Robin Hood
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The legend of Robin Hood began more than 600 years ago. The man, if he existed at all, lived even earlier.
In this definitive work one of Britain’s premier historians and author of the standard work on the Magna Carta, unravels pure invention from real possibility and offers the results of some thirty years of research. He assesses the evidence for the historical Robin Hood and finds that the tale originated with the yeomen and hangers-on of the house holds of noblemen and gentry in the later Middle Ages. Parts of the story that we now take for granted – Maid Marian, Friar Tuck, Robin as robber of the rich and giver to the poor, even Sherwood Forest – played little or no part in the original tales, and were added as the centuries passed and the legends grew. The legend of Robin Hood has enthralled people from the first ballads to contemporary movies. Holt reconstructs the historical basis of the stories but never loses sight of the human imagination that sustained them.
In this definitive work one of Britain’s premier historians and author of the standard work on the Magna Carta, unravels pure invention from real possibility and offers the results of some thirty years of research. He assesses the evidence for the historical Robin Hood and finds that the tale originated with the yeomen and hangers-on of the house holds of noblemen and gentry in the later Middle Ages. Parts of the story that we now take for granted – Maid Marian, Friar Tuck, Robin as robber of the rich and giver to the poor, even Sherwood Forest – played little or no part in the original tales, and were added as the centuries passed and the legends grew. The legend of Robin Hood has enthralled people from the first ballads to contemporary movies. Holt reconstructs the historical basis of the stories but never loses sight of the human imagination that sustained them.
Edition type: New Edition
Extent: 266 pp
Format: Paperback
Illustrations: 26
Publication date: 2011-04-04
Size: 22.2 x 15.6 cm
ISBN: 9780500289358
Press Reviews
Observer
London Review of Books
Contemporary Review
About the Author
Professor Sir James Clarke Holt FBA is a medieval historian, and was the third Master of Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge University. He was Vice President of the British Academy from 1987 to 1989, and is the author of many books, including Magna Carta and The Northerners: A Study in the Reign of King John.
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