''Robin Hood and the Monk'' is a

Middle English Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman Conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English pe ...

ballad A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads were particularly characteristic of the popular poetry and song of Great Britain and Ireland from the Late Middle Ages until the 19th century. They were widely used across Eur ...

and one of the oldest surviving ballads of

Robin Hood Robin Hood is a legendary noble outlaw, heroic outlaw originally depicted in English folklore and subsequently featured in literature, theatre, and cinema. According to legend, he was a highly skilled archer and swordsman. In some versions o ...

. The earliest surviving document with the work is from around 1450, and it may have been composed even earlier in the

15th century The 15th century was the century which spans the Julian calendar dates from 1 January 1401 (represented by the Roman numerals MCDI) to 31 December 1500 (MD). In Europe, the 15th century includes parts of the Late Middle Ages, the Early Re ...

. It is also one of the longest ballads at around 2,700 words. It is considered one of the best of the original ballads of Robin Hood. In ''Robin Hood and the Monk'', Robin goes to Nottingham for mass, but has a dispute with

Little John Little John is a companion of Robin Hood who serves as his chief lieutenant and second-in-command of the Merry Men. He is one of only a handful of consistently named characters who relate to Robin Hood and one of the two oldest Merry Men, alo ...

on the way. In Nottingham, he is spotted by a monk and captured. Little John,

Much the Miller's Son Much, the Miller's Son is one of the Merry Men in the tales of Robin Hood. He appears in some of the oldest ballads, '' A Gest of Robyn Hode'' and '' Robin Hood and the Monk'', as one of the company. History In '' A Gest of Robyn Hode'', he help ...

, and other Merry Men intercept the monk, kill him, and launch a successful plot to free Robin from prison. Robin and Little John are reconciled. The King and Sheriff are left frustrated at Robin's escape, although they are impressed at Little John's loyalty.

Plot

talks of the May morning, but

is still unhappy because he cannot go to

Mass Mass is an Intrinsic and extrinsic properties, intrinsic property of a physical body, body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the physical quantity, quantity of matter in a body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physi ...

matins Matins (also Mattins) is a canonical hour in Christian liturgy, originally sung during the darkness of early morning (between midnight and dawn). The earliest use of the term was in reference to the canonical hour, also called the vigil, which w ...

. He decides to go to a service in Nottingham, inspired by his devotion to the

Virgin Mary Mary was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Saint Joseph, Joseph and the mother of Jesus. She is an important figure of Christianity, venerated under titles of Mary, mother of Jesus, various titles such as Perpetual virginity ...

. "Moche, the mylner sun" (

) advises him to take at least twelve men; he refuses and goes with only Little John. On the way, he makes a bet with Little John, loses, and refuses to pay when they cannot agree on the payout. Little John leaves him. Robin goes to St. Mary's in Nottingham and prays. A monk whom he had robbed sees him and tells the

sheriff A sheriff is a government official, with varying duties, existing in some countries with historical ties to England where the office originated. There is an analogous, although independently developed, office in Iceland, the , which is common ...

, who gathers a group of many men to arrest Robin. Robin fights them off with a two-handed sword, wounding many and killing twelve of the sheriff's men. His sword breaks while fighting the sheriff, and he runs into the church in an attempt to escape. The text breaks off at this point; there is a page missing that presumably described Robin's capture and the news reaching his men. The story continues with the men's shock, and Little John being the only one to keep his wits about him. He declares they must rescue him. They catch the monk riding with a little page; Little John kills the monk for his role in Robin's capture, and Much kills the page so that the page cannot spread word of the ambush. Little John and Much go to the (unnamed) king with the monk's letters and tell him the monk died on the way. The king gives them gifts and directions to bring Robin Hood to him. Little John brings the letters to the sheriff and tells him that the monk did not come because the king had made him an abbot. They get into the prison, kill the jailer, and escape with Robin. The sheriff does not dare face the king. Robin says that Little John has done him a good turn in return for the ill one he played, and offered to be his man; Little John still wants him to remain his master. The king is enraged that the men managed to fool him, but admits that Little John is the most loyal man in England, and since they were all fooled, lets it go.

Original work and later publications

The work was preserved in Cambridge University manuscript Ff.5.48, albeit heavily damaged by wear. That document dates to around or after 1450, but early versions of the story may have circulated earlier; William Langland's ''Piers Plowman'' makes reference to circulating tales of Robin Hood in 1377, and

Walter Bower Walter Bower (or Bowmaker; 24 December 1449) was a Scottish canon regular and abbot of Inchcolm Abbey in the Firth of Forth, who is noted as a chronicler of his era. He was born about 1385 at Haddington, East Lothian, in the Kingdom of Scotl ...

describes a Robin Hood story similar in theme in the 1440s. A stray

leaf A leaf (: leaves) is a principal appendage of the plant stem, stem of a vascular plant, usually borne laterally above ground and specialized for photosynthesis. Leaves are collectively called foliage, as in "autumn foliage", while the leav ...

of some of the later stanzas has been found as well; the textual variations between the leaf and Ff.5.48 are minor and unimportant. The work was obscure in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries, and not printed among the "garlands" (collections) of Robin Hood ballads of that era. The story was first

printed Printing is a process for mass reproducing text and Printmaking, images using a master form or template. The earliest non-paper products involving printing include cylinder seals and objects such as the Cyrus Cylinder and the Cylinders of Nabon ...

and given its title as "Robyn Hode and the Munke" in 1806 by Robert Jamieson in his work ''Popular Ballads And Songs From Tradition''. Jamieson's edition was criticized for having various errors as well as being very different from the original; Charles Henry Hartshorne published a version that was more loyal to the Cambridge manuscript in 1829, an updated version of

Joseph Ritson Joseph Ritson (2 October 1752 – 23 September 1803) was an English Antiquarian, antiquary known for editing the first scholarly collection of Robin Hood ballads (1795). After a visit to France in 1791, he became a staunch supporter of the idea ...

's ''Robin Hood'' in 1832 included the work under the title "Robin Hood and the Monk", and Frederick Madden published his own version in 1833.

Francis James Child Francis James Child (February 1, 1825 – September 11, 1896) was an American scholar, educator, and folklorist, best known today for his collection of English and Scottish ballads now known as the Child Ballads. Child was Boylston professor ...

included it in his

Child Ballads The Child Ballads are 305 traditional ballads from England and Scotland, and their American variants, anthologized by Francis James Child during the second half of the 19th century. Their lyrics and Child's studies of them were published as ...

as #119 in the late 1800s. The work may have been originally recited rather than sung, rendering it more an

epic poem In poetry, an epic is a lengthy narrative poem typically about the extraordinary deeds of extraordinary characters who, in dealings with gods or other superhuman forces, gave shape to the mortal universe for their descendants. With regard to ...

than a ballad; it refers to itself as a "talking" in its last verse: However, this is uncertain, since the word "talking" could also mean a written narrative in

. There are notable parallels between this ballad and that of '' Adam Bell, Clym of the Cloughe and Wyllyam of Cloudeslee''. Historian James Holt thought that the tale was potentially influenced by ''Adam Bell'' and thus less "authentic" than certain other early Robin Hood legends that lacked obvious surviving analogs.

Influence and reception

It is impossible to know for sure how popular the ballad was in the 15th century: whether it was rare and the copy survived via luck, or common. However, many of the themes seen in later ballads are in this ballad as well, such as Robin Hood's devotion to the Virgin Mary and his turbulent relationship with Little John. This lends support to the suggestion that either it or a similar source was likely in circulation among late 15th century listeners, and influenced these later ballads. Despite this apparent influence, it does not appear to have been particularly common in the repertoire of sung ballads of the 16th and 17th century, as the sole nearly complete copy of the ballad found was obscure and old. ''Robin Hood and the Monk'' is generally considered one of the artistically best and most literarily well-crafted of the surviving tales of Robin Hood. Holt wrote that it was a "blood and thunder adventure" that was crisply told, although a "shallow" work as well whose only moral is its paean to loyalty at the end. Child wrote that "Too much could not be said in praise of this ballad, but nothing need be said."

References

External links

''Robin Hood and the Monk''Introduction
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{{Robin Hood Child Ballads Robin Hood ballads 15th-century poems 15th-century songs