medieval era, the Dark Ages, and beyond.
All that now exists of Barnsdale Forest is small gatherings of trees at the side of the A1 trunk road at Barnsdale Bar 53°37′3.12″N 1°13′53.05″W / 53.6175333°N 1.2314028°W / 53.6175333; -1.2314028. There is however a wooded area around a half a mile wide, lying around a mile south of Hampole. It is called Hampole Wood, and although a small wood, the trees there may be direct descendants of the trees of Barnsdale Forest. The same could be said of the woodland that resides around a nearby stately home, Brodsworth Hall. At Woodlands (q.v.) there is Hanging Wood, which was also part of Barnsdale Forest.
At Barnsdale Bar there is a 1,226 yard railway tunnel which although closed to passenger traffic in 1932 and completely closed in 1959 is in remarkable condition and is part of the former Hull and Barnsley Railway.
Connections between the Barnsdale area and the Robin Hood legend
In the earliest medieval ballads of Robin Hood, he is stated as having made Barnsdale Forest his abode and base of operations (for example, in "Robin Hood and Guy of Gisbourne", and in "A Gest of Robyn Hode"). A later claim is that Robin Hood resided in Sherwood Forest, some fifty miles to the south of Barnsdale, in Nottinghamshire. It is possible that the two forests were so large that they conjoined together at this period in history.
There is also Robin Hood's Well, a small monument (apparently designed by John Vanbrugh) lying right next to the A1 between the Red House junction and Barnsdale Bar, in between the villages of Skelbrooke and Burghwallis. However, it was moved around 1960 when the junction was being constructed, so the real well is actually beneath the A1.
Yet another well - Little John's Well - lies to the west of Hampole, between Wrangbrook and Skelbrooke (but closer to the latter). It is also called Little John's Cave. Situated by the A638, to the west of Barnsdale, it was once engraved with the outlaw's name, but is now derelict.
South of Barnsdale Bar, the A1 follows the old Roman Road of Ermine Street - north of Barnsdale Bar the A639 follows the course of the Roman Road more closely whilst the A1 follows a more recent route. A number of villages and geological features along this route are mentioned in the early ballads of Robin Hood as being places the outlaw would visit.
In Hanging Wood, also known as Highfields Wood, which lies between Hampole and Highfields, 53°33′39.96″N 1°11′58.68″W / 53.5611000°N 1.1996333°W / 53.5611000; -1.1996333 a small stream known as Robin Hood's stream springs from underneath the Roman Road and runs into the Pick Burn.
A widely acclaimed academic paper, entitled The Origins and Development of the Legend of Robin Hood, written by Mr Scott La' Chance for the award of Master of Arts by Research degree at the University of Leeds in 2014, re-examines the evidence for the genesis of the Robin Hood legend and concludes that in all probability, the Robin Hood legend stems from the social and political turmoil that beset northern England between the years 1065-70. In particular, the paper contravenes previous historical scholarship by arguing that Robin Hood was an Anglo-Saxon freedom fighter operating out modern Wentbridge in the Went Valley, a site located three miles southeast of the town Pontefract in Yorkshire. Mr La' Chance draws attention to three pieces of historical evidence in order to validate his thesis. Firstly, attention is drawn to the fifteenth century ballad entitled A Gest of Robin Hood, which cites that Robin Hood lived during the reign of an unidentified king named 'Edward'. Next, Mr La' Chance points to the King’s Remembrancer’s Memoranda Roll of Easter 1262, which records that the Prior of Sandleford had been pardoned of the offence of seizing without warrant the chattels of a William Robehod, fugitive. Similarly, the Roll of Justices on Eyre in Berkshire of 1261 records that a William, son of Robert Le Fevre (Smith), was outlawed for committing acts of robbery with his criminal gang. The document reveals that William’s chattels had been seized by the Prior of Sandleford, so it can be said with absolute certainty that the William Robehod of the Memoranda Roll and William, son of Robert Le Fevre of the Roll of Justices on Eyre were one and the same person. Such evidence is said by Mr La’ Chance to prove that the historical Robin Hood lived at least a decade before the coronation of Edward I (1272-1307), and probably a considerable period before that date, in order to generate this type of fame, disproving the popular belief that Robin Hood had lived during the reign of the Plantagenets. Finally, the thesis returns to examine the fifteenth century sources, and draws attention to the fact that the precise topography of the Went Valley is described in detail in these works, with a cryptic reference being made to Wentbridge, 'he went at a bridge where there was wrestling'. Mr La' Chance concludes that, under the assumption that these three pieces of evidence are historically accurate and verifiable, the outlaw lived in the Went Valley in Yorkshire during the reign Edward the Confessor, the penultimate monarch of Anglo-Saxon England. What follows is a summary of some of the main arguments drawn from Mr La' Chance's thesis, and how they relate to the township.
The Origins and Development of the Legend of Robin Hood paints a frightening picture of the robberies that were conducted in the mid-to-late eleventh century by forest bandits operating on the arterial roads of northern England, roads such as Watling-Street in Barnsdale, on the edge of the Went Valley, Yorkshire, where the original versions of the Robin Hood story set the legend. Attention is brought to a passage in The Life of King Edward, which notes that in the late eleventh century
'even parties of twenty or thirty men could scarcely travel without being either killed or robbed by the multitude of robbers in wait’.
Building upon this detail, Mr La' Chance draws attention to the fact that a period of social turmoil began in 1051, which was initiated by the appointment of Tostig Godwinson to the Earldom of Northumbria. A northern rebellion, aimed at resisting the wrongful authority of the southern monarchy, saw Tostig expelled from the earldom in 1065. However, the Norman Conquest in 1066 and the crowning of a new king, William the Conqueror, saw the north rise in arms once again between 1067-70, with the same political objective. It is the rebellions of the North against the rule of the southern monarchy which directly links the reigns of Edward the Confessor and that of William the Conqueror. The near success of the northern rebellion of 1067-70 prompted William I to respond savagely with the Harrowing of the North. Thereafter, the rebels took to the forests and lived as outlaws, much in the manner of Robin Hood. The deeds of post-conquest outlaws such as Hereward the Wake and Edric the Wild became the stuff of medieval legend, and Mr La' Chance argues that, in a similar fashion, the collective deeds of England's northern outlaws contributed to a legend that was to become known to history as The Adventures of Robin Hood. Enticingly, Mr La' Chance offers historical candidates for the literary characters of Robin Hood, the Sheriff of Nottingham and the evil Roger of Doncaster, all of which are characters who appear in the earliest medieval ballads.
Historians are unanimously agreed that the original Robin Hood ballads, dating from the fifteenth century, are predominantly set in the Went Valley, and the forest of Barnsdale in the county of Yorkshire. Drawing on this factor, Mr La' Chance draws attention to the fact that in 1069 William the Conqueror travelled across Yorkshire in order to put down an uprising which had sacked York, but that upon his journey to the city he discovered that the crossing of the River Aire at what is modern-day Pontefract had been blockaded by a group of local insurgents. The Anglo-Danish rebels had broken the bridge which forded the river and held the opposite bank in force. After being held up for three weeks, the king finally managed to ford the river far upstream, most probably at Ferry Fryston. From here he continued his journey along the road to York. The Yorkshire rebels do not seem to have made any preparations in case the Normans forded the river and when this event occurred all organized resistance vanished instantly. The insurgents who had guarded the crossing adopted the standard northern military tactic of retreating to the nearby hills and forests for sanctuary. Given the immediacy of the Went Valley to the River Aire at Pontefract it is probable that the Anglo-Danish rebels who had blockaded the river fled to the Went Valley and the forest of Barnsdale for protection, as was their age-old custom. Such an act would place these outlaws in the very heart of traditional Robin Hood country. Notably, the Gest states that Robin Hood was joined in Barnsdale by seven score outlaws. Mr La'm Chance surmises that this must have been a consequence of a common calamity of some kind, such as the insurrection of the Anglo-Danes, for it is difficult to believe that each and every one of these men had had been individually convicted of a capital offence. The defeat of the rebels at Pontefract would certainly help to explain why an eleventh century Robin Hood should have been joined in the Went Valley on the edge of Barnsdale by so many men. Mr La' Chance argues that, without question, the Went Valley is ideally suited to serve as an outlaw encampment because despite its remoteness, it contains everything necessary to support life, for the presence of a stream ensured both fresh water and fish; the river plain and the Brockadale Wood ensured ample wildlife for food. Moreover, the site of the Saylis, located on high ground overlooking the Went Valley, would have served as a perfect sentry point from which to lookout for approaching Norman soldiers. Therefore, it is probable that many outlaws inhabited the Went Valley in Barnsdale in the late eleventh century, which, as aforesaid, would place them right in the beating heart of Robin Hood country. Yet this factor invites further questions, particularly, who were these men and what do we know of their deeds? Mr La' Chance posits that one of these men, an individual named Swein-son-of-Sicga, could have been the original Robin Hood.
The legend of Robin Hood owes its origins to memories of a ‘strong thefe’ who inhabited Barnsdale. Though it would seem that many brigands inhabited Yorkshire’s forests during the late eleventh century, the only direct quote in relation to the deeds of these men pertains to one Swein-son-of-Sicga, within whose gang resided a ‘cursed villain’ who robbed Abbot Benedict of Saint Mary’s and Saint German, Selby. The outlaw Swein-son-of-Sicga is a colourful figure. The Coucher Book of Selby Abbey records that,
‘At that time there was a certain Prince of Thieves by the name of Swain, son of Sigge, who constantly prowled around the neighbouring (Yorkshire) woods with his band on perpetual raids’.
Mr La' Chance suggests that Swein must have been a particularly notorious figure in his own age to warrant both the attentions of contemporary commentators and the title of the‘ Prince of Thieves’. Pointedly, Mr La' Chance indicates that Abbot Benedict’s tormentors are said to have made their home in the neighboring Yorkshire woods. Ostensibly, this indicates the nearby forest of Barnsdale, and in particular the Went Valley, where the Anglo-Danish rebels are believed to have been holed up, for the topography of the Yorkshire landscape dictates that the abbey at Selby is just over a dozen miles from Barnsdale Bar on the route to York. In addition to Barnsdale, Mr La' Chance surmises that, on occasions, Swein must have frequented the royal Forest of Galtres near York, Sherwood Forest in Nottinghamshire and perhaps even Inglewood Forest in Cumbria, because it was very common for fugitives from justice to move around greatly, often from one forested county to another. This factor raises the question of whether Swein had been one of the notorious Yorkshire highwaymen that disturbed the peace in northern England during the reign of Edward the Confessor? Judging by Swein’s later reputation, Mr La' Chance believes that this is so, but accepts that there is no proof of this and that this is because the records that refer to Swein’s deeds no longer exist, leaving a paucity of evidence as to his outlaw career. As indicated, Swein-son-of-Sicga was just one of a number of outlaws who inhabited the forests of northern England in the late eleventh century. It is unfortunate that the particulars of Swein's outlawed peers have been lost to history because, though the copious records of the eleventh and twelfth centuries make it apparent that such men existed, it is impossible to say more of them and their deeds. However, Mr La' Chance suggests that perhaps at that time there lived a particularly infamous outlaw who went by the name of Hadd, Hadd being a common Anglo-Danish name, that is not too dissimilar from Hood in its pronunciation. He accepts that we simply cannot know. Nevertheless, it is certain, says Mr La' Chance, that outlaws such as Swein-son-of-Sicga fulfill the role of Robin Hood as it is depicted in the fifteenth century ballads. And, it is certain that these men inhabited the Went Valley on the very edge of the forest of Barnsdale in the late eleventh century.
Mr La' Chance believes that he has other evidence which ties the legend of Robin hood to Barnsdale in the period of the eleventh century. In particular, the author notes how, at the end of the Gest, after Robin Hood has tired of life at court, he informs the king of his desire to return home to the forest, explaining that,
‘I made a chapel in Bernysdale, That seemly is to se, It is of Mary Magdaleyne And thereto wolde I be’.
This stanza has not previously been given the attention that it deserves by historians. It is one of a limited number of early references which provide Robin Hood with a local base. But why should the outlaw found a chapel and why found it in the remote region of Barnsdale, of all places? The foundation of chapels as remote hermitages was common across western Europe, and St. Mary is a saint that was particularly associated with reformed sinners, like outlaws. Now many English churches are dedicated to St. Mary Magdalene, but if the author of the Gest was referring to a real church, which is in keeping with his practice of citing legitimate locations, there is only one church in the environs of medieval Barnsdale which fits his description, that being the church of St. Mary Magdalene at Campsall, which was built in the late eleventh century by the Baron of Pontefract, Robert de Lacy. Mr La' Chance is certain that the Gest is describing the chapel at Campsall because, he states, it is the only chapel dedicated to St. Mary Magdalene that resides within what might possibly be considered to be the environs of medieval Barnsdale. Interestingly, local legend holds that Robin Hood and Maid Marian were eventually married under the arch of St. Mary’s church at Campsall.
At the heart of the tales of Robin Hood lies a simple adventure story recording the deeds of an outlaw who robbed travellers as they passed through Barnsdale upon the Great North Road, and who for these crimes was hunted by the Sheriff of Nottingham. That said, Mr La' Chance points to Hugh fitz Baldric, the late eleventh century Sheriff of Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire, as the archetypal Sheriff of Nottingham. 'Hugh fitz Baldric', says Mr La' Chance, 'is a particularly interesting historical personality because he fits to quite some degree the role of the Sheriff of Nottingham as he is depicted in the ballads'. Born in France c.1045 to Baldric, a Saxon thegn, Hugh served as the Sheriff of Nottingham from 1068 until 1086, and held the position in Yorkshire from 1069 until c.1080. Therefore, Hugh fitz Baldric held the sheriffship in Nottinghamshire for three turbulent years before he took the position in Yorkshire, which suggests that his contemporaries would have become accustomed to referring to him by the title of the Sheriff of Nottingham, a practice that may have still been employed whilst he simultaneously served in Yorkshire. In his capacity as the sheriff Hugh fitz Baldric held responsibility for arresting the North’s outlaws and bringing them to justice. The battle between Yorkshire’s forest renegades and the agencies of Norman law enforcement has a stark resemblance to the tales that were later told of Robin Hood and the Sheriff of Nottingham, because it is chronicled that Hugh fitz Baldric needed to travel around the county of Yorkshire in the company of a small army due to the threat that was posed to his safety by the region’s outlaws. Therefore, Hugh fitz Baldric matches the role of the Sheriff of Nottingham. Mr La' Chance also draws attention to Roger de Busli, who held lands at Tickhill, Doncaster, as a grant from William I, at which he established his powerbase and stronghold, as the exemplar of the Sir Roger of Doncaster of the Gest and of the ballad of Robin Hood's Death. 'The castle at Tickhill in Doncaster was built on the Nottinghamshire / South Yorkshire border, and Roger de Busli also held lands at Blyth', says Mr La' Chance. Notably, the Gest twice mentions the townships of Doncaster and Blyth in the same breath, with both the monks of York and the poor knight informing Robin Hood that their purpose was to ‘have dyned to day At Blith (Notts) or Doncastere’. So could Sir Roger de Busli have been the villain of the Gest? Mr La' Chance admits that, unfortunately, the truth is that we shall never know for certain, but adds that it may be significant that William I granted Roger de Busli great judicial powers that included infangthief, which constituted the right to have a gallows, the right to the possessions of the condemned fugitives, the assize of bread and ale and finally, the return of writs except for pleas of the crown. Taken as a whole, these powers amounted to effective police power and were granted in order to enable the restoration of law and order in the region. Such powers provided all the authority that Roger de Busli needed to be a terror to outlaws and thieves. As a result, both Roger de Busli and Hugh fitz Baldric would have played a significant role in the persecution of those outlaws who, like Swein-son-of-Sicga, inhabited both Barnsdale and Sherwood Forest during the late eleventh century, and this factor might be reflected in the narrative of the Gest.
The Origins and Development of the Legend of Robin Hood continues to suggest that if the outlaw whose deeds inspired the legend had operated in the Went Valley, he in all probability died there too. The B version of the ballad Robin Hood’s Death states that the outlaw died at Kirkley. Similarly, the Gest relates that Robin Hood died at Kyrkesly. The tourist tradition suggests that Robin Hood died at Kirklees, Yorkshire, where today a gravestone dedicated to the outlaw rests. However, the priory at Kirklees was not founded by Reiner le Fleming until c.1138. Of course, this would mean that if Robin Hood had lived during the reign of Edward the Confessor he must have lived to be at least seventy-two years of age in order to have died at Kirklees Priory. We doubt that this could have been the case, not least of all because the literary evidence tentatively suggests that Robin Hood was killed by Roger de Busli in the late eleventh century. But it is probable that the reference to the outlaw’s last resting place has been either misinterpreted by modern historians or that it was not recorded accurately in the medieval sources to begin with. Importantly, one should note that in Middle English etymology there are no standard spellings. This means that one should not expect exact spellings for names and places but rather be prepared to allow for considerable difference. Writers, transcribers and printers all tried to replicate spellings in their works in the way in which they thought that names were said, and as we recognise even today, with dialect and local variations, pronunciation and the sound of a name can differ greatly. Moreover, in the Middle Ages literature in the English tongue was something of a novelty and there was little tradition of following on spellings. It is consequently sometimes very difficult to identify the locations cited in medieval literature. Therefore it is important to recognise that in the Anglo-Saxon period Pontefract was divided into two distinct and separate localities, known respectively as Tanshelf and Kirkby. Might the place-names which refer to the location of Robin’s death that are found in the ballads, such as ‘Kirkesley’ and in particular, 'Kirkley' have originally been Kirkby? Mr La' Chance indicates that since we only know the medieval pronunciation of Middle English words and place-names through their spellings one ought not to be too quick to condemn the theory, stating that, 'it is entirely possible that a process of either natural transmission (much like that at work in a game of ‘Chinese Whispers’) or scribal error accounts for the alteration of the place-name of Kirkby to ‘Kirkley’ and subsequently to ‘Kirklees’ by the end of the Middle Ages'. It would appear to be an easy adaptation to make because the two words are only differentiated by the rhyming ley / by suffix. Three pieces of evidence can be put forward to support Mr La' Chance's supposition that the Barnsdale Bandit died at Kirkby. Firstly, the legend maintains that Robin Hood went to the priory at ‘Kirkley’ to be healed through the process of bleeding. Importantly, All Saints Church at Kirkby had a religious hospital attached to it, which, crucially, was a priory hospital. The location is approximately three miles from the site of Robin’s robberies at the Saylis at Wentbridge, and at the time which one might suggest that he lived, there was even a road which ran directly from Wentbridge to the hospital at Kirkby. To that end, the Tudor historian Richard Grafton stated that the prioress who murdered Robin Hood buried the outlaw beside the road,
‘Where he had used to rob and spoyle those that passed that way…and the cause why she buryed him there was, for that common strangers and travailers, knowing and seeing him there buryed, might more safely and without feare take their journeys that way, which they durst not do in the life of the sayd outlaes’.
The Gest reinforces this statement by commenting,
‘Cryst have mercy on his soule, That dyed on the rode! For he was a good outlawe, And dyde pore men moch god’.
In contrast to the Saxon village of Kirkby, Kirklees priory lies over twenty miles to the east of the Went Valley and thus cannot be reckoned to have been within proximity of the region in which the outlaw performed his robberies. The final piece of evidence comes from Drayton’s Poly-Olbion Song 28 (67-70) composed in 1622. When the song speaks of Robin Hood’s death it clearly states that the outlaw died at ‘Kirkby’. The reference to the place named Kirkby that occurs in this song could of course arise because the composer had confused the locations of Kirkby and Kirkley. But if the error was made in this instance it only strengthens the argument that it had also once occurred in the opposite direction too. Mr La' Chance suggests that, alternatively, and given its early dating, the song’s composer may have had some information at his disposal which confirmed that Robin Hood truly had died at Kirkby and that this source has since been lost. That this is so is entirely possible because it is clear that those who first told the legend of Robin Hood had knowledge of the topography of the region in which the story is set because the lesser known place names such as the Sayles would only have been known by a local man. But the fact that the place names appear in a higgledy-piggledy fashion appears to demonstrate that it was only the narrators of the older oral renditions of the legend and not the composers of the written sources that survive from the fifteenth century who knew the story so well. It is thus reasonable to conclude that when the legend was finally written down in the fifteenth century the knowledge of the outlaw’s last resting place had been distorted, which is not at all surprising given that over four hundred years of bloody medieval history may have passed since the outlaw died. Mr La' Chance suggests that if the theory that Robin Hood died at Kirkby can be validated it will be possible to definitively tie down the chronology of the legend to the period of the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries because the districts of Tanshelf and Kirkby became known as pons fractus, the place of the broken bridge, or to give the locality its modern name, Pontefract, c.1124. With the tale of the murder of Robin Hood the medieval legend of the Prince of Thieves comes to a premature end.
Sadly, the daily activities of men such as Hugh fitz Baldric and Roger de Busli were not gaudy enough to attract the attention of the chroniclers, and nothing further is known of them. Indeed, the chroniclers would have us believe that next to nothing happened in the North outside of the ecclesiastical sphere in the late eleventh century. There were no murders or revolts and Norman authority went unchallenged, or at least, it did during the daytime and away from the forests. However, the probability remains that amongst the woodland glades stood an outlaw whose fame and infamy gave birth to the legend that is Robin Hood.
The 'Woodlands' Model Village
A feature of modern-day Barnsdale is the model village of Woodlands which lies about 4 miles south of Barnsdale Bar between the Roman Road and the historic Great North Road, here numbered as the A638 following the construction in 1960 of the A1(M) Doncaster by-pass.
References
- ^ Smith, Albert Hugh (1961). The Place-Names of the West Riding of Yorkshire. EPN Society.
- Read article here.
- A Gest of Robyn Hood
- britannia.com
- La' Chance, Scott A, The Origins and Development of the Legend of Robin Hood (Leeds: The University of Leeds, 2014)
