The Bird That Woke Robin Hood

                                                                                                                                                                                                        

'Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne' from Percy's 'Reliques' 

Since moving to the beautiful county of Gloucester I have been astonished by the amount of birds that regularly visit our garden.  My fiancee and her mother are attempting to teach me the various species and their calls. So with my interest in the Robin Hood legend, I decided to ask them if they knew of a bird called a Woodweete. I was greeted by puzzled looks. So I explained to them that it was this bird that woke Robin Hood from a dream in the ballad Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne. They had never heard of such a bird, so I decided to spend some time investigating this mysterious creature.

First some information about the ancient ballad. It was Thomas Percy, Bishop of Dromore in Ulster, (1729-1811) who ensured the survival of the original manuscript of Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne and it was published for the first time in his Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (1765). Percy's collection (including eight Robin Hood ballads) later became known as the Percy Folio.

David Fowler in his Literary History of the Popular Ballad (1968) described the Percy Folio as:

      the most important single document relative to the history of balladry  

Percy explained how, when visiting the home of Humphrey Pitt in 1753, he saw the collection of manuscripts 'unbound and torn, lying on a dirty floor' being used by parlour maids to light the fire! He was already interested in old poetry and rescued the remains of the folio. On closer inspection he discovered that it contained ballads, historical songs, metrical romances and sonnets dating from between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries. 

It had not been treated well, probably because the owners would have found the Middle English and Border dialect used in the manuscript incomprehensible. Many of the pages, Percy explains, were badly 'mutilated and imperfect.'

 Percy's 'Reliques of Ancient English Poetry'

The publication of Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry not only revived scholarly interest in ballad poetry but inspired people like Robert Burns, William Wordsworth, William Blake, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the brothers Grimm and the whole 'Romantic Movement'. Sir Walter Scott recalled that at the age of thirteen he forgot his dinner because he was so enthralled by his first perusal of the Reliques.

The ballad Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne, saved by Percy, only survives in this portfolio. It is written continuously in an early seventeenth-century hand (with possible omissions) but Percy discovered that 'it was a ballad of Robin Hood which had never before been printed and carried marks of much greater antiquity than any of the common popular songs on this subject.' 

Thomas Percy (1729-1811)

Even more damage was done to the manuscripts when Percy had the collection bound together. The bookbinder trimmed off the edges of the pages, losing some of the first and last lines. Not only this, but being compliant with the age he deemed it important to 'correct' and edit the ballads he published, sometimes even re-writing, conflating and softening the text for his eighteenth century readers. This is something he would later be criticized for by scholars. One of the alterations he made was the name of the bird that awoke Robin Hood from his dream in the forest. The original seventeenth century manuscript has:

The woodweele sang and wold not cease

Percy does not hesitate in altering woodweele to woodweete (as seen in the image at the top of this post) and describes the bird as:

a Golden Ouzle, a kind of Thrush.

But when John Hales and Frederick Furnivall edited the Reliques in 1868 they suggested Percy's 'woodweete' as :

a Witwall, the Great Spotted Woodpecker

Later, the great American ballad collector Francis J Child in his English and Scottish Ballads (5 vols. 1882-98) printed the ballad with woodweele but in his glossary has woodweete.

Confused? It doesn't get any easier! The Romaunt of the Rose, a French allegory partially translated by Chaucer, seems to refer to the same mysterious bird :

Can we assume that this poem in Middle English is referring to the same bird? If we do than what do the Chaucerian experts think the bird was?

John Urry in The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer (1721) explains in his glossary that wodwale is 'witwall' known as the golden ousel a bird of the thrush-kind.

Fifty four years later Thomas Tyrwhitt's glossary to The Canterbury Tales (page 645) has:

WODEWALE: n. of a bird. Widewael. BELG.Oriolus. Killian . According to Ray, our Witwall is a sort of Wood-pecker.

The famous English philologist Walter William Skeat (1835-1912) admitted the great confusion in these names:

North of the border, John Jamieson in his Etmological Dictionary Of The Scottish Language (1818) has:

Arthur Quiller-Couch (1863-1944) in his Oxford Book of Ballads (1927) describes the 'woodweele' in the ballad of Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne as:

                       woodweele]woodlark, thrush?

In modern times there has been a surge in research into the legend of Robin Hood. In 1976 R. B. Dobson and J. Taylor reproduced a collection of  thirteen ballads with accompanying notes known as the Rymes of Robyn Hood. In their glossary of the ballad Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne  (p.141) they explain that 'woodweete: woodwall, is usually identified with the golden oriole, noted for its singing voice.' 

Other current experts on the legend like Professors Stephen Knight and Thomas Ohlgren go with woodwall (golden oriole).

I decided to consult the RSPB site on the golden oriole and was frustrated to see that this beautiful singing bird only colonizes on the south or east coasts of England in the summer. Nowhere near Sherwood Forest or Yorkshire's Barnsdale, where the ballad is set. Whereas the green woodpecker, like the song thrush, is a resident across all of England's ancient woodland.

But what I did not take into consideration was the 'medieval warm period' or the Medieval Climatic Anomaly. This, I learned, ran from about 950 AD to 1250 and would have encouraged the golden oriole's breeding range in north west Europe. The bird is a great wanderer, especially the males in their first two years. So it is possible that during the 13th Century the golden oriole could have visited the forests of central and northern England.

Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne is (as Percy mentioned) of great antiquity and has many ancient motifs, notably Guy's horse-hide and head, which seem more like ritual costume. Was the 'woodweele' chosen for it's traditional mythical elements or as a metaphor? 

It seems - from all this - we have at least three possible candidates for the 'woodweele' in Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne. These are the song thrush, golden oriole and green woodpecker. Down the centuries, birds like these have established a substantial amount of folk-lore about them. 

Golden Oriole

The golden oriole is known in ancient lore as a 'transfigured magical image of the blackbird.' Like the blackbird, the oriole's flute-like calls make it a piper of the dawn and its cheerful notes have been described as 'merry as its clothing.'

This beautiful, but secretive bird, spends a lot of its time aloft in tree tops. It is known in legend for its healing virtues and when looked upon by a person with jaundice, it cures the sufferer-but sadly dies during the process.

Song Thrush

The song thrush, meanwhile, has been described as the 'very spirit of spring' and likes to nest in forests with good undergrowth. The male's distinctive song has musical phrases (sometimes over a hundred), which are repeated two or three times interspersed with grating noises and mimicry (including other birds and man-made objects). The song thrush has a unique voice box, known as a 'syrinx', which enables them to sing two notes at once and blend them beautifully. For its weight the song thrush also has one of the loudest bird calls.

Many famous poets have celebrated the song thrush in verse. Including Robert Browning in his Home Thoughts, from Abroad:

That's the wise thrush, he sings each song twice over

Lest you think he could never recapture

The first fine careless rapture. 

Green Woodpecker

The green woodpecker would also have had a song loud and persistent enough to awaken Robin Hood. The 16th Century antiquarian John Aubrey noted that this particular bird was used for divination. In Norse mythology, the green woodpecker was the bird of Thor, god of thunder and lightning and was able to cure illness and prolong life.

This haunter of forests was described as a 'living barometer' by our ancestors and can become very vociferous when a storm approaches. Did the poet include the woodpecker's 'ceaseless calling' as a warning to Robin of his imminent brutal confrontation with Guy of Gisborne?


Below are three clips of the birdsong of our possible candidates, the green woodpecker, song thrush and golden oriole.


Green Woodpecker




Song Thrush






Golden Oriole




After a great deal of consideration, I believe it was the green woodpecker (with its 'joyous laugh') that woke Robin Hood in the greenwood. 

What do you think? 

Sources:

The Golden Oriole by Paul Mason, Jake Allsop
Fraser's Magazine by Thomas Carlyle
Popular Music of the Olden Time... by William Chappell and George Alexander Macfarren
Chronicle of Scottish Poetry from the Thirteenth Century... by James Sibbald
British Birds in Their Haunts by Charles Alexander
An Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language by John Jamieson
Notes and Queries February 1855
Reliques of Ancient English Poetry by Thomas Percy
Bird Life and Bird Lore by Reginald Bosworth Smith
RSPB Handbook of British Birds by Tim Cleeves and Peter Holdern



      

Robin Hood In Sherwood Stood

On this blog over the past few years we have looked at some of the earliest ballads of Robin Hood. These survive from the early fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. But apart from the ballads, there are also place-names, proverbs, dramatic records and tantalizing references to ‘rymes’ about the allusive outlaw. The most famous reference is in William Langland’s Piers Plowman (1377), where Sloth, the lazy priest confesses that:

‘I can nouЗte perfitly my paternoster as the prest it syngeth,

But I can rymes of Robyn Hood and Randolf erle of Chestre.’

A page from Langland's Piers Plowman

Sadly none of these ‘rymes’ survive before the fifteenth century. The earliest existing poem comes from Andrew of Wyntoun’s Orygynale Cronykil, which was compiled about 1420. In short rhymed couplets it has:

Litil Iohun and Robert Hude

Waythmen war commendir gud;

In Ingilwode and Bernnysdaile

Thai oyssit al this time that trawale.

Little John and Robert Hood

Were well praised as forest outlaws

In Inglewood and Barnsdale

They practised their labour all the time.

One of the most interesting ‘rhymes’ for me is the fragment discovered in Lincoln Cathedral Library in the 1940’s by George E Morris. I am indebted to Adele Treskillard and Trish Bazallgette for their invaluable help. Adele managed to locate an image of the scribbled two rhymed couplets from the manuscript and Trish has helped me obtain information on how and when it was discovered.

The fragment was found amongst a miscellany of grammatical texts, dating from the thirteenth and fourteen centuries. It appears that a student from the early fifteenth century hastily wrote or scribbled two rhymed couplets from a Robin Hood poem as an exercise in translating English into Latin:

Robyn hod in scherewod stod

Hodud and hathud hosut and schold

Ffour and thuynti arowes he bar in hit hondus.

Robin Hood in Sherwood stood

Hooded and hatted, hosed and shod

Four and twenty arrows

He bore in his hands.

Robyn hod in scherewod stod

Evidence from the dialect locates the poem to the North Midlands of England and the use of the ‘weak preterite verbs’ (hodud, hathud, hosut) give it a date of c.1425.

In the past scholars have assumed that Langland’s ‘rymes of Robyn Hood’ were the long narrative ballads such as Robin Hood and the Monk, but scholars are now having a re-think. The evidence from Wyntoun and the Lincoln manuscript suggests that they were originally easily remembered short lyrics, passed on orally in rhymed couplets. In time, some would then eventually be expanded into what we describe as the Robin Hood ballads.

Sir Richard Foliot and Jordan Castle

Albie’s input on this site regarding the history of Nottinghamshire and in particular Sherwood Forest has been invaluable.  One of the many interesting topics he has raised is the ancient history of the Nottinghamshire village of Wellow. A while ago Albie sent in some great pictures of the May Day celebrations around its unique, permanent maypole by the village children. The tradition still remains to this day that whenever a new pole is needed, it is cut from nearby Sherwood Forest.

And it is the links with Sherwood and the legend of Robin Hood that make the ancient village of Wellow fascinating. In particular is the knight who owned the castle near the village. Today it is known as Jordan Castle, but Wellow Castle, as it was once known, was owned by a local Nottinghamshire knight called Sir Richard Foliot whose conduct had remarkable similarities with Sir Richard at the Lee in one of the oldest ballads of Robin Hood.

In the Geste of Robyn Hode (1495), the knight protects the outlaws in his:

‘....fayre castell

A little within the wood,

Double ditched it was about,

And walled by the road.’

Jordan Castle, as it is known locally, was the inheritance of a Yorkshire knight known as Jordan Foliot who had served in the armies of King John. It came to him in 1225 and later was often visited by Henry III and his retinue when travelling north. Because of his hospitality to the monarch, Jordan was rewarded with deer to stock his park at his nearby lands at Grimstone. After Jordan’s death in 1236 his young son Richard Foliot (d.1299) was allowed to immediately inherit his father’s lands in Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire, followed in 1252 with a charter of free warren. This gave him the right to control the hunting of the beasts on his estates. In 1268 King Henry III granted Foliot permission to hold a market and fair near his castle at Wellow.

Foliot’s castle did match the description in the Geste of Robyn Hode very closely. It was a ringwork castle of the late 11^th and 12th century and included a ditch, a wall of stone and lime, and a moat. It stood on high ground just outside the boundary of Sherwood and was probably the manorial centre of the nearby village of Grimstone. In March 1264 Foliot was given licence by the king to fortify and crenellate it.

In the Geste Robin is betrayed by the Sheriff of Nottingham after an archery contest. A hue and cry is raised and eventually Little John is wounded in the knee.  They take refuge in the castle of Sir Richard at the Lee, who welcomes them - the castle gates are shut and they feast in safety. But eventually the castle is put under siege by the sheriff.

It appears that Richard Foliot also had connections with outlaws, in particular the notorious Roger Godberd and his partner in crime Walter Devyas. Godberd, a former member of the garrison at Nottingham Castle led a large outlaw band that had poached in Sherwood, murdered and robbed throughout Nottinghamshire between 1266 and 1272.  He is often put forward by scholars as a possible prototype of Robin Hood.

The Sheriff of Nottingham, Reginald de Grey was given £100 by the Royal Council to capture Godberd, which he did ‘manfully’. In October 1271 Foliot was given power of safe conduct and ordered to ‘conduct Walter Deyvas charged with divers trespasses to the king.’

But Richard Foliot refused to do so and was shortly afterwards accused of harbouring both Godberd and Devyas and other wrongdoers. The Sheriff of Yorkshire seized his lands and as he advanced on Fenwick, Foliot surrendered both the castle and his son Edmund as sureties that he would present himself as a prisoner at York on an agreed day. It seems that Godberd, Devyas and the other outlaws, like Robin and his men, must have slipped away.

When Foliot appeared before the king at Westminster, he was able to give the names of twelve barons as guarantors for his behaviour. With that he appeared in the Court of the King’s Bench on the 13^th October and the king instructed the sheriff to return his lands to him.

Jordan Farm near the site of the castle.

Trying to identify  the ballad heroes and events in the Robin Hood legend is impossible. But there are some interesting parallels here between the historical evidence and the Geste of Robyn Hode. What is also intriguing is the location of the Foliot lands, first pointed out by Professor J. C. Holt in his ‘Robin Hood’.  Apart from his properties on the eastern side of Sherwood at Wellow and Grimston, Sir Richard Foliot also held lands near another area with strong connections to the Robin Hood legend - Wentbridge. These places were in the valley of the Went at Norton, Stubbs and Fenwick. Barnsdale, Robin’s other traditional haunt; lay just five miles from Fenwick.  This link between the Foliot lands near Sherwood and Barnsdale could explain how the legend was transmitted between his various households and the locations of the ballad hero were conflated. Holt put it rather romantically when he described how Sir Richard Foliot, ‘from his castle at Fenwick, on a spring evening, would see the sun go down over Barnsdale, no more than five miles away.’

Castles of Nottinghamshire... James Wright (2008)

On The Trail of Robin Hood...Richard de Vries (1988)

Robin Hood...J.C. Holt (1982 and 1989)

Robin Hood and the Lords of Wellow... Tony Molyneux-Smith (1998)

Robin Hood...David Baldwin (2010)



The King & The Miller

Albie recently sent this fascinating Nottinghamshire legend to me:

“Thought I’d relate a local 'legend' that came back to my attention recently. ...... As far as I am aware the tale has been known for many generations and dates back to medieval times at least. Some recent stories claim the king was Henry VIII but there is no record of him ever visiting Nottingham or Sherwood to hunt. The stories of it being Henry II go back much further; the story came back to me when someone said they had been to the King & Miller for a meal. It is one of those large 'diner' pubs. The story must go back to the 17th century at least but I've not found any details on exactly when it first appeared. The interesting thing is that the story mirrors some of the tales of Robin. The miller’s wife has also been associated with Maid Marion.

The play itself was written back in the 18th century, it was first performed on January 30th 1737 on Drury Lane. The author was a Mansfield man so he would have known all about the legend. I have attached a copy of the script which is preserved at the Bodleian Library I believe.

The legend also gave its name to the area now known as Kings Mill on the west side of Mansfield - this is also the location of the King & Miller pub in Sutton and is on the boundary between Mansfield and Sutton. The actual mill stood on the north east edge of Kings Mill reservoir which is used for leisure today. Kings Mill is known better these days for the large hospital that takes this name just across the road from the pub."

                         The King & Miller Sutton in Ashfield, Nottinghamshire.
                                   

Albie continues:
"Over 800 years ago King Henry II (father of kings Richard I and John) was out in Sherwood hunting with his nobles. As dusk approached the king became detached from the main party and soon became lost. Whilst he was looking for a path back to Nottingham he came across a miller named John Cockle. The king took some time to convince the miller he was not a gentleman robber and was a courtier. Eventually the miller took pity and invited the king back to his house. The miller said that the king would need to share his son's bed for the night and he would show him the way back to Nottingham the next morning. The miller's wife served a meal of venison pasties, hot-bag pudding and apple pie. The king had never tasted such food before and asked what meat was used in the pasties. After agreeing to keep the recipe a secret Henry was told that it was venison from the forest. Henry agreed to keep this a secret; the miller's family could be beheaded instantly for poaching the king's venison!

The family arose early the next morning and the miller prepared to show the king the way back to Nottingham. At this point a party of nobles arrived; they were in search for the missing Henry. They dismounted from their horses and knelt before the king. The awful truth suddenly dawned on the miller and his family. John Cockle bowed his head expecting the king to decapitate him on the spot. Instead the king touches the shoulders of the miller with his sword and knighted him as Sir John Cockle. Henry also granted the miller a rich living. The family were invited to court and were given an increase in their living to £300 a year on a promise they would never to steel deer in the future. Henry then appointed John Cockle as the Overseer to Sherwood Forest"

I'm not sure whether you will have heard this tale before but thought it might be of interest. The miller came from Mansfield and presumably the king would have been using the hunting lodge at Clipstone or Mansfield Woodhouse. The story varies somewhat between tellers but the basics are the same. And I think you will see a marked similarity from the legends of Robin Hood - could this have been a basis for some of the stories? Today, there are 3 pubs known as the King & Miller (Sutton-in-Ashfield, Sheffield and Retford) and an old inn of the same name was demolished in Mansfield town centre in 1959. There was also a play called 'The King & Miller of Mansfield' by Robert Dodsley which was performed at the Theatre royal in Drury Lane.”

Very special thanks to Albie for retelling this interesting story. This of course gripped my imagination and I attempted to dig a little deeper into this wonderful ancient legend:


HENRY, our royall king, would ride a hunting
To the greene forest so pleasant and faire;
To see the harts skipping, and dainty does tripping:
Unto merry Sherwood his nobles repaire:
Hawke and hound were unbound, all things prepar'd
For the game, in the same, with good regard.

All a long summers day rode the king pleasantlye,
With all his princes and nobles eche one;
Chasing the hart and hind, and the bucke gallantlye,
Till the dark evening forc'd all to turne home,
Then at last, riding fast, he had lost quite
All his lords in the wood, late in the night.

Wandering thus wearilye, all alone, up and downe,
With a rude miller he mett at the last:
Asking the ready way unto faire Nottingham;
"Sir," quoth the miller, "I meane not to jest,
Yet I thinke, what I thinke, sooth for to say,
You doe not lightlye ride out of your way."


The excerpt above is taken from a 17th century manuscript in the ‘Percy Reliques Collection entitled A pleasant Ballad of King Henry II and the Miller of Mansfield. There is an entry in the Stationers Registers to a ballad of ‘Miller & King’ dated December 14th 1624. Another is recorded on June 30th 1625. This popular broadside ballad survives in many various collections.

Henry VIII and the Miller of Dee

Down the centuries ‘king and subject’ has been a favorite theme with ballad-makers to represent the monarch conversing, either by accident or design with his humblest villager or tradesman. Besides the King and the Miller, we have many others that have survived, including John the Reeve, King Henry and the Soldier, A Tale of King Edward and the Shepherd, King James I and the Tinker, King William III and the Forester etc. Of the latter sort, are King Alfred and the Shepherd, King Edward IV and the Tanner, and King Henry VIII and the Cobbler. We could of course add to this ‘The King’s Disguise and Friendship with Robin Hood,’ which is possibly derived from the ‘Geste of Robyn Hood.’

The theme remained a popular one in the broadside press. The Stationers' Registers record fourteen king-commoner ballads between the years of 1578 and 1690; seven are extant. In some cases the later broadside ballads are clearly versions of the earlier poems, demonstrating the continuing popularity of these tales. New or original ballads on this old theme were also composed throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

By the sixteenth century this popular motif of an accidental encounter between monarch and commoner was transferred to the stage in the so-called ‘comic histories.’ Shakespeare went on to use this popular theme in three of his plays, Henry IV, Henry V, and As You Like It.

Theophilus Cibber (1703-1758) first produced Robert Dodsley’s satire on the court of King Henry II, The King and the Miller of Mansfield, at Drury Lane on 30 January 1737. The play was a great theatrical success, attracting thirty-seven performances in its first season alone, before going on to become one of the eighteenth century’s most frequently performed pieces of theatre. In this short, six-scene play, Dodsley transposes the court from London to his native Sherwood Forest, where a King, named “Harry”, and his courtiers lose contact with each other while out hunting. The king, wandering alone, meets one of his keepers, a miller called John Cockle, in the forest. Challenged by the miller, who does not know whom he is addressing, the king declares himself to be one, who has “the Honour to belong to the King as well as you and, perhaps, should be unwilling to see any wrong done him.” He tells the miller he came hunting with the king and “has lost his way.” The miller offers “such poor entertainment as a miller can give” for the night.


The sequel, Sir John Cockle at Court, a farce, appeared in 1738.

Mansfield is said to have derived its name from the little stream called the Maun, which runs gently through it. A Topographical Dictionary of England (1848) describes the particular area on the border between Mansfield and Sutton-in-Ashfield in Nottinghamshie, ‘on the North East edge of Kings Mill reservoir stood The King's Mill'. It is said that in the days of King Henry II, this mill was occupied by John Cockle, who resided here with his wife, son and daughter Margery.

I have not managed to discover how and when Robert Dodsley (1703-1764) drew his inspiration for his play ‘The King & the Miller of Mansfield.’ But he undoubtedly heard the legend as he grew up in Nottinghamshire. He was born at Ratcliffe Gate, Mansfield in 1703 to parents who were certainly dissenters and probably Presbyterian. Since his father taught at the Mansfield Free School Robert received a good education.

Robert was apprenticed to a stocking weaver from where he ran away to London into domestic service as a footman. There he wrote collections of poems and plays gaining a considerable literary reputation by which he became a wealthy man. By 1735 he had used his wealth and influence to establish himself as the foremost publisher and bookseller of the day noted for suggesting and co-financing the first Dictionary of the English Language. He also campaigned for the freedom of the press even spending a short time in prison for some of his controversial publishing's.

His play ‘The King & the Miller of Mansfield’ was later performed all over the world and in 1762 a French composer used the story for an opera.

Robin Hood's Death at Kirklees

In about 1138 Robert Le Fleming, Lord of the Manor of Wath and Clifton founded the Cistercian Nunnery of Kirklees (near Brighouse, West Yorkshire), within the western end of Wakefield Manor. It was a very small house; the church itself was only c.80 ft long, consisting of a nave and a chancel of about the same width, without aisles or transepts. It was said that Kirklees possessed a Holy Relic, a ‘Singalum’ reputed to be the girdle of the Blessed Virgin Mary. At the Dissolution, Kirlees contained only seven nuns.

It was in this small nunnery, 20 miles from Barnsdale, that Robin Hood is said to have been murdered. In the Geste of Robyn Hode (C.1450), Feeling ill, Robin Hood visits Kirklees to be let blood by his relative, the Prioress.

Syr Roger of Donkestere,
By the pryoresse he lay,
And there they betrayed good Robyn Hode,
Through theyr false playe.

Cryst have mercy on his soule,
That dyed on the rode !
For he was a good outlawe,
And dyde pore men moch god.

Very little documentation survives of the early days of the nunnery, but in 1306 Archbishop Greenfield wrote to the house bidding them to take back Alice Raggid, who several times had been led astray by the temptations of the flesh, she, “deceived by the allurement of frail flesh, in great levity of mind hath gone forth from her house and hath wandered in great peril having long ago put off her religious habit.’

Professor John Bellamy discovered in 1985 that a Roger de Doncaster had been a chaplain in that area and was sent in 1306 by the Archbishop of York to be a priest of Ruddington church near Nottingham. It is about this time that we start to have evidence of the names of the Prioresses of Kirklees. About 1306 Margaret de Clayton was confirmed and from 1307-50 Alice de Scriven remained Prioress.

In 1315 the Archbishop of York wrote to the Prioress saying that public rumour had reached his ears, “that there are scandalous reports in circulation about the nuns at Kirlees and especially about Elizabeth de Hopton, Alice le Raggede and Joan de Heton, and that they admit both clergy and laymen too often into secret places of the monastery and have private talks with them, from which there is suspicion of sin, and great scandal arises; he commands the prioress to admonish the nuns and especially those above named that they are to admit no one, whether religious or secular, clerk or laymen, unless in a public place and in the presence of the Prioress or Sub Prioress or any two other of the ladies. He specially warns a certain Joan de Wakefield to give up the private room, where she persists in inhabiting by herself. He refers also to the fact that these and other nuns were disobedient to the Prioress, ‘like rebels refusing to accept her discipline and punishment.’’’




Joan de Heton was later convicted of incontinence with a Richard de Lathe and Sir Michael ‘called the Scot’ a priest. Alice le Raggede was also convicted of incontinence with a William de Heton of Mirthfield. Later in 1337 a letter from the Archbishop of York to the Prioress states that Margaret de Burton, a nun had sinned and would only be allowed to return to the priory if she would prostrate herself before the gates and undergo the prescribed penance.

At the Dissolution in 1539 Joan Kyppes (Kypac) the last prioress of Kirklees surrendered the nunnery at the value of £29.8s. 6d. Three years later the King’s Antiquary John Leland (1506-52) spent six years on a tour of England collecting material and visited Kirklees describing it thus :

‘Monastrium monialium ubi Ro. Hood nobillis ille exlex sepultus.’

'The monastery where the famous noble outlaw Robin Hood is buried.'

In 1565 the Armytage family took up residence in the Mansion House at Kirklees built from the stones of the plundered Nunnery and a local public house, nearby is named after three of the evicted nuns. The only remaining relic of Kirklees Nunnery is the Oat House, which was re-built on the original site in late medieval times. Although listed, it is in a derelict condition but has interesting ornamental foliated work carved into the beams, including a hound and stag.

The room in which Robin Hood is said to have died

It is in the upper room, which is reached by an outside staircase, where Robin Hood is thought to have breathed his last. Unfortunately the site of Robin’s grave is about 650 yards away, almost twice the longbow range of a skilled archer!

In the very damaged ballad ‘Robin Hoode his Death’ (which was rescued from being thrown on a fire by Thomas Percy) dated from about the mid seventeenth century, we can see more details of the mysterious death of the famous outlaw, which must have been known to the compiler of the ‘Geste’.

The ballad begins:

‘I will never eate nor drinke,’ Robin Hood said,
‘Nor meate will doo me noe good,
Till I have beene att merry Church Lees,
My vaines for to let blood.’

Eileen Power in her book ‘Medieval Nunneries’ notes that in all the ballad and folk song literature of England and Scotland this ballad has remarkably, the only reference to a nun!

Upon reaching Church Lees, (Kirklees) Robin gives the Prioress twenty pounds in gold and promises her more if she needs it.

And downe then came dame prioresse,
Downe she came in that ilke,
With a pair off blood irons [lancing knives] in her hands
Were wrapped all in silke.

‘Sett a chaffing-dish to the fyer,’ said dame prioresse,
‘And strpp thou up thy sleeve:’
I hold him but an unwise man
That wil noe warning leeve [believe].’

Shee laid the blood irons to Robin Hoods vaine,
Alacke, the more pitye!
And pearct the vaine, and let out the bloode,
That full red was to see.

And first it bled, the thicke, thicke bloode,
And afterwards the thinne,
And well then wist good Robin Hoode
Treason there was within.

The manuscript is badly damaged, but after a fight with ‘Red Roger’ Robin tries to escape from Kirklees, through a ‘shot window.’ Little John asks Robin’s permission to burn the nunnery to the ground but:

‘That I reade not,’ said Robin Hoode then,
'Litle John, for it may not be;
If I shold doe any widow hurt, at my latter end,
God,’ he said, ‘wold blame me;

‘But take me upon thy backe, Litle John,
And beare me to yonder streete,
And there make me a full fayre grave,
Of gravell and of greete [grit].

‘And sett my bright sword at my head,
Mine arrows at my feete,
And lay my vew-bow [yew-bow] by my side,
My met-yard [measuring rod] wi ………………………


(Half a page is missing)

Richard Grafton (1511-1572), King’s Printer to Edward VI wrote in his chronicle that, ‘the sayd Robert Hood, being afterwards troubled with siknesse came to a certain nunry in Yorkshire called Birklies [Kirklees] where desyryng to be let blood, he was betrayed and bled to death..........The prioress of the same place caused him to be buried by the highway side, where he had used to rob and spoyle those that paused that way. And Upon his grave the sayd prioress did lay a very fayre stone, where in the names of Robert Hood, William of Goldsborough and others were graven. And the cause why she buried him there was, for that the common passengers and travailers, knowing and seeing him there buryed, might more safely and without feare take their journeys that way, which they durst not do in the life of the sayd outlawes. And at either ende of the sayd tombe was erected a crosse of stone, which is to be seene at theis present.’

I will include more details of Robin’s tomb in a later post, but in 1706 the gravestone of a prioress of Kirklees was discovered. On the gravestone was carved the figure of a cross of Calvary and around the margin the following inscription in Norman-French in Lombardic letters:

‘DOVCE : JHV : DE: NAZARETH : FUS : DIEV: AYEZ: MERCI : A : ELIZABETH : STAINTON : PRIORES DE CEST MAISON’

'Sweet Jesus of Nazareth Son of God, take mercy on Elizabeth Stainton, Prioress of this house.'

Unfortunately there was no date on the stone. It lies about eighteen yards from the east end of the priory church. As it is the only grave discovered other than the traditional site of Robin’s, it probably led to the belief that she was the prioress who bled the outlaw to death.

From the style of the grave cross and its monastic lettering it has been dated to the fourteenth century and it is believed that Elizabeth was one of four daughters of a John de Staynton who lived at Woolley, near Wakefield in Yorkshire.

In about 1631, probably the greatest ballad-monger, Mathew Parker (c.1600-56) produced ‘The True Tale of Robin Hood.’ It was entered to Francis Grove at Stationers Hall on the 29th February 1632. Parker included at the end of the ballad:

‘the epitaph which the said Prioress of the monastery of Kirkes Lay in Yorkshire set over Robbin Hood, which, as is before mentioned, was to bee reade within these hundred years, though in old broken English, much to the same sence and meaning:

Decembris quarto die 1198 anno regni Richardi Primi 9
Robert Earle of Huntington
Lies under this stone
No archer was like him so good:
His wildnesse named him Robbin Hood
Full thirteen years, and something more,
These northerne parts he vexed sore
Such outlawes as he and his men
May England never know again.'

I will continue on the subject of Robin Hood’s Grave Stone very soon.

Blossoms On Every Bough

After one of the longest and hardest winters I can remember, spring has finally arrived here in Merrie England. It was lovely to be able to get out in the garden yesterday, feel the sun on my back and begin planting again ready for the summer. The smell of the blossom, the blue sky and the birds singing cheerfully in the trees makes everyone feel so much better.

How it must have felt for our poor medieval ancestors, emerging from their wooden hovels after managing to survive starvation and disease through a British winter is hard for modern man to comprehend. Everyone, from kings to lowly commoners in those days took part in a variety of celebrations of the dawning spring, when the earth threw off the shackles of winter and new life appeared amidst the May blossom. This was joyously reflected in the village summer games up and down the country and influenced many of our surviving Robin Hood ballads. So, along with some pictures I took last spring, I thought I would take another look at those beautiful opening stanzas and try to recapture some of that spirit.

In somer, when the shawes be sheyne,

And leves be large and long,

Hit is full mery in feyre foreste

To here the foulys song.

To se the dere draw to the dale,

And leve the hillies hee,

And shadow hem in the leves grene,

Under the grene wode tre.

Hit befell on Whitsontide,

Erly in a May mornyng,

The sun up feyre can shyne,

And the briddis mery can syng.

(Robin Hood and the Monk)

In schomer, when the leves spryng,

The bloscems on every bowe,

So merey doyt the berdys syng

Yn wodys merey now.

(Robin Hood and the Potter)

When shawes beene sheene and shradds full fayre,

And leeves both large and long,

Itt is merry, walking in the fayre forrest,

To heare the small birds songe.

The woodweele* sang, and wold not cease,

Sitting upon the spraye,

Soe lowed, he wakeneth Robin Hood,

In the greenwood where he lay.

(Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne)

 *Possibly the Golden Oriole noted for its singing voice.