Where is loxley robin hood

Crook nicely summarizes the problem in making a positive identification of Hobbehod with Wetherby. And that counts for something -- although not much. But why not look for Robin Hood in his legendary birthplace Loxley? Well, people have. This was probably meant to be the real village of Loxley in Yorkshire, although many later writers have moved "Locksley" to Nottinghamshire where most modern Robin Hood stories are set.

But in J. The Register of Arms says Fitz Odo is no longer a knight. It would seem he died. But in , there's a reference to a Robert fitz Odo living nearby. Oh, and drawing of Robin's grave resembles a grave in Loxley. But we have no evidence that Fitz Odo was ever an outlaw. We have no evidence that the Loxley grave is his. And the Robin Hood of the early ballads is not a knight. The speculation, in my opinion, went out of control.

In the earliest tellings of the Robin Hood legend, the outlaw hero is a yeoman roughly speaking, a member of the middle class. But with time the Robin Hood of legend moved up in the world.

By the mids, he was said to be an earl. No one is quite sure why Munday picked the earldom of Huntingdon for Robin Hood. Perhaps he just thought the "Hunting" part of the name sounded appropriate. Maybe it was propaganda for an earl which had lived earlier in the 16th century. Or perhaps he was inspired by the real-life earl of Huntingdon during the reigns of King Richard I and John when the plays were set.

Stephen Knight has pointed out that Robin's home in some tales was Barnsdale in Yorkshire. There was also a Barnsdale in Rutland though, and in King Richard's day, it was controlled by the earl of Huntingdon.

This fact may have been known by Munday through his archivist friend, John Stow. But in the medieval period, the Rutland Barnsdale was known as Bernardshill. Thus the Rutland connection is less likely than it first seems.

But there are Robin Hood elements to the career of the real earl of Huntingdon. His name was David, brother to William the Lion, king of Scotland. For nearly thirty years, Earl David was next in line for the Scottish throne. Through both of his daughters, Earl David was the direct ancestor of Scottish kings.

He held many lands in both Scotland and England. He was a very important figure in Anglo-Scottish diplomacy.

Edinburgh University Press, Most of the details that follow are from that book. Henry II's children often rebelled against him. Earl David of Huntingdon participated in the Young King's rebellion against his father, after which David lost the earldom for ten years. And participated in Richard's coronation. Earl David got married to Maud in She was also called Matilda a form of Maud. This is important because the very first literary reference we can find for Robin Hood ballads refers to the "rymes of Robyn hood and Randolf Erl of Chestre".

As you can see, there are ties of blood between the earldoms of Huntingdon and Chester. Anyway, shortly after the marriage which took place two weeks after Richard left for the Crusades , David disappears from the records for three and a half years. Some later chroniclers, like John of Fordun, say he went on the Third Crusade.

But there are no contemporary references to support that. Another unsupported thing Fordun mentions is that David had a son named Robert who died in infancy. So, in a chronicle that Munday may well have read the name Robert and Huntingdon are, however mildly, linked. Later stories have sometimes made Robin the son of the Earl of Huntingdon. Seeing as the possibly real Robert of Huntingdon died in infancy, any outlaw career would be exceedingly brief.

Shortly after David reappears in , he participates in a very Robin Hood like event. I'll just quote my source directly here. Upon Richard's arrival the castle fell and Earl David held a place of honour at the council on 30 March following the submission. This resembles some versions of Robin's reconciliation with the king. In Munday's plays, Robin supports Richard and opposes John.

But Richard died, and the man whose supporters the earl marched against was vying for the throne. Early mentions of Robin Hood's earldom say he was outlawed for debts.

This is something Munday picked up on. Earl David had his own financial woes, connected with forest offences. He was fined pounds for "encroachment as a result of the forest eyre of , contrary to the liberties of the Huntingdon honour. But in , he owed 1, pounds to the Exchequer, and had to sell off some of his land.

In , Earl David was accused as being part of a plot to assassinate King John. David's role was not proven in this affair. But one of the men behind this conspiracy was Robert FitzWalter, father of the Matilda who was Marian in Munday's plays. And later still Earl David was part of a rebellion against his king.

Forced on by his nephew Alexander, the current king of Scotland, he sided against King John in the barons conflict between In November , the king's men started seizng Earl David's lands. But there are still more Robin Hood connections.

David's daughter Isabella married Robert Bruce an ancestor of the famous one. The Bruces had power in Guisborough, Yorkshire. This place according to John Bellamy and others was also known as Gisburne in the middle ages and is a candidate for the home of Guy of Gisborne, Robin Hood's legendary adversary. Some of Stringer's sources include the chroniclers who made the earliest historical mentions to Robin Hood -- Fordun, Wyntoun, and Major. As I said, Earl David was a major power in the time.

Therefore, I'd gather he would be important to the Scottish chroniclers. And any Elizabethan playwright looking to find an earldom for Robin would be turn to these same chroniclers which mentioned both Robin Hood and Earl David. And he lost his earldom twice. He had problems with debts, including forest offences. Earl David opposed King John on more than one occasion. I am in no way suggesting that Earl David actually was Robin Hood, or inspired the earliest legend.

But it seems to me that Munday could have been influenced by some of these things when he selected which earldom to give to Robin Hood. But after Munday, it wouldn't do to have a real Robin Hood named David. So, in , Dr.

William Stukeley combed through old family records, changed a name here, forged a whole family there, and "discovered" the quite fictitious Robert fitz Ooth, Norman lord of Kime and pretended earl of Huntingdon.

This fictional Fitzooth background was used by many later writers. Ever since Ivanhoe in , people think of Robin Hood as a Saxon hero. And even the Scottish Earl David was largely Norman. In fact, William the Conqueror was a part of David's family tree. But there was a Saxon earl of Huntingdon who led a rebellion against his Norman masters.

This earl was crushed. Of course, William the Conqueror lived one or two hundred years before most Robin Hood stories are set. Most, not all. Parke Godwin set his novel Sherwood in William and Waltheof's day. But far from being the earl of Huntingdon, Godwin's Saxon Robin actually sided with the king to stop the power hungry earl, a fellow Saxon. Although Robin's adversary in modern fiction, Waltheof was useful to the writers of the 19th century who felt uncomfortable with Norman heritage of Stukeley's Huntingdon family tree.

In , E. Stephanie L. Sometime between and , he murdered a man named Ralph in the abbot's garden. Most Robin Hood legends stories do give the legendary outlaw a grudge against the church. But J. Holt dismisses this one as being too far from Robin's usual setting. And , there was Robin Hood was in a Rockingham jail for forest offences. Holt feels this one wasn't successful enough to inspire a legend. Also, he lived too close to the first literary reference to Robin Hood in for tall tales to grow.

In Stukeley's bogus pedigree, Robin Hood is a lord of Kime. However, it seems like Lees' conclusions are not widely accepted. There are clearly many Roberts or Robin Hoods. But what if Robin Hood's real name wasn't Robin Hood? There are several records of criminals with other names who are called Robin Hood in reference to the legend. In , Roger Marshall had to defend himself in court for leading an uprising of people.

He had used the alias Robin Hood, and defended himself by claiming his actions were typical Robin Hood practice. In a disgruntled mob in Norfolk blocked the road threatening to murder someone. They sang "We are Robynhodesmen -- war, war, war.

They used the aliases Robin of Holderness and Robin of Redesdale. Clearly Robin was a name associated with rebellion. And chroniclers compared outlaws to Robin Hood such as the Derbyshire outlaw Piers Venables who in rescued prisoners. The record of the event states "beyng of his clothinge, and in manere of insurrection wente into the woodes in that county like it hadde be Robyn Hode and his meyne. Even today, there are criminals, ecological movements and others assuming the name of Robin Hood.

Comparisons to Robin Hood may have been going on a very long time. There are court roles where criminals are given the last name "robehood. The earliest example of this was discovered by David Crook in But the roll from calls the same outlaw "William Robehod". Some historians believe that who ever wrote the second entry was probably thinking William was like a Robin Hood at the time.

It's possible that a real man may have inspired the Robin Hood aliases. But Barrie Dobson thinks that perhaps Robin Hood was merely a nickname for criminals. After a while, a minstrel might have composed a ballad turning the common nickname into an actual person. Perhaps the alias "Robin Hood" came before the man "Robin Hood. Related to the idea of Robin Hood as a purely fictional character is the idea that he is a mythological one.

I think it is a mythic name like Santa Claus. You become Santa Claus when you put a beard on and give presents to children at Christmas. And you become Robin Hood when you're an outlaw, and live in the forest shooting the king's deer. That did happen. Criminals weren't the only to take the name "Robin Hood". The outlaw legend became a celebrated part of the May Games. Robin was seen as a mythic summer king leading a procession. This tied Robin into other forest legends.

The first Robin Hood play is recorded as being performed at Exeter, not long after the first May Games are recorded there. Professor Lorraine Stock notes that Exeter Cathedral is filled with "Green Man" imagery, the human head with foliage growing out of his mouth. The Green Man, like Robin, has ties to the virgin Mary. The Exeter Cathedral is dedicated to her. In the Middle Ages, Robin was a common name for the devil. And mythic historians have associated him with the Teutonic elf Hodekin, Woden the Germanic Odin and the sprite or hobgoblin known as Robin Goodfellow, sometimes called Puck.

Knight points out that the two Robins have certain things in common. It's true that both are trickster figures. It rises near the village of Bradfield, and flows through a thinly-peopled country, which in the memory of man was wholly uninclosed and uncultivated, called Loxley-Chase; a district which seems to have the fairest pretensions to be the Locksley of our old ballads, where was born that redoubtable hero Robin Hood.

The remains of a house in which it was pretended he was born were formerly pointed out in a small wood in Loxley called Bar-wood, and a well of fine clear water rising near the bed of the river has been called from time immemorial Robin Hood's Well.

This well is included within the grounds at Cliff-Rocher, a place not inaptly named by its late proprietor Little-Matlock, as it bears no mean resemblance to some parts of the beautiful valley of Matlock in Derbyshire.

The walks which that gentleman cut in the boldest part of the cliff, and along a natural terrace extending to that part of Stannington in which are the chapel and minister's house, were thrown open to the public, and much frequented during several summers by the people of Sheffield. In the grounds of a most beautiful spot, about four miles from Sheffield, called Little Matlock, after the famed Matlock in Derbyshire, which it much resembles is a well which has been named Robin Hood's well from time out of mind, and the ruins of a house are also to be seen, in which it is said that famous marauder first drew his breath.

Little Matlock is well worth visiting. There is a house of refreshment at which tea parties may be accommodated. A little to the north of the spot where this river [River Loxley] unites with the Rivelin, lies an extensive plain called Loxley Chase , and traditionally pointed out as the birth-place either of Robin Hood , who was sometimes called Locksley , from the place of his birth—or at least one of his followers, whose name in sound if not in spelling is identical with that of the place referred to; though what grounds of identity are traceable between our Hallamshire locality and the "Sweet Locksley [p.

The question has its interest with ballad-antiquaries: but evidence that proves too much will be received with suspicion—the story, therefore, that some fragments of a building formerly pointed out were the remains of the early dwelling of the Sherwood royster, or the fact that his well is still pointed out in Cliff Rocher, are circumstances rather amusing than elucidatory.

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