Robin Hood - A Good Catholic Outlaw

Robin Hood was, whether he lived in the eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth or fourteenth Centuries, a good Catholic. In the Gest of Robin Hood, one of the earliest and most reliable of the sources, we learn that he was a "good Yeoman".He was Courtesous, One key verse identifies that whatever land he was in it was his practice to have three masses:

A good custom then had Robin,

In whatever land he were,

Every day before he would dine,

Three masses would he hear.

The one in worship of the Father,

And another of the Holy Ghost;

The third of Our dear Lady,

That he loved altogether most.

Robin loved Our dear Lady;

For fear of deadly sin,

Would he never do a gathering harm

That any woman was in.

Was the "Dear Lady" - St. Mary mother of Jesus? or was it Mary Magdalene - to whom he later built a chapel in Barnsdale?

But Robin was minded to protect the honest peasant or Yeoman, Knight, Squire but to rob only the greedy over wealthy Bishops, Archbishops,Sheriffs or Barons, when asked by Little John:

Where we shall take, where we shall leave,

Where we shall wait behind;

Where we shall rob, where we shall reve (abduct),

Where we shall beat and bind.’

‘Don’t worry about that,’ then said Robin,

‘We shall do well enough;

But look you do no husbandman harm

That tills with his plough.

No more shall you no good yeoman

That walks by the wood’s green canopy;

Nor no knight nor no squire

That will be a good fellow.

These bishops and these archbishops,

You shall them beat and bind;

The high sheriff of Nottingham,

Him hold in your mind.’

Robin invited his "guests" to share his feast and then share their wealth, but only if they could afford it. When the pauper Sir Richard at the Lee came to dine, and had only ten shillings, Robin lent him money so he could pay the greedy Abbot of York.

When Sir Richard pledges on the name of Our Dear Lady, Robin Hood at once is ready to help him, with four hundred pounds from Robin's Greenwood treasure horde.

‘Away with your tricks,’ then said Robin Hood,

‘Therof I will right none;

Do you think I would have God as a pledge,

Peter, Paul, or John?

No, by him who made me,

And shaped both son and moon,

Find me a better pledge,’ said Robin,

Or money gettest thou none.’

‘I have no other,’ said the knight,

‘The truth for to say,

Unless it be Our dear Lady;

She failed me never before this day.’

‘By the great good God,’ said Robin,

‘I searched throughout all England,

Yet I never found, to my liking,

A much better pledge.

Robin provided clothes and a horse 

‘Take him a grey courser,’ said Robin,

‘And a saddle new;

He is Our Lady’s messenger –

God grant that he be true.’

Robin is able to help his friend whose loyalty has led to his capture by the Sheriff of Nottingham, and his lands being taken by King Edward, who is won over by Robin who stays with the King for just over a year before begging to return to Barnsdale Forest.

Forth then went Robin Hood

Until he came to our king;

‘My Lord the king of England,

Grant me what I ask.

I made a chapel in Barnsdale,

That lovely is to see;

It is of Mary Magdalene,

And that’s where I would be.

I might never these seven nights

Sleep a single wink,

Nor in all these seven days

Either eat or drink.

I long to be in Barnsdale,

I can’t be kept therefrom:

Clothed in a penitent’s hair shirt

I am bound to go.’