Robin Hood’s rules: Gang-culture in early-modern outlaw tales?

Abstract

This article discusses the extent to which 'gang-culture' can be seen as central to the social world imagined in English ballads featuring the outlaw Robin Hood. Focusing on two ballads from the mid-sixteenth century manuscript known as the 'Forresters' collection, it illustrates some of the ways in which such texts show themselves to be aware of some of the social dimensions of banditry: for example, in relation to Hobsbawm's concept of 'peasant outlaws' and in relation to apparent anxieties about the phenomenon of forced marriage. However, it also emphasises that ballad-material is often distinctively shaped by the demands of (implied) performance, and that the role played by gangs in such texts directly reflects particular assumptions about the nature of their reception. In the end, the specific characteristics of Robin Hood's gang is at least as much a product of literary dynamics as of social ones.

A Review of Robin Hood Scholarship Published in 2016

“…Instead, she recommends a polysemous reading of the outlaw, since, she argues, the feast scene alone in A Lytell Geste of Robyn Hode communicates Robin's multivalent significance. Reading Robin as polysemous "proposes criticism against established order by eschewing any effort to classify his character and, by association, his social position" (19). By close reading Robin's interactions with others in the Geste, Elmes proves that Robin is characterized not as a specific archetype, but as a complex persona whose characteristics stem from associations with "figures ranging from the holiest and most virtuous to the corrupt and most profane" ( 22).…”

“…In his article "Robin Hood's Rules: Gang-culture in Early-modern Outlaw Tales?" 19 Neil Cartlidge asserts that the legend of Robin Hood continues to be popular after the Middle Ages not because his character is infinitely endearing, but because audiences sense an implicit, conflicted connection between themselves and those groups that surround the outlaw. Cartlidge credits Eric Hobsbawm 20 with revealing a complex sociology linked to bandits whose lives and livelihoods depend upon popular sympathy.…”