Saint Robin Hood

Bio:

Robin Hood is an English folk hero whose life is steeped in myth and legend. He may have been based on a real person (or several), and historians disagree on when his character began to appear in the popular consciousness. The most well-known version of the story places him in the 12th century, though the earliest verifiable references to Robin Hood do not appear until a few centuries later.

His legend goes something like this: Robin Hood, a yeoman farmer, became an outlaw when his lands were seized by the corrupt Sheriff of Nottingham, a stooge of the royal pretender Prince John. Robin assembled an anarchist cell of other outlaws and sympathizers and established a base in Sherwood Forest, from which they "robbed the rich and gave to the poor." They wore "Lincoln green," a cheap dark-green dye that helped them blend into the woods. Some versions of the legend end with Robin and his Merry Men free and triumphant, and others end with their tragic but heroic deaths.

A yeoman was a free peasant farmer who owned their own parcel of land and worked it alongside members of their household. Yeomen became quite rich and powerful in the decades after the Black Death, when the population tanked so dramatically that suddenly there was a lot of property to go around and labor was in short supply. They did not retain knights or men-at-arms, like a feudal landlord did, but they did serve in militias and fight as soldiers. Robin Hood's legend can be used for conservative "good old days" mythmaking, especially in versions that cast him as a knight or nobleman, but Robin Hood's defining characteristic is his class solidarity. He bands together with other outlaws (likely people who have also been forced off their land) and they fight the true enemy (the ruling class) for the benefit of the common people. Land seizure and the enclosure of the commons was something that was happening in real life, and Robin Hood's legend is a story about class warfare.

Iconography

• He wears a hood and mask to conceal his true identity.
• He brings bread and wine, reflecting the Christian eucharist, because many versions of the story depict his deeds as an expression of his Christian piety.
• His halo is made of oak leaves, reflecting the trees of Sherwood Forest. When Britain became a colonial power, most of its ancient oaks were cut down to build warships.