Contents: Introduction chapter. 1 The Ballads Hero Robin Hood

2.2. Expressional folk life children`s Ballads
The oldest surviving text of Robin Hood's ballad is "Robin Hood and the Monk" from the 15th century. This Cambridge University manuscript is stored at Ff.5.48. Written after 1450, it contains many elements associated with the legend, from the Nottingham environment to the bitter feud between Robin and the local sheriff. Douglas Fairbanks in the role of Robin Hood; the sword he depicted was a common sight in the oldest ballads. The first printed version is Gest Robin Hood (about 1500), a collection of individual stories that attempt to combine episodes into a single continuous story. This is followed by "Robin Hood and Potter" in manuscript c. 1503. "Potter" differs sharply from "The Monk" in tone: if the first fairy tale is a "thriller" and the second is more funny, its plot is not a direct force, but involves cunning and cunning.
Other early texts are dramatic works, the first being fragments of Robin Hood and Shrif in Nottingham (ca. 1475). They are particularly notable for showing that Robin joined the May Day ceremonies in the late Middle Ages; Robin Hood and Shrif in Nottingham, among other attractions, contain the oldest notes about Friar Tak.⁸
The plots of neither the monk nor the potter are included in Gest; The plot of Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne is probably as old as these two ballads, but has been preserved in the next copy. Each of these three ballads has survived in a single copy, so it is not clear how much of the medieval legend has survived, and what has survived may not be typical of medieval legends. Decades after Ritson’s book was published, other ballad collections occasionally published the Robin Hood ballad, which Ritson missed. In 1806, Robert Jamieson published the oldest Robin Hood ballad in the second volume of "Songs from Popular Ballads and Traditions" - Robin Hood and Monk. In 1846, the Persian Society included "The Brave Merchant" and "Robin Hood" in a collection of ancient poems, ballads, and songs by English peasants. In 1850, John Matthew Gutch published his collection of Robin Hood Ballads, Garlands, and Robin Hood Ballads, which included the story of Litell Guest, in which, in addition to Ritson’s entire collection, Robin Hood and the Peddlers and Robin Hood and there was Scot. .
In 1858, Francis James Child published his English and Scottish ballads, in which all of Robin Hood's ballads were collected in one volume, including all ballads published by Ritson, four random ballads published since then, and a book about Robin Hood. zi ballads are concentrated. with a name or characters named Robin Hood, but not the traditional Robin Hood stories. In his 1888 volume on Robin Hood's ballads, published for his scholarly work, The Famous Ballads of England and Scotland, Childe removed ballads from his earlier works that were not traditional Robin Hood stories, and published Robin Hood's ballads. Ritson gave the ballad. "Gup and the Alien" returned the original title, "Robin Hood, the New Resurrected," and Ritson divided what he published as the second part of "Robin Hood and the Alien" into a separate ballad, "Robin Hood and the Prince of Aragon." . It also included alternate versions of ballads with different alternatives. Among the 305 ballads in his collection, he called Robin Hood’s 38 ballads children’s ballads № 117-154, which are often referred to in scientific records as such.
In these early texts, Robin’s character is much rougher than in his later incarnations. For example, in Robin Hood and the Monk, he is shown to be angry and violent, attacking Little John for beating him in an archery competition; in the same ballad, Much, the miller's son, rescues Robin Hood from prison and accidentally kills the "little page." None of the first ballads that have come down to us show that Robin Hood was “giving to the poor,” although in Gest of Robin Hode, Robin lent a large sum to the unfortunate knight and eventually demanded his return. ; and later in that ballad, Robin Hood announces his intention to give money to the next traveler who comes along the way if he proves to be poor.
It turns out that the next traveler is not poor, but in the context Robin Hood seems to have set the general policy. The first clear statement that Robin Hood stole from the rich to give to the poor was found in John Stone's English Chronicles (1592), about a century after The Gest was published.
In Robin Hood’s soldier, it is not usually modern ideals of equality that emerge, but medieval forms of citizenship. In the early ballad, Robin's men usually kneel before him and obey obediently: In Robin Hod's Gesture, the king even states that "His people are more in his salvation than my people." Their social status as yeomen is evident in their weapons: they use a sword rather than a stick. The only character to use a battle stick in the early ballads is a potter, and Robin Hood did not use the stick until Robin Hood and Little John in the 17th century.
Political and social assumptions based on the first Robin Hood ballads have long been controversial. JK Holt impressively pointed out that the legend of Robin Hood was grown in the homes of the aristocracy and that it would be a mistake to see it as a symbol of the peasant uprising. He is not a farmer, he is a yeoman, and his stories do not mention the complaints of the peasants, such as the taxes of oppression. He is not a rebel against social norms, but a symbol of them, generous, pious and polite, against greedy, worldly and rude enemies. Other scholars, on the other hand, emphasize the destructive aspects of the myth, and consider the medieval Robin Hood ballads to be plebeian literature that contradicted the feudal system.
“These bishops and these archbishops should be with them,” the order was carefully introduced to his followers. The abbot of St. Mary in York seems to have been particularly hostile for unknown reasons; and the sheriff ­of Nottingemshire, who may have been very active and committed in capturing him, was his constant object of revenge.
However, despite his hatred of priests of all denominations, he was an exemplary pious man according to the ideas of the time, and used a house priest (no doubt Frayer Tuck) for day-to-day service. celebrating divine mysteries. We learn this from an anecdote preserved by Ford as an example of actions that the historian considered meritorious. One day, while he was listening to the crowd, which he was accustomed to go with respect (and in any case did not allow to stop the service), he was often noticed by officers and officers belonging to the king. put him to a banquet himself in that mysterious house in the woods. Some of his men, seeing what was happening, advised him to fly at full speed, which he later vehemently refused, out of respect for the ritual he had worshiped.
But the rest of his men fled in fear of death, and Robin, believing only in the God he worshiped, attacked his enemies with very little chance, and defeated them easily; and enriched by their booty and payments, he always treated the church servants and the public with great respect, remembering that it had been said rudely:
After many years of maintaining its own independent sovereignty and arousing the displeasure of kings, judges, and magistrates, an announcement was made offering a great reward for bringing it alive or dead; However, it seems to have been less successful than previous attempts for this purpose. Eventually, as her old age worsened and she wanted to recover from the onset of the disease, she turned to the abbess, a relative (women, especially religious women) of Kirkley Monastery in Yorkshire for this purpose. He was a little more skilled in surgery then than he is now on the floor) which betrayed him and led to his bleeding. This event took place on November 18, 1247, in the 31st year of the reign of King Henry III. and (if his date of birth is correct) about 87 years of age. He was buried under trees not far from the house; On the tombstone is placed a stone inscribed in his memory.
The end of Robin Hood was as follows: a man who demonstrated a spirit of freedom and independence in a time of savagery and complex oppression, who loved him to the common people and defended his cause (for any resistance to oppression). the purpose of the people) and conceals all records of his patriotic endeavors and noble deeds, in spite of the selfish efforts of the pitiful monks who have dedicated history to the crimes and stupidity of the notorious thugs and holy fools, his name is immortal.
As for his personal character: it is evident that he was active, courageous, cautious, patient; has remarkable physical strength and important military skills; fair, generous, kind, loyal, and lovable, or respected by his followers or supporters for his wonderful and pleasing qualities. Priest Ford praises his piety, the major (as we have seen) declaring him the most humane and prince of all robbers; and Camden, whose testimony has a certain weight, calls him " prædonem mitissimum ," the lowest of the thieves.
The author of two plays on the history of our hero, about which a separate story will later be made, makes him a contemporary of King Richard, who will be performed on stage as his brother Prince John; this is confirmed by another game mentioned in the comment. Warner also calls his presence in Albion England in 1602 "better days, Richard's early days." Of course, there may not be enough evidence to resolve this issue in court; but neither the judge nor the lawyer objected to the reputation of Sir Edward Cock, who insisted that "this Robert Good lived during the reign of King RI."
Therefore, we should not pay attention to the statements of such writers as the author of “George Green, Wakefield’s Pinner” of 1599, who portrays our hero as a contemporary of King Edward IV and the author of a foolish book called “Mr. The Birth of Robin Hood, etc., ”which begins with us being informed that he was exiled by King Henry VIII.
Sloan MS. says, "He was born"; although the material word cannot be read, its meaning requires a clear nobility. The Harlean inscription is the same: "It is said that he was of noble blood." Leland also openly called him "noble." The next story about his family will be very detailed. Norman Ralph Fitzot, who came to England with William Rufus, or Fitsut, married Maud or Matilda, daughter of Gilbert de Gaunt, Count of Kyme and Lindsay, and had two sons: Philip, later Count of Kyme, mother of part of this County Magic, and William.
Elder Philip died without a problem; William was the guardian of the Count of Oxford, Robert de Ver, who was educated at home and, by direct order of the king, married him to his nephew, the youngest of the three daughters of the famous Lady of Russia. de Ver, daughter of Lord Chamberlain of Guinness in Normandy and England of the time of Henry I, and daughter of Richard de Clar, Count Adeliza of Clarence and Hertford, Baron of Bedford Bain Payne de Bouchem, second husband. The descendant of this marriage was our protagonist, Robert Fitsut, who is commonly referred to as Robin Hood.