An open access version of the Robin Hood pageant Metropolis Coronata (1615), linking the outlaw myth to London’s Lord Mayor’s triumph.
Anthony Munday’s “Metropolis Coronata” (1615): The Robin Hood Play written for a Sheriff | Stephen Basdeo (ed.)
Zé Maria da Fortaleza’s “Adventures of Robin Hood” (2007): A Brazilian Outlaw Poem| Stephen Basdeo [Trans.]
Zé Maria da Fortaleza’s Adventures of Robin Hood (2007) retells the outlaw legend in Brazilian cordel verse. Robin becomes leader of a woodland brotherhood resisting injustice, defeats the Sheriff through disguise and skill, wins Marian’s love, and is ultimately vindicated by King Richard, blending English folklore with Brazilian popular tradition.
Lawrence Price (fl. 1624–67): The Forgotten Anti-Catholic Author of “Robin Hood’s Golden Prize” (1631) | Stephen Basdeo
This article examines how the Robin Hood tradition was reshaped in the seventeenth century to express explicit anti-Catholic sentiment. Focusing on Robin Hood’s Golden Prize (1631) by the prolific broadside writer Laurence Price, earlier medieval critiques of corrupt churchmen were transformed after the Reformation into polemic aimed at Catholic priests.
Samuel Smithson (fl. 1655–90): The Forgotten Broadside Ballad Author of “Robin Hood and Maid Marian” (c.1660–96) | Stephen Basdeo
This article recovers Samuel Smithson, a prolific seventeenth-century broadside ballad writer, as the author of Robin Hood and Maid Marian. Moving beyond debates of literary merit, it shows how professional balladists helped sustain and reshape the Robin Hood tradition through early modern print culture in England.
Thomas Robins’s Seventeenth-Century Robin Hood Ballads | Stephen Basdeo
An exploration of Thomas Robins’s seventeenth-century Robin Hood ballads, tracing how street literature survives through accident, collection, and changing cultural values. Using Robins as a case study, this article examines authorship, adaptation of medieval materials, and the role of antiquaries in preserving popular song within Restoration print culture and memory.
Robin Hood and Clorinda, Queen of Portugal | Stephen Basdeo
“Robin Hood’s Birth, Breeding, Valour, and Marriage” was published in 1662 and celebrated England’s new queen from Portugal, Catherine of Braganza.
Bare-knuckle Boxing in Joseph Ritson’s “Robin Hood” (1795) | Stephen Basdeo
While editing Joseph Ritson’s Robin Hood (1795), I stumbled upon an unexpected reference to “the sweet science” of boxing. This small detail opens a window into Georgian England, where Ritson’s antiquarian scholarship met the vibrant popular culture of his age. His nod to “the boasted worthies of the knuckle” reminds us that Robin Hood was never just a medieval study—it was also a reflection of eighteenth-century London life, where learning, liberty, and pugilism could coexist.
Wynken de Worde: Printer of “A lytell geste of Robyn Hode” (c.1506 edn.) | Stephen Basdeo
Today, little survives of Wynken de Worde beyond his books and, in the case of Robin Hood, the words that still echo through the text that he helped to preserve. Yet his presses in Fleet Street and his generosity to fellow printers (Goes and Copland) shaped the version of Robin Hood that eighteenth-century antiquaries like Ritson rediscovered—and that we still recognise today. Every time the lytell geste is quoted or staged, we are hearing not just the voice of a now unnamed medieval poet but also the imprint of the enterprising immigrant printer who turned a forest legend into a bestseller in both his own and our time.
“A 16th-Century Tale of Robin Hood” (Harleian MS 367 f. 150) | Stephen Basdeo (ed.)
In Harleian MS 367, which dates from the time of Henry VIII’s Reformation, in which the name of Robin Hood is used to satirise the Catholic Church and the Reformers.
Joseph Frank (1770–1842): Editor of Joseph Ritson’s “Robin Hood: A Collection of all the Ancient Poems, Songs, and Ballads” (1795) | Stephen Basdeo
Joseph Ritson (1752-1803), a conveyancer and passionate literary critic, significantly impacted the study of the Robin Hood legend with his 1795 work, “Robin Hood: A Collection of all the Ancient Poems.” His nephew, Joseph Frank, later edited Ritson’s works, updating and adapting them for contemporary audiences while preserving their scholarly essence.
Robert Greene’s “George-a-Greene: The Pinner of Wakefield” (1599) | Stephen Basdeo
The name of the Pinder to Wakefield locals is, as Shakespeare might say, ‘familiar in [their] mouths as household words’. The Pinders Fields, however, reveal an exciting history of rebellion, outlawry, and patriotism; so expressed in Robert Greene’s play in 1599 titled “The Pinner of Wakefield.”
Robin Hood, Joseph Ritson (1752–1803) e a Revolução Francesa | Stephen Basdeo
“Um homem que, em uma era bárbara e sob uma tirania complicada, demonstrou um espírito de liberdade e independência.”
Youthful consumption and conservative visions: Robin Hood and Wat Tyler in late Victorian penny periodicals | Stephen Basdeo
“Talk of Robin Hood and Little John, and their dingy imitators in this metropolis described by Dickens and Ainsworth … The same man passes from one form into another – developing, according to the changes in society, from a forester to a mountaineer, thence to a highwayman, thence to an instructor of pickpockets and the receiver of their day’s work in St. Giles.”
Victorian-Era Robin Hood Conferences | Stephen Basdeo
All of the newspapers which covered the event paid significant attention to the panel on Robin Hood, which, if it happened to a Robin Hood conference today, would be a significant publicity coup.
Robin Hood’s Grave: A Poem (1827) | “J.A.”
The following poem, written by “J.A.” and titled “Robin Hood’s Grave” appeared in the Newcastle Magazine in November 1827. It has been transcribed by Stephen Basdeo.
Robin Hood: The Academic Study of a Legend | Stephen Basdeo
What have historians said about Robin Hood, who he was, and the social and political context in which the early tales emerged?
A Brief History of Crime Literature | Stephen Basdeo
“when our happy credulity in all things is woefully abated, and our faith in the supernatural fled, we still retain our taste for the adventurous deeds and wild lives of brigands.”
Humours of May Fair (1760): or, Scenes of 18th-Century Life | Anonymous
With hideous face, and tuneless note, A ballad-singer strains his throat; Roars out the life of Betty Saunders, With Turpin Dick, and Molly Flanders; Tells many woeful tragic stories, Recorded of our British worthies.
[REVIEW] “Robin Hood in Outlaw/ed Spaces” (2015)
Robin Hood scholars consistently publish excellent new peer-reviewed research in edited volumes, and the latest offering from editors Valerie Johnson and Lesley Coote is no exception to this. This new book entitled Robin Hood in Outlaw/ed Spaces: Media, Performance, and Other New Directions contains essays written by a number of different scholars on varying topics. There truly is something for Robin Hood scholars and medievalists of any calling, whether they work in the field of medieval studies, nineteenth-century literature, or twentieth-century culture, and this review only picks up on a couple of the highlights from the collection.
“Servile Historians” (1869) | Samuel Kydd
The strongest sympathy was manifested by the men of Saxon origin for Robin Hood, whom they looked upon as their chieftain and defender,—“I would rather die,” said an old woman to him one day—I would rather die than not do all I might to save thee; for who fed and clothed me and mine but thou and Little John.”
Bad Will Scarlet and the Good Sheriff: “Robin Hood: A Tale of the Olden Time” (1819) | Stephen Basdeo
Few Romanticists are aware of the two-volume historical romance Robin Hood: A Tale of the Olden Time, published in Edinburgh in July 1819. A cynic might say that our anonymous author had initially written a generic inheritance drama but decided late in the game, for marketing purposes, to change it into a Robin Hood novel.
The Glorious Trio: Robin Hood, Wat Tyler, and Hereward the Wake | John Bedford Leno
The “Glorious Trio” first appeared in Leno’s collection titled Drury Lane Lyrics and Other Poems (1867). It celebrates three of England’s greatest medieval heroes: Robin Hood, Wat Tyler, Hereward the Wake.
The Forest Rebel | Stephen Basdeo
Almost all western societies hold in reverence two “anonymous” figures: the worker and “the unknown soldier.” Ernst Jünger would have us venerate a third figure: The Forest Rebel. The Forest Rebel has been present in nearly every society and is a symbol of resistance to tyranny.
Playing Robin Hood in the Victorian Nursery
It would have fallen to the lot of a poorly paid Victorian governess to practice playing Robin Hood with children in the nursery.