ROBIN HOOD IN AD1400 MANUSCRIPTS

A manuscript in Lincoln Cathedral said to date circa 1400 is said to be a text of an early 'lytell Geste' and includes the lines "Robin Hood in Sherwood stood, hooded and hatted, hosed and shod, four and thirty arrows he bore in his hands …"

There are other records in the form of ancient manuscripts which add tantalising touches to the medieval background : another anonymous note in the British Museum attributed to the year 1400 stating 'Robin Hood was born in Lockesley, a village in Yorkshire or Nottinghamshire, in the year 1160'. This popular theme ran from 1600 - despite several declarations by historians that the existence of Robin Hood was totally unproved - when it was published again in 1920 with the early historians concerned used in support but once again unfortunately not referring to where they found their source material - one in 1600 claimed that the village concerned was in Bradfield, South Yorkshire and defined the actual birthplace as a cottage at Haggars Croft.

Circa 1900 Loxley was confirmed (incorrectly) by a later historian as the birthplace of Robin Hood but not the one cited in South Yorkshire or - mainly through a printing error (a boundary dispute) - in north Nottinghamshire but a village over eighty miles further south in Warwickshire. The historian in question also supplied another 'real' Robin Hood character (Robert Odo) who fitted the outlaw bill, complete with an actual gravesite.

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