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Think of an outlaw.

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The first outlaw.

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The most famous outlaw of all time.

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One name stands alone.

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Robin Hood.

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I think the central thing that people
respond to with Robin Hood is the idea

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that there's somebody out there that
wants to or is willing to redress the

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balance. Over 700 years ago,

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People are telling stories about Robin
Hood around the campfires and taverns of

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medieval England.

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In those times, a massive number of have
-nots against a teeny minority of

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haves.

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So Robin Hood would clearly be always
against oppression.

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He robbed from the rich and gave to the
poor. And he's a champion of the people.

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Was there an action?

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Medieval outlaw called Robin Hood.

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Who is the real Robin Hood?

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I declare him to be an outlaw!

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Liberty by law!

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Finding Robin Hood is a detective story.

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No one actually says that he knew Robin
Hood. No one claims to have met him. We

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have to be detectives.

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By royal decree, Robin Longstride, also
known as Robin of the Hood, and all who

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shelter him or aid him are declared
outlaws of the realm.

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A nail, please.

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And a hammer.

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A nail!

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Our search for the real Robin Hood
begins with a closer look at the

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details of the Robin Hood legend that
have survived throughout the ages.

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According to the legend, Robin Hood
lives in Nottinghamshire during the

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King Richard the Lionheart at the turn
of the 13th century.

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If there was a Robin Hood, he probably
lived somewhere between 1180 and 1280.

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Certainly that's when the legend will
have been born.

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One of the big questions about the Robin
Hood tales is was he a Yorkshireman or

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from Nottinghamshire?

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Yorkshiremen and Nottinghamshire people
are very, very passionate about it.

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He is born into the yeoman class,
neither rich nor poor, but becomes an

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You have to understand the word outlaw.

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Outlaw means you have been placed
outside the law.

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Anyone has the right to chase after you
and to kill you.

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One way of escaping punishment was
indeed simply to run away, away from the

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to become an outlaw, go and live in
areas that were less visited, that were

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some way dangerous or off -putting and
were not likely to be looked for.

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Medieval England was a densely wooded
area and hazardous to travel. Going from

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town to city was very, very dangerous.

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First of all, there were outlaws.

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Thousands of outlaws living in the
forests of England.

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Real hungry, desperate men.

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And there were wolves.

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Wolves carried a bounty on their head, a
price.

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And so it was that outlaws, like Robin
Hood, were known as Wolfheads. They were

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people with a price on their head.

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Robin Hood's band of outlaws and
outcasts were known as the Merry Men.

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You just said we were in danger, Robin.

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Know your truth and step back into
harm's way.

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I'll pack up your share.

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We eat and sleep.

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We'll go home first, what?

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The context of the tales is a band of
young men, landless men, they have no

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of their own, living the life of freedom
in the greenwood, living off the king's

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deer, which they enjoy poaching, taking
part in youthful activities of archery

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and sword fighting.

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His storied love interest is Maeve
Marion.

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We tried to just set our Marion in a
place where...

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Her life has made her strong. Her life
has made her resilient.

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Girl.

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Girl?

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The myth has been around since time
began that it's dealing with really

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rich archetypes. They're not slight
characters.

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Well, are you coming or not?

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I've noticed it.

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He lives a kind of utopian, free
-spirited life in the refuge of the

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Forest.

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Sherwood, the greenwood, it's a site of
idealised freedom.

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The term forest does not mean a huge
area full of trees.

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Forest was a term brought over to
England when William the Conqueror from

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Normandy captured England in 1066. It
was a law that gave him control of large

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stretches of the countryside.

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Sherwood Forest was what was called a
royal forest.

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It wasn't a forest as we know it.
Instead, it referred to a legal

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Within the royal forest, the residents
were not allowed to cut wood or take

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game. So there was laws which, when you
look at them today, were ridiculous,

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where a man was not allowed to hunt the
royal deer. Out of the question, you

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could go to the wall for that one.

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But you cannot, even as an individual.

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Look after yourself by hunting in the
forest, by, you know, going and finding

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what grows wild to sustain yourself and
sustain your family.

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And that puts every individual in a
situation where they are beholden to

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a lord or some form of master.

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Every deer in the land belongs to his
majesty.

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These things are God's gifts first
before the king's possessions.

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But it's illegal for a man to tend to
himself.

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How then can he be a man in his own
right?

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This is perhaps why the forest works so
well in the Robin Hood legend. It is

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both a symbol of freedom from restraint
and the restraint of freedom.

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In Sherwood today, there still lives a
thousand -year -old tree, a mighty oak,

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a living relic from the time of Robin
Hood.

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Major oak was one of the few large trees
to end up being preserved out of

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Sherwood Forest.

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And it's probably been preserved because
of the association with Robin Hood. The

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Tertzing tree is a kind of mythologized
tree that was large enough to stand out

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from the general forest setting,
probably the closest equivalent to the

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oak. And tryst means meeting. So the
trysting tree is the tree where the men

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meet.

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Marion, sheriff.

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Robin Hood's well -known nemesis is the
notorious Sheriff of Nottingham.

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Marion, why, why do you make an enemy of
me when you have the means to make me

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your protector?

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What means?

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It's hard to think of the way England
was governed without thinking of this

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-important figure of the Seraph. The
Seraph was really the ultimate

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representative of the interest of the
king at all levels, financial, judicial,

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military, everything and anything, and
indeed intelligence, just knowing what's

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happening out there.

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I see trouble coming from Loxley of
Pepper Harrow. A blind old man gives you

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trouble. Aye, honey, none will give
more.

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The crusader Robert Loxley has returned.

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We're in the Galleries of Justice Museum
in Nottingham, which is the site of the

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old county jail that dates back to the
mid -1400s, and the King's Hall, which

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now called the Shire Hall, which dates
back to 1375.

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This is also where the Sheriff of
Nottinghamshire would have been based.

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We do know that a jail had been ordered
to be built by King John in the early

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1200s. We also have caves that suggest
that it goes back a lot further than

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site. In the legend, I guess, the show
is actually portrayed as the most hated

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of royal officials.

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Well, there's actually two accounts of
two particular shows.

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One called Show Our Dear Atiyah and the
other one called Mop.

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Both were actually notorious for a false
arrest.

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and for abuse and violence.

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Deeper dungeons would have actually been
a place of imprisonment to the likes of

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Robin Hood. It's underground, it's dark,
it's damp, so fairly grim and miserable

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conditions.

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We've gone down into the dungeons and
then down further into the bottom of the

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cave. It is widely believed that this
might be an oubliette.

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It's actually shaped like a wine bottle.

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An oubliette is French for to forget.

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It's basically a wine bottle -shaped
cave that prisoners were thrown into and

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left to die through starvation or go
mad. And the only way out was by a rope

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pulling them out.

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It can be linked to one of the earliest
ballads ever written called Robin Hood

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and the Monk, which basically talks
about Robin Hood being cast down into a

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dungeon and eventually rescued by...

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Little John and his merry men buy a
rope.

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Above all, Robin Hood is associated with
his lethal weapon, the longbow.

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You don't think of Robin Hood without
thinking of the longbow. You don't

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think of the longbow without thinking of
Robin Hood. It's a really powerful

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link.

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His skill with the bow.

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It represents the common weapon of the
common man.

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It represents the fact that a skilled
archer can pick a mighty man of arms off

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at a distance.

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Robin Hood is best known for the
vigilante style of justice that he

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the corrupt world around him.

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None shall pass.

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Your next move.

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will be your last.

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I think the core value of Robin Hood,
the robbing from the rich to give to the

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poor, is the thing that's going to
survive.

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Robin Hood is a paradigm, and there is
no other paradigm for that sort of

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behavior. Somebody who robs from the
rich and gives to the poor, who stands

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all sorts of honorable codes, and yet is
an outlaw in the forest. I mean, he

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does kill people. He does rob from
people.

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We have here a hero who, against the
odds, defeats authority, yet is

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often seen as serving some higher good.

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Over the centuries, Robin Hood's tale
has been told and retold, but the story

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always shares these common threads.

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Can we reach back through time and
uncover the sources of the Robin Hood

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Can any of these sources tell us the
identity of the real Robin Hood?

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Rise.

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You.

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I don't know you.

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Robert Loxley, sir.

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I'm not young.

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Our search for the real Robin Hood takes
us back.

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650 years to the original sources of the
legend, where do we first find the name

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and stories of Robin Hood in medieval
ballads written down in the 14th and

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centuries? Our earliest allusion to
Robin Hood is just one line

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in the poem Piers Plowman by William
Langland, which Langland wrote in the

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1370s.

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Piers Plyman does not talk about the
Robin Hood stories. It is a character

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called Sloth or Laziness.

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00:13:30,720 --> 00:13:35,580
Sloth basically is asked, well, so can
you say your Lord's Prayer? Can you say

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your Paternoster?

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And Sloth replies, well, no, I can't say
my Paternoster, but I know every single

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one of the rhymes of Robin Hood. And
that's the first literary reference for

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Robin Hood that we have.

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Frustratingly, we don't have any rhymes
of Robin Hood, whatever they were from

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this period.

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We can infer that Robin Hood was very
popular at the time. You know, the

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medieval equivalent of viral.

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00:14:05,040 --> 00:14:06,040
He's everywhere.

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00:14:06,240 --> 00:14:11,240
Even lazy people who, like Sloth, who
can't get out of bed to hear Confession

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00:14:11,240 --> 00:14:15,940
and spend most of their time in the
taverns have bothered to memorize all of

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00:14:15,940 --> 00:14:16,940
Robin Hood.

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00:14:17,260 --> 00:14:19,220
So we know that by 1377...

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00:14:19,800 --> 00:14:21,680
that Robin Hood is already a literary
figure.

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00:14:22,040 --> 00:14:24,980
So that's a crucial date. You have to
start from that and work back.

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00:14:25,540 --> 00:14:30,420
The first substantial literary text we
have is Robin Hood and the monk.

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00:14:33,400 --> 00:14:36,900
In it, Robin comes to St Mary's Church
in Nottingham for Mass.

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00:14:38,200 --> 00:14:42,460
And he is recognised by a monk whom he
had previously robbed on the highway.

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And the monk goes and tells the sheriff,
shut the town gates.

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00:14:48,080 --> 00:14:51,660
One reason why William the Conqueror
built the first Nottingham Castle was to

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00:14:51,660 --> 00:14:55,220
dominate the town of Nottingham. And if
you look to my right here, we're looking

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00:14:55,220 --> 00:14:59,060
over the original town. And at its
heart, St Mary's Church.

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00:15:00,980 --> 00:15:05,460
And it was in St Mary's Church that
Robin, in the story of Robin Hood and

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00:15:05,460 --> 00:15:09,760
Monk, slaughtered 12 of the sheriff's
soldiers before his sword was broken and

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00:15:09,760 --> 00:15:10,760
he was captured.

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00:15:12,680 --> 00:15:15,600
Robin Hood and the Monk, we think, is
from about 1460.

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00:15:16,140 --> 00:15:21,960
but the first time we have a big story
of robin hood is the jet of robin hood

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00:15:21,960 --> 00:15:28,940
now dated to around 1500 it is close to
a complete life of robin hood just

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00:15:28,940 --> 00:15:33,760
means the history it doesn't mean a joke
it means the story of robin hood it was

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00:15:33,760 --> 00:15:39,080
an absolute bestseller and it's possible
that there was already in existence a

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00:15:39,080 --> 00:15:44,770
ballad form of this story for many years
now People thought that ballads are

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00:15:44,770 --> 00:15:47,570
part of an oral tradition being passed
down.

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00:15:51,150 --> 00:15:54,870
In a world where there are no
newspapers, in a world where so few

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00:15:54,870 --> 00:15:58,990
read, can write, the only way that key
people can pass on their stories, their

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00:15:58,990 --> 00:16:00,730
history, is by word of mouth.

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00:16:08,380 --> 00:16:12,200
Most of those stories in the early days
are in four -line verses and they're in

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00:16:12,200 --> 00:16:15,880
rhyming couplets to help people remember
what's going on. And the death of Robin

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00:16:15,880 --> 00:16:19,560
Hood starts with Lizzie and listen,
gentlemen, who be of free -born blood. I

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00:16:19,560 --> 00:16:20,860
will you tell of a good you, man.

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00:16:21,080 --> 00:16:25,300
His name is Robin Hood. And Lizzie means
be quiet and listen. And you can almost

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00:16:25,300 --> 00:16:28,720
imagine the minstrel saying that and
then shouting out the words Robin Hood

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00:16:28,720 --> 00:16:31,760
the end of it and suddenly the whole
audience brought together to listen to

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00:16:31,760 --> 00:16:32,760
story.

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00:16:32,970 --> 00:16:36,990
The chances are the stories of Robin
Hood are around between 100 and 200

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00:16:36,990 --> 00:16:38,790
before they are ever written down.

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00:16:39,670 --> 00:16:43,370
Though the ballads can give us a
plausible time frame for Robin Hood,

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00:16:43,370 --> 00:16:45,970
cannot tell us definitively if he
actually existed.

230
00:16:47,670 --> 00:16:50,890
Was there a real figure on which the
ballads were based?

231
00:16:51,330 --> 00:16:55,350
The evidence is scattered and buried in
medieval court documents and historical

232
00:16:55,350 --> 00:16:56,350
records.

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00:16:56,890 --> 00:16:59,970
So we know nothing about this idea of an
original character.

234
00:17:00,190 --> 00:17:01,730
We have to be detectives.

235
00:17:02,140 --> 00:17:07,079
And the most important detective work is
done by a man called James Holt. And he

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00:17:07,079 --> 00:17:10,740
looked for earliest examples of someone
called Robin Hood who could be an

237
00:17:10,740 --> 00:17:11,740
outlaw.

238
00:17:11,819 --> 00:17:18,780
The closest name Holt found was a man
named Robert Hode, listed as

239
00:17:18,780 --> 00:17:24,280
an outlaw in the Yorkshire judicial
rolls for the years 1225 and 1226.

240
00:17:24,880 --> 00:17:30,960
Robert Hode, Robin Hood, escapes into
the Greenwood as an outlaw in 1226 -30.

241
00:17:31,950 --> 00:17:35,970
and he's called Robert Hood, he's called
Hobby Hod, and here we have a real

242
00:17:35,970 --> 00:17:39,830
Robin Hood, a real person who is an
outlaw in the 1220s.

243
00:17:41,790 --> 00:17:47,110
In addition to sharing a similar name,
location, and time frame, Robert Hood's

244
00:17:47,110 --> 00:17:52,470
crime was that he owed a large sum of
money to an abbot of a monastery in

245
00:17:52,650 --> 00:17:56,770
a crime consistent with Robin Hood's
legendary disdain for the clergy.

246
00:17:57,720 --> 00:18:01,340
That's the earliest possible example
that we know of, but there's no way you

247
00:18:01,340 --> 00:18:02,820
say whether he's the real Robin Hood or
not.

248
00:18:03,160 --> 00:18:06,320
Tantalizing, though, isn't it? Sir
Robert, nice to see you again.

249
00:18:06,680 --> 00:18:08,660
I only know about your wealth of money.

250
00:18:08,940 --> 00:18:10,140
My bees give life.

251
00:18:11,220 --> 00:18:12,740
They are my life, Sir Robert.

252
00:18:13,120 --> 00:18:17,100
Should not the bishop be told to the
clergy can spread Nottingham honey on

253
00:18:17,100 --> 00:18:18,100
Nottingham bread?

254
00:18:19,660 --> 00:18:24,400
Though Robert Hode might be the most
appealing candidate for the real Robin

255
00:18:24,400 --> 00:18:29,080
Hood, By the later part of the 13th
century, other Robin Hoods began to

256
00:18:29,800 --> 00:18:34,720
James Holt explored the name Robin Hood,
not as two separate names, but as one

257
00:18:34,720 --> 00:18:38,900
Robin Hood. And a key thing that James
Holt referred to was a court case in

258
00:18:38,900 --> 00:18:43,740
Berkshire in Southerning in 1261, when a
man called Robert, son of William

259
00:18:43,740 --> 00:18:47,980
Lefebvre, was an outlaw, was brought
before the court, and the clerk of the

260
00:18:47,980 --> 00:18:51,520
court changed his name, and instead of
saying Robert, son of William Lefebvre,

261
00:18:51,600 --> 00:18:53,180
said Robert Robin Hood.

262
00:18:53,790 --> 00:18:55,550
So he gave him a nickname of Robin Hood.

263
00:18:56,930 --> 00:19:01,670
The first example of a Robin Hood figure
appearing in an historical document is

264
00:19:01,670 --> 00:19:08,490
in the Scottish Chronicon, a history of
Scotland written between 1377 and 1450.

265
00:19:08,910 --> 00:19:15,270
It reads, Then arose the celebrated
bandit Robert Hood, with little John and

266
00:19:15,270 --> 00:19:16,270
their accomplices.

267
00:19:16,430 --> 00:19:20,470
By the end of the 14th century. You have
eight examples of people being given

268
00:19:20,470 --> 00:19:22,010
the nickname Robin Hood as one word.

269
00:19:24,200 --> 00:19:28,620
What is the significance of multiple
outlaws being called Robin Hood a

270
00:19:28,620 --> 00:19:31,440
years prior to the appearance of the
first written ballot?

271
00:19:32,000 --> 00:19:36,020
For one thing, it could mean that Robin
Hood was simply a generic nickname for

272
00:19:36,020 --> 00:19:39,060
an outlaw, not a reference to a specific
individual.

273
00:19:41,920 --> 00:19:45,200
If someone's being given the nickname
Robin Hood, they're associating that

274
00:19:45,200 --> 00:19:48,900
an outlaw. So you're able to say that
nickname was already being used and

275
00:19:48,900 --> 00:19:49,900
associated with outlaws.

276
00:19:50,560 --> 00:19:55,060
But if there is... No historical figure
at the heart of the Robin Hood legend.

277
00:19:55,240 --> 00:20:00,400
Why does the name Robin Hood suddenly
appear in the 13th century associated

278
00:20:00,400 --> 00:20:01,400
outlaw behavior?

279
00:20:02,020 --> 00:20:07,400
Is it possible the 13th and 14th century
outlaws who called themselves Robin

280
00:20:07,400 --> 00:20:13,000
Hood were copycats, stealing the moniker
of an actual infamous outlaw?

281
00:20:13,840 --> 00:20:18,400
It is certainly possible, even likely,
but difficult to prove.

282
00:20:19,850 --> 00:20:25,090
As much as many historians have tried to
pin Robin Hood on a particular person,

283
00:20:25,210 --> 00:20:29,390
and I'd like to believe that there was
actually a particular person called

284
00:20:29,390 --> 00:20:34,810
Hood, it seems to be, given that that
story has lasted so long, that perhaps

285
00:20:34,810 --> 00:20:35,810
was a series of people.

286
00:20:36,410 --> 00:20:40,790
The end result is that we have this
terrible, terrible question, you know,

287
00:20:40,790 --> 00:20:42,050
wanting to find out more.

288
00:20:43,070 --> 00:20:46,450
If a man could be judged by the company
he keeps...

289
00:20:47,100 --> 00:20:51,140
Perhaps we must look to the merry men to
know the real Robin Hood.

290
00:20:54,940 --> 00:20:56,480
My men at arms.

291
00:20:57,000 --> 00:20:58,720
This is about as courtly as they get.

292
00:20:59,220 --> 00:21:03,280
Eleanor Dale, Will Scarlet, and little
John, Lady Marion.

293
00:21:06,180 --> 00:21:09,500
I trust you had an historic evening.

294
00:21:10,000 --> 00:21:11,000
Oh, for sure.

295
00:21:14,120 --> 00:21:18,020
The Merry Men are basically the
followers of Robin Hood.

296
00:21:18,420 --> 00:21:23,040
In one of the early ballads, I believe
it is Robin Hood and the Potter, named

297
00:21:23,040 --> 00:21:24,300
themselves as Merry Men.

298
00:21:24,740 --> 00:21:27,100
I demand to know who you are!

299
00:21:27,580 --> 00:21:28,840
We are men of the Hood.

300
00:21:31,200 --> 00:21:32,580
Merry now at your expense.

301
00:21:35,340 --> 00:21:39,080
The ballad quickly goes from a
description of the green leaves and the

302
00:21:39,080 --> 00:21:40,080
the woods.

303
00:21:40,090 --> 00:21:45,630
and how merry it is to hear the birds
singing, to Little John basically

304
00:21:45,890 --> 00:21:50,250
and this is a merry morning, and I am a
merry man. You will not find a more

305
00:21:50,250 --> 00:21:54,070
merry man throughout the length of
England than me on this merry morning.

306
00:21:56,750 --> 00:22:01,190
From the earliest texts, we have Little
John, and Little John began as being

307
00:22:01,190 --> 00:22:03,090
even more important than he is today.

308
00:22:03,490 --> 00:22:07,650
We're not even sure at the very
beginning that Robin Hood is the de

309
00:22:07,650 --> 00:22:14,140
leader. of the band little john's
primary function is very much as robin

310
00:22:14,140 --> 00:22:18,520
number two he is by far the strongest
character in the tales after robin hood

311
00:22:18,520 --> 00:22:23,240
himself in the legend he and robin meet
trying to cross a bridge and they fight

312
00:22:23,240 --> 00:22:24,240
with staff

313
00:22:25,480 --> 00:22:30,640
Little John kind of defines the edges of
Robin's authority on a continual basis

314
00:22:30,640 --> 00:22:32,340
and is always testing the boundaries.

315
00:22:32,660 --> 00:22:34,480
He's not an unconquerable hero.

316
00:22:34,740 --> 00:22:39,540
He's a very fallible hero. And Little
John frequently functions to sort of

317
00:22:39,540 --> 00:22:40,620
him back to the right path.

318
00:22:40,940 --> 00:22:43,480
This is not a game of luck. It's about
the science of memory.

319
00:22:44,220 --> 00:22:46,440
And a quick hand. I've got a quick eye.

320
00:22:47,760 --> 00:22:48,980
I'll be watching you.

321
00:22:50,300 --> 00:22:51,880
In Robin Hood and the Monk?

322
00:22:52,250 --> 00:22:55,890
When Little John, in the end, rescues
him from the prison, Robin says, OK, you

323
00:22:55,890 --> 00:22:59,670
were right, you know, you can take over
the band, I'll give your leadership to

324
00:22:59,670 --> 00:23:01,590
you, you deserve it. And Little John
refuses.

325
00:23:01,970 --> 00:23:03,770
He remains Robin Hood's right -hand man.

326
00:23:03,990 --> 00:23:07,270
I suppose that's one of the nice things
about it. He's a remarkable character in

327
00:23:07,270 --> 00:23:11,050
his own right, a very strong character,
a very fierce one, but he is incredibly

328
00:23:11,050 --> 00:23:12,830
loyal to his leader, to Robin.

329
00:23:14,730 --> 00:23:18,650
Well, Scarlet is also there from the
beginning with Little John.

330
00:23:19,230 --> 00:23:21,170
She develops more of the...

331
00:23:21,420 --> 00:23:25,540
Swordsman, not as a particularly violent
member of the band, but instead he's

332
00:23:25,540 --> 00:23:28,780
the sort of fop of the merry men. Robin!

333
00:23:29,480 --> 00:23:30,480
Ah!

334
00:23:31,080 --> 00:23:36,880
Will Scathlock, who's probably the
origin of Scarlet, will Scarlet later.

335
00:23:38,640 --> 00:23:44,300
Scathlock, scath means harm or hurt. He
hurts locks and breaks into places.

336
00:23:45,940 --> 00:23:48,280
That's probably where his name
developed.

337
00:23:49,680 --> 00:23:52,200
Right. is one of the great mysteries.

338
00:23:52,880 --> 00:23:55,300
It's interesting with Freytag. He is not
a priest.

339
00:23:55,720 --> 00:23:57,800
He is not a normal member of the church.

340
00:23:58,040 --> 00:24:01,300
He is a friar. They take a vow of
poverty.

341
00:24:02,170 --> 00:24:08,710
Friar Tuck probably enters into the
tradition quite late in the 16th century

342
00:24:08,710 --> 00:24:14,490
probably as part of the May Gang during
and after the Reformation in England

343
00:24:14,490 --> 00:24:20,230
when there was a lot of anti
-Catholicism. And so Friar Tuck, as a

344
00:24:20,230 --> 00:24:26,970
fraternal order, is part of an old
Catholic regime that's now seen as both

345
00:24:26,970 --> 00:24:28,730
mischievous and...

346
00:24:29,930 --> 00:24:31,830
kind of insidious and dangerous.

347
00:24:32,090 --> 00:24:35,390
And so he's an interesting figure of
mischief and disorder.

348
00:24:35,710 --> 00:24:40,690
If I wasn't the village priest, I'd try
it with a village drunken.

349
00:24:41,450 --> 00:24:46,070
You really do have an outlaw robber in
the early 15th century with the nickname

350
00:24:46,070 --> 00:24:48,110
Fry Tuck, his real name's Robert
Stafford.

351
00:24:49,070 --> 00:24:52,570
We don't find Fry Tuck in the early
ballads.

352
00:24:52,910 --> 00:24:58,610
But we do find him in a small play
that's recorded around 1475, and it's

353
00:24:58,610 --> 00:25:00,610
The Curtled Friar. You're the town
beekeeper?

354
00:25:01,650 --> 00:25:04,630
Let you know, I'm the friar. Tuck's the
name.

355
00:25:05,270 --> 00:25:09,630
And when we first discover him, he and
Robin fight a particularly savage

356
00:25:09,630 --> 00:25:14,310
encounter. And it suggests the friars
act with a very active, physically

357
00:25:14,310 --> 00:25:16,330
addition to the Robin Hood band.

358
00:25:19,470 --> 00:25:24,050
Alan O'Dale comes much later into the
tradition from a 17th century ballad.

359
00:25:24,350 --> 00:25:29,150
Robin intervenes when his betrothed is
to be married to an aged knight.

360
00:25:31,450 --> 00:25:36,830
He's a minstrel, and I think he was
folded into the tradition just as a kind

361
00:25:36,830 --> 00:25:41,830
acknowledgement and way of looking at
the very means by which the Robin Hood

362
00:25:41,830 --> 00:25:43,270
ballads became most popular.

363
00:25:43,850 --> 00:25:48,750
That's why I think Alan Adale is a
character who's mostly sympathetic and

364
00:25:48,750 --> 00:25:49,750
appealing.

365
00:25:50,570 --> 00:25:54,450
The Merry Men play many different roles.
Sometimes they're individualized.

366
00:25:54,510 --> 00:25:57,190
Sometimes they question Robin's
authority.

367
00:25:57,530 --> 00:26:00,470
Sometimes they come out as better
looking than he does.

368
00:26:02,350 --> 00:26:06,510
What we see among Robin's men is
specialist.

369
00:26:06,830 --> 00:26:08,690
Just like you do in most...

370
00:26:09,130 --> 00:26:11,290
folk hero outlaw bands.

371
00:26:11,570 --> 00:26:15,070
Doesn't matter whether it's the
Magnificent Seven or the Deadly Dozen.

372
00:26:15,310 --> 00:26:16,350
Everyone's a specialist.

373
00:26:16,650 --> 00:26:21,150
So we have Little John and the Friar,
good with their staff.

374
00:26:21,730 --> 00:26:25,710
Will Scarlet, good with the sword. Other
men, good with the dagger.

375
00:26:25,910 --> 00:26:30,990
Robin, of course, the quintessential
archer, but also skilled with all

376
00:26:31,190 --> 00:26:34,070
He could fight with a sword. He could
fight with a staff.

377
00:26:35,020 --> 00:26:39,860
So I can just imagine Robin imposing a
discipline on his band of brothers that

378
00:26:39,860 --> 00:26:42,680
meant that they had martial practice
every morning.

379
00:26:48,860 --> 00:26:55,660
As Robin Hood and the Merry Men fight to
make their way

380
00:26:55,660 --> 00:27:01,800
in these harsh times, the crown began to
wage a war that would change the world

381
00:27:01,800 --> 00:27:02,940
they knew forever.

382
00:27:07,560 --> 00:27:10,360
Are you honest enough to tell the king
something that he does not want to hear?

383
00:27:12,160 --> 00:27:14,880
What is your opinion on my crusade?

384
00:27:16,860 --> 00:27:19,980
Will God be pleased with my sacrifice?

385
00:27:29,240 --> 00:27:30,240
No, he won't.

386
00:27:30,420 --> 00:27:35,780
What Ridley and I thought to do is
recalibrate the whole story.

387
00:27:36,650 --> 00:27:38,110
take it back to its origins.

388
00:27:38,930 --> 00:27:42,990
What I thought was a spectacular time to
begin with when Richard Curdleon,

389
00:27:43,110 --> 00:27:46,170
Richard the Lionheart, is coming back
from the Crusades. Thank you, Robin.

390
00:27:46,390 --> 00:27:50,750
And then you insert this man called
Robin in the returning army as one of

391
00:27:50,750 --> 00:27:54,130
thousand yeomen that have returned from
the Holy Land.

392
00:27:57,370 --> 00:28:03,310
If Robin Hood returned from the
Crusades, the world he witnessed would

393
00:28:03,310 --> 00:28:04,850
one of disarray and turmoil.

394
00:28:05,680 --> 00:28:11,780
Did these hard times birth a new hero,
the legendary outlaw Robin Hood?

395
00:28:12,240 --> 00:28:17,860
Europe was a very fragmented society,
very localized. If you think of the

396
00:28:17,860 --> 00:28:22,640
of France, their remit goes maybe 20, 30
miles outside of Paris. Not the sort of

397
00:28:22,640 --> 00:28:24,380
grand expanse of power that you'd
expect.

398
00:28:26,540 --> 00:28:28,320
It's also a very violent society.

399
00:28:29,130 --> 00:28:32,710
This lack of central authority means
that people, peasants, are very much

400
00:28:32,710 --> 00:28:37,090
oppressed by castellans, nobles, people
charging around, taking money and

401
00:28:37,090 --> 00:28:38,090
animals from them.

402
00:28:40,370 --> 00:28:47,030
A map of Europe

403
00:28:47,030 --> 00:28:50,490
in the late 11th, early 12th century
would look very different from today's

404
00:28:50,490 --> 00:28:55,350
boundaries. We used to set a large date,
but in the 11th, 12th century, it's

405
00:28:55,350 --> 00:28:56,910
very fragmented, very localized.

406
00:28:57,560 --> 00:29:00,360
You've got the Dukes of Normandy, the
Dukes of Aquitaine, the Counts of Anjou,

407
00:29:00,460 --> 00:29:01,460
the Counts of Flanders.

408
00:29:01,660 --> 00:29:05,140
The German Empire is all fragmented into
powerful duchies.

409
00:29:05,580 --> 00:29:07,780
Spain is largely ruled by the Muslims.

410
00:29:08,180 --> 00:29:13,000
It's politically very, very broken up.
It's also a very religious society.

411
00:29:13,580 --> 00:29:15,440
Religion saturates society.

412
00:29:15,960 --> 00:29:17,960
Fear of what will happen to you when you
die.

413
00:29:18,560 --> 00:29:22,520
Saints, pilgrimages, these are all
intrinsic parts of medieval life.

414
00:29:22,820 --> 00:29:26,760
They link together in the form of the
Crusade, which is a holy war.

415
00:29:27,230 --> 00:29:29,570
an expedition to recover Jerusalem for
Christianity.

416
00:29:30,490 --> 00:29:34,290
In the 11th century, the known world is
divided by the great religions,

417
00:29:34,350 --> 00:29:36,090
Christianity and Islam.

418
00:29:36,530 --> 00:29:40,970
But while the collapse of the Roman
Empire and Roman order has left Europe

419
00:29:40,970 --> 00:29:44,690
chaos, the East has become the center of
global wealth and trade.

420
00:29:45,090 --> 00:29:47,250
The great cities of the world are in the
East.

421
00:29:47,730 --> 00:29:53,270
Baghdad boasts half a million people,
Constantinople 600 ,000. In contrast,

422
00:29:53,550 --> 00:29:55,810
Rome, Paris, and London can hardly
muster...

423
00:29:56,040 --> 00:29:57,520
30 ,000 in good times.

424
00:29:58,240 --> 00:30:04,140
Some speculate that it is primarily an
attempt to unify the Christian West that

425
00:30:04,140 --> 00:30:09,600
drives Pope Urban II to call for the
First Crusade on November 27, 1095.

426
00:30:10,560 --> 00:30:14,960
Pope Urban II called the knighthood of
Europe to free the Holy Land from the

427
00:30:14,960 --> 00:30:18,580
infidel. What he offered them was
something that they needed, the

428
00:30:18,580 --> 00:30:19,539
all their sins.

429
00:30:19,540 --> 00:30:22,000
These men are violent, they kill people
for a living.

430
00:30:22,700 --> 00:30:25,780
And they are going to be condemned to
the fires of hell for eternity unless

431
00:30:25,780 --> 00:30:29,160
make good. And Urban's very clever. He
says, OK, you can carry on killing

432
00:30:29,160 --> 00:30:30,900
people, but these will be Muslims.

433
00:30:31,180 --> 00:30:35,840
You'll be freeing Jerusalem, Christ's
city, for the Christian faith.

434
00:30:36,060 --> 00:30:40,080
And that is an act of spiritual merit.
This is a promise that absolutely

435
00:30:40,080 --> 00:30:43,960
entrances the knighthood of Western
Europe. They sign up for it in their

436
00:30:43,960 --> 00:30:48,820
thousands, and through 1096, 97, 98,
they head towards the Eastern

437
00:30:48,820 --> 00:30:49,820
Mediterranean.

438
00:30:50,600 --> 00:30:55,360
So you have to imagine that this man,
who in a time period where most

439
00:30:55,360 --> 00:31:00,400
would move no further than 14 miles from
their place of birth, with Robin Hood,

440
00:31:00,540 --> 00:31:05,700
this man's experienced the grandness of
France, experienced the control of the

441
00:31:05,700 --> 00:31:07,020
church in Italy.

442
00:31:07,520 --> 00:31:12,880
He's experienced democracy at work in
Greece. He knows how many, many

443
00:31:12,880 --> 00:31:15,140
systems of government work. They're
dealing with...

444
00:31:15,500 --> 00:31:19,080
a man who is probably ahead of his times
in terms of his cultural experience,

445
00:31:19,240 --> 00:31:23,960
particularly where he comes from
economically or in the class structure.

446
00:31:24,700 --> 00:31:28,080
If Robin Hood had experienced the
Crusades, he would have witnessed the

447
00:31:28,080 --> 00:31:33,080
injustice that wealth and social class
played on the medieval battlefield.

448
00:31:33,740 --> 00:31:38,700
Towards the end of the 11th century, the
Normans invented a completely new form

449
00:31:38,700 --> 00:31:39,700
of warfare.

450
00:31:40,060 --> 00:31:45,400
Prior to that, in Western Europe, people
had fought on foot, in shield walls,

451
00:31:45,560 --> 00:31:49,920
standing shoulder to shoulder. The
Normans at the Battle of Hastings in

452
00:31:49,920 --> 00:31:51,020
changed all that.

453
00:31:56,000 --> 00:32:00,820
They came galloping onto the field with
horses, carrying shields in their left

454
00:32:00,820 --> 00:32:05,200
hand and spears in their right. Mostly,
they were throwing their spears or

455
00:32:05,200 --> 00:32:07,800
leaning out to pick people off like
that.

456
00:32:08,410 --> 00:32:13,550
Just a few years later, a couple of
decades later, in the Crusades, that new

457
00:32:13,550 --> 00:32:15,930
cavalry tactic had changed yet again.

458
00:32:16,170 --> 00:32:22,430
The lance, the spear, was now couched,
embedded under the arm. And this made

459
00:32:22,430 --> 00:32:29,310
lance, man, and horse one single
projectile unit. It was the

460
00:32:29,310 --> 00:32:31,850
dawning of the age of impact.

461
00:32:33,230 --> 00:32:35,030
These men would...

462
00:32:35,240 --> 00:32:41,180
go knee to knee riding in what they
called conroy conroy with the king

463
00:32:41,180 --> 00:32:48,000
masses of male clad knights knee to knee
charging into the

464
00:32:48,000 --> 00:32:54,760
enemy the armor they wore was male it's
simply called male

465
00:32:54,760 --> 00:33:00,740
not chain mail a chain is single linked
This is an interlinked web of rings,

466
00:33:01,060 --> 00:33:05,840
each one closed with a tiny rivet. Very
painstaking work.

467
00:33:06,120 --> 00:33:11,200
And a skilled mailmaker would tailor it
to the shape of the body so it's tight

468
00:33:11,200 --> 00:33:15,840
under the arm, so the man could swing
his sword without any impediment.

469
00:33:16,080 --> 00:33:18,820
And this, of course, made it very
expensive armor.

470
00:33:19,060 --> 00:33:21,980
Coats of mail were handed down from
father to son.

471
00:33:22,280 --> 00:33:25,280
But it didn't work on its own. If you
put...

472
00:33:25,500 --> 00:33:29,880
metal on your hand and get a friend to
hit you with a metal stick, you'll find

473
00:33:29,880 --> 00:33:30,960
it still hurts a lot.

474
00:33:31,300 --> 00:33:35,480
What you need to do is put it over some
padding, thick padding.

475
00:33:35,740 --> 00:33:41,160
The idea of the mail is that it will
take some of the sting.

476
00:33:42,720 --> 00:33:46,180
It may even deflect and turn the blade.

477
00:33:46,440 --> 00:33:49,820
But what you're really protecting
against is the impact.

478
00:33:52,040 --> 00:33:57,520
You can still get broken bones and
severe bruising that would disable the

479
00:33:57,520 --> 00:33:58,520
the battlefield.

480
00:34:01,800 --> 00:34:07,500
For 600 years, the sword apparently
doesn't change. They look very similar.

481
00:34:07,500 --> 00:34:11,719
is a Viking -era sword, and this is a
sword around the time of the First

482
00:34:11,719 --> 00:34:16,739
Crusade, around the time of Robin Hood.
But they're different in a number of

483
00:34:16,739 --> 00:34:17,780
important ways.

484
00:34:18,219 --> 00:34:19,639
On these swords...

485
00:34:20,010 --> 00:34:21,489
The principle is leverage.

486
00:34:21,909 --> 00:34:26,710
This pommel, this back part of the
sword, levers against your hand. That's

487
00:34:26,710 --> 00:34:30,429
you get over the inertia to fight it.
It's quite a heavy blade.

488
00:34:31,110 --> 00:34:37,070
Now with having a longer hand grip and a
weightier pommel, now you've got

489
00:34:37,070 --> 00:34:41,949
something that is counterbalanced and
much more fluid. This begins much more

490
00:34:41,949 --> 00:34:44,810
sophisticated systems of sword fighting.

491
00:34:49,070 --> 00:34:53,170
And there were other ways to defeat
that. Sometimes people would go for

492
00:34:53,170 --> 00:34:55,030
-crushing things like a mace.

493
00:34:57,070 --> 00:35:02,150
So the idea of the mace is you don't
expect to get through the armor, but you

494
00:35:02,150 --> 00:35:06,370
simply need to deliver the energy of the
blow through the armor to break the

495
00:35:06,370 --> 00:35:10,970
bones of the man within, disabling him
from fighting. That's all you need to do

496
00:35:10,970 --> 00:35:11,948
on the battlefield.

497
00:35:11,950 --> 00:35:16,830
Another weapon that was used for that is
the axe. Again, the blade of the axe.

498
00:35:17,190 --> 00:35:20,910
can bite into the mail it probably won't
go through it but it delivers that

499
00:35:20,910 --> 00:35:26,690
shock to the man within all of these
weapons were trying to defeat this armor

500
00:35:26,690 --> 00:35:32,070
and this armor was trying to stand up to
the weapons of the day it was an arms

501
00:35:32,070 --> 00:35:38,920
race the armor and weaponry are not
cheap The

502
00:35:38,920 --> 00:35:43,520
price of armor and a horse in Robin
Hood's day is the equivalent of a five

503
00:35:43,520 --> 00:35:46,780
-bedroom house on a half -acre lot in a
leafy suburb today.

504
00:35:47,820 --> 00:35:52,080
The fact that medieval art for the most
part only shows kings and nobles in full

505
00:35:52,080 --> 00:35:55,620
-body armor reveals an important fact
about warfare in the Middle Ages.

506
00:35:56,700 --> 00:35:58,200
It's a rich man's game.

507
00:35:58,880 --> 00:36:03,860
And during the lifetime of Robin Hood,
no one embodied this lethal alliance

508
00:36:03,860 --> 00:36:06,060
between wealth, power, and violence.

509
00:36:06,500 --> 00:36:07,860
More than one man.

510
00:36:26,310 --> 00:36:31,090
Our search for the real Robin Hood leads
us to the one figure who is commonly

511
00:36:31,090 --> 00:36:34,970
more exalted than Robin Hood himself,
King Richard the Lionheart.

512
00:36:35,770 --> 00:36:40,110
But is Richard's glorified place in the
tales warranted?

513
00:36:40,950 --> 00:36:41,950
Speak up!

514
00:36:43,970 --> 00:36:47,430
When you had us herd two and a half
thousand Muslim men, women, and children

515
00:36:47,430 --> 00:36:49,730
together, the young woman at my feet,

516
00:36:50,589 --> 00:36:52,390
With her hands bound, she looked up at
me.

517
00:36:53,450 --> 00:36:54,790
There wasn't fear in her eyes.

518
00:36:55,430 --> 00:36:56,430
There wasn't anger.

519
00:36:57,470 --> 00:36:58,470
There was only pity.

520
00:37:01,590 --> 00:37:06,750
For she knew that when you gave the
order, and our blades would descend upon

521
00:37:06,750 --> 00:37:10,510
their heads, that in that moment we
would be godless.

522
00:37:33,580 --> 00:37:39,080
Richard the Lionheart was born in
England and he was one of five sons of

523
00:37:39,080 --> 00:37:41,820
II, John being the other well -known
one.

524
00:37:42,080 --> 00:37:46,400
His elder brothers died before him,
which is why he came to the throne in

525
00:37:46,960 --> 00:37:50,560
And he reigned in England for ten years,
1189 to 99.

526
00:37:52,080 --> 00:37:56,020
As well as being king of England,
Richard also ruled large areas of

527
00:37:56,980 --> 00:38:00,620
If you think of Richard the Lionheart,
he hardly spoke English at all, he spoke

528
00:38:00,620 --> 00:38:03,120
French. You know, French was the
language of court.

529
00:38:03,710 --> 00:38:06,570
Aristocrats across Britain would have
spoken French most of the time.

530
00:38:07,030 --> 00:38:10,770
Richard didn't like England, hated the
food and thought the weather was

531
00:38:10,770 --> 00:38:12,530
and couldn't learn the language.

532
00:38:15,210 --> 00:38:19,630
He had a very negative attitude about
England and the English.

533
00:38:19,930 --> 00:38:23,890
In fact, he did try to sell the city of
London at one point but couldn't get a

534
00:38:23,890 --> 00:38:30,290
buyer. And basically, you know, he was
an assassin for the Pope and spent the

535
00:38:30,290 --> 00:38:32,870
vast majority of his time as king on
crusades.

536
00:38:33,420 --> 00:38:35,700
He was a powerful, energetic king.

537
00:38:36,220 --> 00:38:38,480
He's famous for his bravery in battle.

538
00:38:39,500 --> 00:38:41,400
Known for being at the front of his
troop.

539
00:38:41,920 --> 00:38:43,620
His strategic brilliance.

540
00:38:44,400 --> 00:38:49,580
Look what they do to the Lionheart!

541
00:38:50,080 --> 00:38:54,440
He's also a very calculating, clever
man. And he's also a man of conventional

542
00:38:54,440 --> 00:38:58,120
religion. You wouldn't say he's the most
pious king of England by a long, long

543
00:38:58,120 --> 00:39:00,860
way. But he's motivated enough to go on
crusade.

544
00:39:01,740 --> 00:39:04,440
In 1187, the Muslims recaptured
Jerusalem.

545
00:39:04,840 --> 00:39:06,820
This was a terrible shock to
Christianity.

546
00:39:07,180 --> 00:39:09,380
The Pope was said to have died when he
heard the news.

547
00:39:09,880 --> 00:39:13,800
There was a real onus on everybody, all
the powerful figures in the West, to

548
00:39:13,800 --> 00:39:15,920
take the cross and recover the holy
city.

549
00:39:17,200 --> 00:39:19,580
And Richard was one of the first people
to do so.

550
00:39:20,300 --> 00:39:24,520
His progress to the Holy Land was pretty
slow, always trying to make sure that

551
00:39:24,520 --> 00:39:26,660
he got maximum money to finance his
troops.

552
00:39:26,900 --> 00:39:29,420
But when he got there, his impact was
considerable.

553
00:39:31,440 --> 00:39:34,820
the Muslims suddenly realized that they
had a new and very dangerous opponent.

554
00:39:35,160 --> 00:39:39,420
Richard began to march his troops down
the coastline, defeated Saladin in a

555
00:39:39,420 --> 00:39:42,720
couple of battles, again, a blow to the
pride of the Muslim leader.

556
00:39:43,420 --> 00:39:48,240
His opponent, Saladin, the two great
figures, iconic figures of the age, have

557
00:39:48,240 --> 00:39:50,740
been fighting each other for a couple of
years. They're both physically

558
00:39:50,740 --> 00:39:53,940
exhausted, both of them are ill a lot of
the time, and they're running short of

559
00:39:53,940 --> 00:39:57,320
money, and they've stretched the loyalty
of their troops to the absolute limit.

560
00:39:58,670 --> 00:40:01,910
In late 1192, the two of them make a
truce.

561
00:40:02,150 --> 00:40:06,130
Basically, Christians can enter the holy
city as pilgrims, but the Muslims

562
00:40:06,130 --> 00:40:08,310
maintain Jerusalem in their hands.

563
00:40:08,610 --> 00:40:10,610
And after that, Richard goes home.

564
00:40:12,030 --> 00:40:17,970
On his return, Richard got caught by the
Germans, Gauls, and was ransomed for

565
00:40:17,970 --> 00:40:20,990
three times the national budget for the
royal crown.

566
00:40:22,830 --> 00:40:27,560
While Richard is lingering in prison in
Germany... A real source of worry to him

567
00:40:27,560 --> 00:40:31,340
were the actions of his young brother,
Prince John. You, who honored your

568
00:40:31,340 --> 00:40:35,120
husband with eight children, so that
even now, when death has taken the rest,

569
00:40:35,340 --> 00:40:39,940
you have a king and the runt of the
litter to call you mother.

570
00:40:40,920 --> 00:40:45,580
John was a very unscrupulous man,
desperate to increase his power, and he

571
00:40:45,580 --> 00:40:47,860
Richard's imprisonment as a chance to
take over.

572
00:40:48,120 --> 00:40:49,120
A king!

573
00:40:49,640 --> 00:40:54,500
does not bargain for the loyalty that
every subject owes him. Without loyalty,

574
00:40:54,780 --> 00:40:57,400
there is no kingdom. There is nothing.

575
00:40:58,700 --> 00:41:01,000
I'm here to speak for Sir Walter Loxley.

576
00:41:01,400 --> 00:41:03,120
Speak if you must.

577
00:41:03,740 --> 00:41:08,260
I have marched from France to Palestine
and back.

578
00:41:09,240 --> 00:41:14,380
And I know in tyranny lies only failure.

579
00:41:15,420 --> 00:41:18,780
john had even tried to bribe the people
who were holding richard so that they

580
00:41:18,780 --> 00:41:23,920
wouldn't let him back but when richard
is ransomed by his mother and comes back

581
00:41:23,920 --> 00:41:28,500
to england john has to make his peace
with him and richard accepts that but

582
00:41:28,500 --> 00:41:32,540
of john's supporters continue to hang
out in castles around the country in

583
00:41:32,540 --> 00:41:36,960
support of john and most famously at
nottingham castle and richard actually

584
00:41:36,960 --> 00:41:39,440
comes here with an army in 1194.

585
00:41:44,750 --> 00:41:48,410
Richard the Lionheart has become
associated with the tales of Robin Hood.

586
00:41:48,410 --> 00:41:52,590
you look at the original tales, what you
have to appreciate is that the king, he

587
00:41:52,590 --> 00:41:54,050
is always seen as being good.

588
00:41:54,370 --> 00:41:59,590
It is evil men who are causing bad
things to happen. And if only the king

589
00:41:59,590 --> 00:42:02,410
discover this, he would set everything
to right.

590
00:42:02,830 --> 00:42:07,690
So the way the legend has developed is
that in the end, the king returns from

591
00:42:07,690 --> 00:42:12,590
the Crusades and meets up with Robin,
puts down the evil sheriff and

592
00:42:12,590 --> 00:42:14,130
becomes right with the world again.

593
00:42:14,560 --> 00:42:17,680
But Richard only stays in England for a
very short while. He must go straight

594
00:42:17,680 --> 00:42:18,680
back to France.

595
00:42:20,360 --> 00:42:26,920
One of the first things on his agenda is
to try to recover the territories in

596
00:42:26,920 --> 00:42:30,580
southern France that were seized by
Philip Augustus. He spends years going

597
00:42:30,580 --> 00:42:32,880
around recovering castles, towns,
territories.

598
00:42:33,320 --> 00:42:37,400
And it's there in 1199 that the little
castle of Chalut -Charol that a

599
00:42:37,400 --> 00:42:40,740
crossbowman sees the king of England
being a bit careless. He fires a

600
00:42:40,740 --> 00:42:42,960
speculative shot at him, hits him in the
shoulder.

601
00:42:43,520 --> 00:42:44,520
and Richard dies.

602
00:42:46,320 --> 00:42:52,720
How would the death of England's beloved
ruler and war hero affect the world of

603
00:42:52,720 --> 00:42:53,658
Robin Hood?

604
00:42:53,660 --> 00:42:57,640
How would the Crusades permanently alter
the course of English history?

605
00:42:57,900 --> 00:43:02,320
For starters, it nearly broke the
English crown, both financially and

606
00:43:02,320 --> 00:43:07,620
politically. When Richard died in 1199,
John really is the logical man to take

607
00:43:07,620 --> 00:43:09,300
over. He is the younger brother of
Richard.

608
00:43:09,920 --> 00:43:14,220
Eleanor of Aquitaine, their mother,
terribly influential figure, very

609
00:43:14,360 --> 00:43:18,240
dominant woman, decides that John should
be the man to take over.

610
00:43:20,200 --> 00:43:22,620
Long live the king!

611
00:43:24,200 --> 00:43:25,960
Long live the king!

612
00:43:26,480 --> 00:43:29,440
John, by the time he got the crown and
the seat, was fully bankrupt.

613
00:43:29,700 --> 00:43:34,300
So John was angry, frustrated, and was
really...

614
00:43:34,620 --> 00:43:37,560
Head up of living in the shadow of his
brother and his glorious father.

615
00:43:37,880 --> 00:43:39,420
Richard's army is coming home.

616
00:43:39,860 --> 00:43:41,620
Cost money to keep it together.

617
00:43:41,820 --> 00:43:43,740
Marshall, you speak for the money. I do,
sir.

618
00:43:44,180 --> 00:43:48,220
But to disband the army could cost more
than to keep it. King Richard's

619
00:43:48,220 --> 00:43:49,520
campaigns were costly.

620
00:43:49,840 --> 00:43:51,760
What is that to me, Marshall?

621
00:43:52,520 --> 00:43:56,280
William Marshall was one of the most
influential men of the day. He was a man

622
00:43:56,280 --> 00:43:59,500
who came from very humble origin, yet
through his deal on the tournament field

623
00:43:59,500 --> 00:44:02,140
and the battlefield, he came to the
attention of the royal family.

624
00:44:02,700 --> 00:44:07,040
He was a trusted adherent of King
Richard and very much helped the country

625
00:44:07,040 --> 00:44:10,260
of stay stable when Richard was away on
crusade and in prison.

626
00:44:11,020 --> 00:44:14,820
When John became king, first of all, he
was quite supportive of John and very

627
00:44:14,820 --> 00:44:15,820
helpful.

628
00:44:16,180 --> 00:44:18,060
Taxation. These are difficult times.

629
00:44:18,560 --> 00:44:19,720
We can buy time.

630
00:44:20,020 --> 00:44:22,700
I can send envoys to secure loans.

631
00:44:23,300 --> 00:44:28,080
The crown is owed money at home. The
northern barons plead poverty, but

632
00:44:28,080 --> 00:44:29,740
always been the song of rich men.

633
00:44:30,200 --> 00:44:31,460
Eventually they fell out.

634
00:44:31,960 --> 00:44:36,320
and the Marshal disappeared into sort of
semi -exile. But he's there as an

635
00:44:36,320 --> 00:44:37,640
important figure in the background.

636
00:44:38,140 --> 00:44:43,340
Sir John was left the horrible task of
increasing the taxation hundredfold. So

637
00:44:43,340 --> 00:44:45,080
he was really, really unpopular.

638
00:44:45,380 --> 00:44:50,580
We'll honour King John! The bailiffs and
the sheriff's men shall collect all

639
00:44:50,580 --> 00:44:57,380
tax! As a ruler, John was frankly
abysmal. He was a liar, a man who abused

640
00:44:57,380 --> 00:44:58,620
his nobles.

641
00:44:59,310 --> 00:45:02,850
He took endless amounts of money from
them again and again and again.

642
00:45:03,170 --> 00:45:06,310
He often took their wives, which
obviously angered them immensely.

643
00:45:06,570 --> 00:45:08,650
He gets involved in struggles with the
church.

644
00:45:08,970 --> 00:45:11,990
He is a man who oppresses the people
ceaselessly.

645
00:45:14,210 --> 00:45:15,950
He's also a pretty hopeless general.

646
00:45:16,230 --> 00:45:20,150
Part of the problem, part of the reason
he needs so much money is because he

647
00:45:20,150 --> 00:45:21,710
keeps losing battles in France.

648
00:45:22,450 --> 00:45:26,510
There's a loss of territory. The power
and the strength of the English crown

649
00:45:26,510 --> 00:45:27,830
diminishes with John.

650
00:45:30,720 --> 00:45:32,200
All we need is about us.

651
00:45:33,400 --> 00:45:36,320
Armor, helmets, swords.

652
00:45:38,260 --> 00:45:41,600
And we make England wealthy men.

653
00:45:43,020 --> 00:45:45,300
With horses and gold.

654
00:45:46,280 --> 00:45:49,160
Sheep, they smiled upon us at last.

655
00:45:50,060 --> 00:45:52,520
And I, for one, shall not turn my back
on her.

656
00:45:53,480 --> 00:45:57,440
Could the real Robin Hood survive a
treacherous life in the forest without

657
00:45:57,440 --> 00:45:58,840
best tools at his disposal?

658
00:45:59,360 --> 00:46:03,920
And was the horse the tool that would
level the battlefield for the working

659
00:46:03,920 --> 00:46:05,640
class hero, Robin Hood?

660
00:46:08,020 --> 00:46:11,580
This is a war horse, a fierce fighting
horse.

661
00:46:12,160 --> 00:46:16,280
Fiery stallions like this are what
knights rode into battle.

662
00:46:17,520 --> 00:46:20,100
in the impact charge, riding knee to
knee.

663
00:46:20,320 --> 00:46:23,060
This was an impenetrable wall of muscle.

664
00:46:23,260 --> 00:46:28,620
And in the melee, they're very
maneuverable, and you can cut and stab

665
00:46:28,620 --> 00:46:29,800
the enemy all about.

666
00:46:30,160 --> 00:46:32,780
But these were very expensive horses.

667
00:46:33,520 --> 00:46:39,280
Expensive to buy, expensive to train,
and very expensive to feed. They needed

668
00:46:39,280 --> 00:46:43,120
sophisticated agricultural system to
support them. They needed high -quality

669
00:46:43,120 --> 00:46:46,220
grain. This was not an ordinary person's
horse.

670
00:46:47,450 --> 00:46:52,710
the Rolls -Royce of horses and was only
used for war. You wouldn't travel on a

671
00:46:52,710 --> 00:46:58,210
horse like this. These precious horses
were led along the forest tracks if they

672
00:46:58,210 --> 00:47:02,450
were going from town to town. If you
were traveling, you would need a

673
00:47:02,450 --> 00:47:07,770
different type of horse. What you need
for traveling is a horse like this, an

674
00:47:07,770 --> 00:47:09,310
ambler or a palfrey.

675
00:47:09,750 --> 00:47:14,230
Horses like this, if you look at
medieval manuscripts, all the travelers

676
00:47:14,230 --> 00:47:18,710
horses like this, short, stocky, Good
weight -bearing horses.

677
00:47:19,050 --> 00:47:20,510
Tremendous for endurance.

678
00:47:21,330 --> 00:47:23,990
This, in fact, is an Icelandic horse.

679
00:47:24,270 --> 00:47:30,250
And what makes them so ideal for
traveling is they have a fifth gait.

680
00:47:30,250 --> 00:47:37,190
only walk and trot and canter and
gallop, they amble. They

681
00:47:37,190 --> 00:47:37,908
do this.

682
00:47:37,910 --> 00:47:41,550
They have this very peculiar walk, and
they can keep it up.

683
00:47:41,820 --> 00:47:47,720
for hour after hour after hour and it's
very comfortable and it's very untiring

684
00:47:47,720 --> 00:47:52,960
for the rider so whereas the big
glamorous war horses were the the

685
00:47:52,960 --> 00:47:57,880
cars of the middle ages this is what
everybody rode for comfort and from

686
00:47:57,880 --> 00:48:02,980
from a to b and i think it's also
probably the sort of horse that robin

687
00:48:02,980 --> 00:48:07,150
would have ridden But now, with the rise
of the middle class, with the yeoman,

688
00:48:07,270 --> 00:48:12,110
you've got ordinary people owning
horses, and ordinary people with a need

689
00:48:12,110 --> 00:48:16,490
travel. They need to travel to sell
their goods, to sell their merchandise,

690
00:48:16,490 --> 00:48:20,550
prosper. But by traveling, they also
spread ideas.

691
00:48:20,850 --> 00:48:25,970
These forest roads were the first
information superhighway, and the word

692
00:48:25,970 --> 00:48:28,190
freedom spread throughout the land.

693
00:48:32,300 --> 00:48:37,340
Was it Robin Hood's experiences in the
Crusades that gave him the power to

694
00:48:37,340 --> 00:48:39,980
change the lives of the oppressed people
of England?

695
00:48:43,580 --> 00:48:48,840
There is no difference between a knight
and any other man, aside from what he

696
00:48:48,840 --> 00:48:49,840
wears.

697
00:48:50,080 --> 00:48:53,860
One of the core problems you've got when
you approach Robin Hood is that the

698
00:48:53,860 --> 00:48:59,160
last 100 years of cinema have
oversimplified this tale.

699
00:48:59,440 --> 00:49:01,340
Robin Hood and taking Robin from...

700
00:49:01,760 --> 00:49:05,780
what was obviously a working -class
background originally, and put him in a

701
00:49:05,780 --> 00:49:09,020
situation where he is either a maligned
or forgotten royal.

702
00:49:09,620 --> 00:49:14,280
Whether Robin was a serf or a yeoman, I
don't know. We make him in this, we

703
00:49:14,280 --> 00:49:16,920
decide to make him a yeoman, a yeoman
bowman.

704
00:49:17,340 --> 00:49:24,300
So we thought that was a nice way of
giving Robin an absolute in terms

705
00:49:24,300 --> 00:49:26,560
of, yes, he is a working -class boy. Is
he handsome?

706
00:49:27,820 --> 00:49:28,820
Yes.

707
00:49:30,510 --> 00:49:34,230
In the way that yeomen sometimes are,
when they're sober.

708
00:49:34,890 --> 00:49:40,550
The great upheaval caused by the
Crusades led to the birth of the class

709
00:49:40,550 --> 00:49:42,670
who would later make Robin Hood a
legend.

710
00:49:43,310 --> 00:49:47,470
To understand who they were, we have to
first understand the structure of

711
00:49:47,470 --> 00:49:49,130
English society at the time.

712
00:49:49,690 --> 00:49:55,290
We have huge social change in a century
between sort of 1180 and 1280, which is

713
00:49:55,290 --> 00:49:57,090
the century during which...

714
00:49:57,360 --> 00:50:02,220
A Robin Hood figure would have existed,
did exist, if he existed. It's going to

715
00:50:02,220 --> 00:50:08,920
be in that period of tremendous
turbulent social change and the birth of

716
00:50:08,920 --> 00:50:09,920
yeoman classes.

717
00:50:10,260 --> 00:50:15,440
The entrenched class system of medieval
Europe, feudalism, grows out of the

718
00:50:15,440 --> 00:50:19,140
turmoil left after the fall of the Roman
Empire in the 5th century.

719
00:50:19,540 --> 00:50:24,220
Without Roman order to keep the peace,
tribes and warlords acquire wealth and

720
00:50:24,220 --> 00:50:25,900
power through one means alone.

721
00:50:30,700 --> 00:50:33,420
Power basically rests with the might of
the sword.

722
00:50:33,660 --> 00:50:37,640
You've got people who are based in their
castles, and through growing in

723
00:50:37,640 --> 00:50:40,660
strength, they've acquired control over
a certain district.

724
00:50:41,580 --> 00:50:46,980
We have to imagine this period being a
time where wealth is in the land above

725
00:50:46,980 --> 00:50:53,300
all. You have fast farms, and these
farms produce agricultural produce, and

726
00:50:53,300 --> 00:50:58,500
can then, of course, be turned into
liquid wealth, into money. Then you are

727
00:50:58,500 --> 00:50:59,500
wealthy man.

728
00:50:59,720 --> 00:51:04,800
The more land a man conquers, the more
powerful and wealthy he becomes. If he

729
00:51:04,800 --> 00:51:10,140
gains enough power, conquers enough
land, then, simply put, he becomes king.

730
00:51:10,700 --> 00:51:17,420
What the feudal system is about, it's a
king at the top distributing the

731
00:51:17,420 --> 00:51:22,420
land which he rules amongst his
followers, keeping part of it for

732
00:51:22,420 --> 00:51:27,730
distributing vast... tracts of land
amongst great men, and the return was

733
00:51:27,730 --> 00:51:33,870
given by these men turning up with armed
men to create the army of the King of

734
00:51:33,870 --> 00:51:34,870
England.

735
00:51:35,590 --> 00:51:37,930
Gentlemen, we go to war.

736
00:51:38,410 --> 00:51:44,710
Forward! With fighting as their primary
obligation to the crown, the barons and

737
00:51:44,710 --> 00:51:47,430
noblemen of England are also its warrior
clans.

738
00:51:47,710 --> 00:51:52,750
A knight is not only a fighting man, he
is a wealthy, powerful landowner as

739
00:51:52,750 --> 00:51:58,840
well. Class and power are synonymous.
Common man, the peasant, has only one

740
00:51:58,840 --> 00:52:01,580
purpose in feudal society, labor.

741
00:52:02,180 --> 00:52:08,420
Kings set in place a number of rules
which essentially made it very difficult

742
00:52:08,420 --> 00:52:11,720
for an individual person to fend for
themselves.

743
00:52:12,400 --> 00:52:13,900
Sir Robert. Good morning, Joseph.

744
00:52:14,180 --> 00:52:18,860
Emma. You had a God -given place in
society. The priests... prayed for your

745
00:52:18,860 --> 00:52:24,300
soul, the knights protected you. Your
job as a peasant was to produce the food

746
00:52:24,300 --> 00:52:26,500
and pay your taxes so that the others
could live.

747
00:52:26,800 --> 00:52:30,940
But if you tried to change your position
in society, this was like an

748
00:52:30,940 --> 00:52:34,600
earthquake. You know, you destroy
humanity by seeking to do that.

749
00:52:35,180 --> 00:52:39,580
But with the economic and social changes
brought on by the Crusades, an entirely

750
00:52:39,580 --> 00:52:42,280
new class of men began to emerge in
England.

751
00:52:43,070 --> 00:52:47,810
a class of men who not only fell outside
the economic and political barriers of

752
00:52:47,810 --> 00:52:51,490
the feudal system, they would eventually
rise up and destroy it.

753
00:52:51,850 --> 00:52:56,490
Robin Hood, in many of the legends, was
from the yeoman classes, and that is a

754
00:52:56,490 --> 00:53:00,630
status of society which is sort of the
proto -middle class.

755
00:53:00,930 --> 00:53:05,130
Middle class hasn't really arrived yet,
but the yeoman are beginning to own land

756
00:53:05,130 --> 00:53:06,270
or free trade.

757
00:53:07,070 --> 00:53:10,770
Nowadays we think of a yeoman as a free
farmer.

758
00:53:11,180 --> 00:53:14,720
But at the time, yeomen, one of the key
meanings of the word, was an attendant

759
00:53:14,720 --> 00:53:16,440
for a great lord.

760
00:53:16,820 --> 00:53:19,160
Of course, violence is a natural part of
that lifestyle.

761
00:53:19,480 --> 00:53:22,720
It goes without saying the Robin Hood
stories appeal to the class of men.

762
00:53:23,850 --> 00:53:28,970
The yeomans were often a force that
demographically shifted the way that

763
00:53:28,970 --> 00:53:30,490
medieval warfare was conducted.

764
00:53:30,710 --> 00:53:36,530
The yeomans were not associated with the
big sort of cavalry charges that were

765
00:53:36,530 --> 00:53:40,510
more kind of allocated to knights who
could afford expensive armor and weapons

766
00:53:40,510 --> 00:53:41,510
and horses.

767
00:53:41,690 --> 00:53:45,710
Hardened by life in the forest, fighting
would have been a way of life for the

768
00:53:45,710 --> 00:53:51,210
yeoman that associated with Robin Hood
in these desperate times would hope.

769
00:53:51,610 --> 00:53:55,930
sprang from Robin Hood and his men's
legendary fighting skills.

770
00:53:57,850 --> 00:54:02,610
Many men, humble men, poorer men, would
flock to the medieval battlefield armed

771
00:54:02,610 --> 00:54:09,130
with just a simple old sling, throwing
stones at the enemy, or men with staff.

772
00:54:09,680 --> 00:54:10,680
Simple staff.

773
00:54:10,820 --> 00:54:16,160
This is as good a weapon as you can get.
It can be used long form to fight at

774
00:54:16,160 --> 00:54:17,480
reach and at a distance.

775
00:54:17,740 --> 00:54:23,260
It can be used short form, in close, to
lever and wrestle your opponent to the

776
00:54:23,260 --> 00:54:27,880
ground. It can be used to bludgeon, to
crack heads, to break bones. It's an

777
00:54:27,880 --> 00:54:30,520
extremely strong and powerful weapon.

778
00:54:30,880 --> 00:54:33,680
Other men were armed with just a dagger.

779
00:54:34,280 --> 00:54:35,700
They would get in close.

780
00:54:36,620 --> 00:54:40,500
They could get under the bellies of the
horses and get their daggers in. They

781
00:54:40,500 --> 00:54:44,580
could pull these expensive knights from
their saddles and cut their throats.

782
00:54:47,100 --> 00:54:52,860
And like all martial art, that requires
training. And there was a huge culture

783
00:54:52,860 --> 00:54:58,780
of martial training in the Middle Ages.
For sword and shield, we have manuscript

784
00:54:58,780 --> 00:55:01,520
evidence showing us that they trained at
the Pell.

785
00:55:03,660 --> 00:55:05,800
That's a big wooden post.

786
00:55:07,370 --> 00:55:10,370
And they trained with heavy wooden
swords, it says.

787
00:55:10,590 --> 00:55:14,430
Double the weight of a real sword, so it
builds your muscles up.

788
00:55:14,760 --> 00:55:19,420
With a heavy sword and an extra heavy
shield, men would practice their

789
00:55:19,500 --> 00:55:25,260
working around the Pell, slamming it
with their shield. So the shield's also

790
00:55:25,260 --> 00:55:29,660
weapon. You can use the edges of the
shield, smash that against the Pell,

791
00:55:29,660 --> 00:55:34,460
the pommel against the Pell, work round,
backstrokes, working around this post,

792
00:55:34,620 --> 00:55:38,160
improving your footwork as you go. That
was a daily exercise.

793
00:55:39,140 --> 00:55:42,040
There was another type of shield, the
buckler.

794
00:55:42,350 --> 00:55:45,410
which was especially favored as an
archer's weapon.

795
00:55:46,370 --> 00:55:49,310
If you're an archer, you're mostly
carrying your bow.

796
00:55:49,510 --> 00:55:53,710
But there's a threat in the close of
battle that you may need to engage with

797
00:55:53,710 --> 00:55:54,910
hand to hand.

798
00:55:55,130 --> 00:55:59,930
You don't want a great clumsy shield to
carry along because you need to ply your

799
00:55:59,930 --> 00:56:04,910
bow. But a buckler just hangs over your
sword hilt. In fact, it

800
00:56:04,910 --> 00:56:07,850
clatters. It swashes.

801
00:56:08,190 --> 00:56:11,290
Hence the expression swashbuckler, as
you swagger along.

802
00:56:11,690 --> 00:56:16,430
So these swashbuckling archers had
these. They worked like steel fists.

803
00:56:16,710 --> 00:56:22,170
So you can punch the enemy with them.
You deflect his blows to the side rather

804
00:56:22,170 --> 00:56:26,870
than blocking them. You can use the
pommel of your sword to smash in the

805
00:56:27,010 --> 00:56:28,250
You're using the whole sword.

806
00:56:29,050 --> 00:56:32,290
It's a very fluid, universal system.

807
00:56:32,590 --> 00:56:37,510
And what's interesting, there's a
manuscript where you see men being

808
00:56:38,170 --> 00:56:39,170
by a monk.

809
00:56:39,810 --> 00:56:45,970
We have images of Shaolin monks and that
whole tradition of monks being martial

810
00:56:45,970 --> 00:56:51,590
art experts. Well, here it is in Europe,
round about the time of Robin Hood and

811
00:56:51,590 --> 00:56:52,590
Friar Tuck.

812
00:56:52,670 --> 00:56:57,770
Perhaps he was a holy man who had come
back from the Crusades and was therefore

813
00:56:57,770 --> 00:57:00,030
so skilled with his fighting arts.

814
00:57:00,570 --> 00:57:05,890
But either way, this is very much the
type of weapon that Robin and the Merry

815
00:57:05,890 --> 00:57:09,230
Men would have used. The sword and the
buckler.

816
00:57:09,650 --> 00:57:15,630
But one weapon forever came to symbolize
both the newfound power of the yeoman

817
00:57:15,630 --> 00:57:18,370
class and the might of Robin Hood.

818
00:57:23,190 --> 00:57:24,190
Jimmy!

819
00:57:24,810 --> 00:57:27,370
Calm and careful. Make it count. Go!

820
00:57:30,320 --> 00:57:35,940
The bow and arrow frees you up. You
don't have to be right next to your

821
00:57:35,940 --> 00:57:37,240
banquet that person.

822
00:57:41,500 --> 00:57:42,100
Although

823
00:57:42,100 --> 00:57:49,160
the

824
00:57:49,160 --> 00:57:55,020
longbow is the iconic weapon of Robin
Hood, the iconic weapon of the European

825
00:57:55,020 --> 00:57:59,060
Middle Ages, it wasn't invented in the
Middle Ages.

826
00:58:00,010 --> 00:58:03,750
Longbows have been found as old as the
Stone Age. They're Neolithic.

827
00:58:04,030 --> 00:58:08,150
Now, bows and arrows were used widely on
the ancient battlefield. The Egyptians

828
00:58:08,150 --> 00:58:11,850
used them, the Romans used them, the
Greeks used them. Everybody used archery

829
00:58:11,850 --> 00:58:12,808
the battlefield.

830
00:58:12,810 --> 00:58:18,510
Except during the 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th
century, battlefield archery sort of

831
00:58:18,510 --> 00:58:24,530
out of fashion. It came back in 1066
with the Norman invasion of Britain.

832
00:58:26,280 --> 00:58:32,400
William the Conqueror came with
infantry, cavalry and archers.

833
00:58:33,440 --> 00:58:36,940
And it was that combined forces that won
the day.

834
00:58:37,680 --> 00:58:41,120
Where the longbow prevailed was in
guerrilla warfare.

835
00:58:41,860 --> 00:58:47,580
Small band working through the woods,
picking people off, sniping. That's what

836
00:58:47,580 --> 00:58:48,920
the bow was perfect for.

837
00:58:49,180 --> 00:58:52,940
The bow was the outlaw's weapon, the
forester's weapon.

838
00:58:54,930 --> 00:58:59,810
During the 11th and 12th centuries,
bowmen were to be found in the forests.

839
00:59:00,930 --> 00:59:05,370
They were either the foresters
themselves or they were the outlaws they

840
00:59:05,370 --> 00:59:06,370
trying to hunt down.

841
00:59:06,850 --> 00:59:11,870
The longbow particularly was an
extremely powerful weapon. There is a

842
00:59:12,010 --> 00:59:14,270
It's a practical thing. This is what you
hunt with.

843
00:59:14,710 --> 00:59:16,550
It's also what you fight with.

844
00:59:17,130 --> 00:59:22,990
From the late 1200s into the early
1300s, a new class of bowmen arrived.

845
00:59:24,490 --> 00:59:28,270
the yeoman bowman, the professional
soldier.

846
00:59:31,910 --> 00:59:37,450
Now, in the Hundred Years' War, which
happened in the 14th to early 15th

847
00:59:37,450 --> 00:59:42,750
century, these yeoman found great
employment in England's armies.

848
00:59:43,430 --> 00:59:47,710
Archers were needed in their thousands
upon thousands.

849
00:59:48,690 --> 00:59:55,370
England was a relatively poor country
compared to, say, france or other foes

850
00:59:55,370 --> 01:00:01,570
a knight in armor by then was a very
expensive piece of war machinery to put

851
01:00:01,570 --> 01:00:07,250
the field but you could pay your yeoman
bowman a reasonable wage for them they

852
01:00:07,250 --> 01:00:10,970
thought they were getting a pretty good
wage so they were professional soldiers

853
01:00:10,970 --> 01:00:17,490
with a good wage bringing down these
very expensive french knights and they

854
01:00:17,490 --> 01:00:22,310
also the first audience for the robin
hood tales

855
01:00:23,020 --> 01:00:25,820
They identified with a hero bowman.

856
01:00:27,860 --> 01:00:32,060
So this is a replica of an English
longbow.

857
01:00:32,540 --> 01:00:37,140
Exactly the sort of weapon that Robin
Hood would have used. As you can see,

858
01:00:37,140 --> 01:00:40,500
a longbow, a long wooden bow.

859
01:00:40,900 --> 01:00:44,280
In fact, there's no such thing as a
short wooden bow.

860
01:00:45,200 --> 01:00:46,540
It's a misconception.

861
01:00:46,820 --> 01:00:52,000
If you want to draw something this sort
of length, you have to have this much

862
01:00:52,000 --> 01:00:58,500
wood. If I don't have this much wood and
I try and draw it to my full draw, then

863
01:00:58,500 --> 01:01:04,200
probably what will happen is it will
break. So it's a long bow. But to give

864
01:01:04,200 --> 01:01:09,920
its power, it's shaped. And the classic
shape of the longbow is this V -shaped

865
01:01:09,920 --> 01:01:15,340
cross -section. This arched part here is
called the belly of the bow. And that's

866
01:01:15,340 --> 01:01:17,080
what stacks up to...

867
01:01:17,580 --> 01:01:21,820
restore the kinetic image of the bow.
That's the muscles of the bow. And then

868
01:01:21,820 --> 01:01:27,260
this is the back of the bow, and it
resists tension, stops it exploding and

869
01:01:27,260 --> 01:01:28,260
pulling apart.

870
01:01:28,940 --> 01:01:34,420
So the shaping, the crafting of a bow is
a highly skilled operation.

871
01:01:34,920 --> 01:01:40,560
During the Middle Ages, they made bows
from oak and ash, and elm was especially

872
01:01:40,560 --> 01:01:44,500
popular, but the wood that was most
sought after was yew.

873
01:01:45,600 --> 01:01:49,700
Robin Hood would have used a yew bow
given a choice because it is the king of

874
01:01:49,700 --> 01:01:53,420
bowwood. It performs the best of all the
woods that we have here.

875
01:01:53,800 --> 01:01:57,580
Right, what we've got here is a bow made
of yew, and as you can see, there's two

876
01:01:57,580 --> 01:02:02,620
colours, the sapwood and the heartwood.
This is taken from the outer part of the

877
01:02:02,620 --> 01:02:03,279
yew tree.

878
01:02:03,280 --> 01:02:04,660
It's a very elastic material.

879
01:02:05,420 --> 01:02:11,640
The yew tree gives you a cross -section
in nature that is a lamination. It's a

880
01:02:11,640 --> 01:02:13,820
composite wood that occurs in nature.

881
01:02:14,220 --> 01:02:19,400
This dark heartwood, that's what's the
belly of the bow. That's the muscle

882
01:02:19,400 --> 01:02:25,280
storage. It really resists compression,
really storing up tremendous energy when

883
01:02:25,280 --> 01:02:26,560
you draw the bow.

884
01:02:26,800 --> 01:02:33,640
A lot of strain there. So this sapwood,
this light wood on the outside is like

885
01:02:33,640 --> 01:02:37,460
the skeleton, stopping it breaking
apart. So you've got muscle and skeleton

886
01:02:37,460 --> 01:02:42,480
giving you an extremely powerful and
accurate weapon.

887
01:02:47,950 --> 01:02:54,830
What we've got is a large chunk of yew
taken from a fairly large yew tree.

888
01:02:55,230 --> 01:03:00,450
And again, you can see this has been
sawn into what we call a bow stave. So

889
01:03:00,450 --> 01:03:04,210
it's taken from the tree and processed
like this, we call it a stave.

890
01:03:05,770 --> 01:03:11,190
And if we're working in the woods, this
is the kind of tool that everybody had

891
01:03:11,190 --> 01:03:13,030
in the Middle Ages. Everybody had axes
and knives.

892
01:03:13,410 --> 01:03:16,050
That's the kind of tool that we'd have
used to prepare the bow stave.

893
01:03:18,600 --> 01:03:24,480
Once the bow is shaped, it is fitted
with a string, spun from either flax

894
01:03:24,480 --> 01:03:27,660
or hemp, then bonded together with
beeswax.

895
01:03:29,720 --> 01:03:34,300
The first guy that trained me with the
bow and arrow, he asked me, are you

896
01:03:34,300 --> 01:03:35,038
enjoying this?

897
01:03:35,040 --> 01:03:37,040
I said, yeah, I really am enjoying this.

898
01:03:37,680 --> 01:03:40,220
There's something about it that I really
like. He goes, well, what is that

899
01:03:40,220 --> 01:03:45,060
something? I said to him that for me, it
was the flight of the arrow.

900
01:03:47,120 --> 01:03:51,120
It was the excitement of the moment that
the arrow left the string.

901
01:03:52,860 --> 01:03:57,180
More specifically, how it arced through
the air.

902
01:03:58,160 --> 01:04:00,500
It's not a torpedo. It's not a missile.

903
01:04:01,080 --> 01:04:02,540
It's a living thing.

904
01:04:03,460 --> 01:04:09,020
The energy has been balled up behind it
and is trying to find its way through

905
01:04:09,020 --> 01:04:10,020
the shaft.

906
01:04:11,740 --> 01:04:12,860
An arrow swims.

907
01:04:15,120 --> 01:04:19,460
And on the battlefields of the Hundred
Years' War with the English kings

908
01:04:19,460 --> 01:04:25,920
the French at Crecy and Agincourt and
Poitiers, then they were using arrows

909
01:04:25,920 --> 01:04:26,980
like this.

910
01:04:27,500 --> 01:04:29,720
Arrows to pierce armour.

911
01:04:30,880 --> 01:04:34,940
The idea would be that you would wait
until you see the whites of their eyes.

912
01:04:35,220 --> 01:04:41,540
They're all shooting level when they're
shooting in battle.

913
01:04:45,550 --> 01:04:47,970
And that's because arrows are very
expensive.

914
01:04:48,170 --> 01:04:53,510
There are a lot of things in an arrow.
An expensive head that has to be forged.

915
01:04:53,790 --> 01:04:58,550
A shaft that has to be planed out of a
square piece of timber.

916
01:04:58,870 --> 01:05:04,070
Flights that have to be cut and put on
and then bound on with thread. A horn

917
01:05:04,070 --> 01:05:08,470
piece of insert into the nock so that it
doesn't split. This is expensive

918
01:05:08,470 --> 01:05:10,670
ammunition and it needs to count.

919
01:05:10,950 --> 01:05:13,510
So you have to wait until they are
close.

920
01:05:15,120 --> 01:05:17,920
In the forest, it's a different question
altogether.

921
01:05:18,360 --> 01:05:23,920
In the forest, it's not mass volumes of
arrows, it's one arrow carefully

922
01:05:23,920 --> 01:05:30,060
selected to bring down that deer or to
halt that traveller with his rich booty.

923
01:05:31,940 --> 01:05:38,320
The huge dependency on yeoman archers
during the 13th,

924
01:05:38,320 --> 01:05:42,340
14th and even 15th century meant that
laws were introduced.

925
01:05:44,439 --> 01:05:50,620
requiring yeomen to practice at the
butt. Men between 16 and 65,

926
01:05:50,840 --> 01:05:56,640
every Sunday morning, had to practice at
the butt, an earth mound as a target.

927
01:05:57,320 --> 01:06:03,460
But in the forest, there were also laws
that prohibited the carrying of sharp

928
01:06:03,460 --> 01:06:06,880
arrows. That might get the king's
venison.

929
01:06:07,200 --> 01:06:12,140
So what we see in manuscripts in the
forest is they're carrying blunts.

930
01:06:12,880 --> 01:06:15,420
That's also a perfectly good hunting
arrow.

931
01:06:15,720 --> 01:06:20,880
If you're hunting birds or you're
hunting rabbits or hares, a blunt will

932
01:06:20,880 --> 01:06:23,100
and, in fact, not spoil the meat for the
table.

933
01:06:23,560 --> 01:06:26,380
And it will also stick into an earth
spot.

934
01:06:27,040 --> 01:06:31,520
So if you're caught with a bow and arrow
in the forest, it had better be with a

935
01:06:31,520 --> 01:06:32,520
hunting blunt.

936
01:06:36,180 --> 01:06:39,940
If you wanted to kill a deer, however,
you would need something like that.

937
01:06:40,360 --> 01:06:44,810
So if Robin Hood was made an outlaw,
because he was caught poaching the

938
01:06:44,810 --> 01:06:48,590
venison, then he was out in the forest
with something like this.

939
01:06:51,290 --> 01:06:54,630
And there could be no mistake of what he
intended it for.

940
01:06:56,870 --> 01:07:01,990
Despite the fact that a single arrow
could bring down a fully armored knight,

941
01:07:02,150 --> 01:07:07,050
there was only one thing that would
bring the outlaw Robin Hood to his

942
01:07:12,270 --> 01:07:13,450
I sleep with a dagger.

943
01:07:13,970 --> 01:07:18,430
If you so much as move to touch me, I
will sever your manhood. You understand?

944
01:07:19,390 --> 01:07:20,390
Thanks for the warning.

945
01:07:22,530 --> 01:07:27,530
No figure in the Robin Hood stories more
dramatically reflects changing societal

946
01:07:27,530 --> 01:07:30,550
values over the centuries than does Maid
Marian.

947
01:07:31,070 --> 01:07:35,350
When Marian meets Robin, she's not swept
off her feet. She's suspicious more

948
01:07:35,350 --> 01:07:40,450
than anything. And she keeps throwing
these tests at Robin to see how he

949
01:07:40,450 --> 01:07:42,040
actually... comes up, you know.

950
01:07:43,320 --> 01:07:45,580
Heidi, you're going blind. Are you
looking for charity?

951
01:07:46,320 --> 01:07:47,580
Are you the keeper of this house?

952
01:07:48,400 --> 01:07:50,160
A manner of speaking, yes.

953
01:07:51,160 --> 01:07:55,500
Maid Marian, I'm afraid, is a late
addition and is a real character in her

954
01:07:55,500 --> 01:07:57,420
right before joining Robin.

955
01:07:59,300 --> 01:08:05,300
Prior talk in Maid Marian enter maybe,
you know, 200, 300 years after the Robin

956
01:08:05,300 --> 01:08:09,480
Hood ballads really get started as a
kind of influx from another popular

957
01:08:09,480 --> 01:08:14,400
tradition. probably as part of the May
Day traditions, the May Games.

958
01:08:15,500 --> 01:08:19,060
I think it's important for us when we
look back at the Middle Ages and the

959
01:08:19,060 --> 01:08:22,640
of Robin Hood to realise that everything
you did is based on the seasons.

960
01:08:22,939 --> 01:08:27,420
And winter, of course, was the time when
you prepared for winter by killing the

961
01:08:27,420 --> 01:08:29,960
bulk of your animals because you could
not keep them through the winter.

962
01:08:33,300 --> 01:08:37,100
You were scared stiff of a bad autumn
crop.

963
01:08:37,760 --> 01:08:40,420
where you did not bring in enough to
keep you going through the winter.

964
01:08:41,720 --> 01:08:47,100
So the May Games were part of the
seasonal way of celebrating the return

965
01:08:47,100 --> 01:08:48,100
weather.

966
01:08:51,140 --> 01:08:57,220
The May Games were a rustic, very noisy,
very drunken, no doubt, part of the May

967
01:08:57,220 --> 01:09:01,760
celebrations. Oh, a man could get very
affectionate here. I haven't seen so

968
01:09:01,760 --> 01:09:05,220
women for so few men outside of Nunnery.

969
01:09:07,080 --> 01:09:11,279
It's the power of the forest. It's the
world, the pagan world that's really

970
01:09:11,279 --> 01:09:16,300
enticing and the kind of the rule of
nature.

971
01:09:16,620 --> 01:09:20,220
And I think that that's sort of what the
green man represents.

972
01:09:20,720 --> 01:09:26,200
The only earlier example of Maid Marian
will perhaps surprise modern enthusiasts

973
01:09:26,200 --> 01:09:33,020
for the legend because she is a bawdy,
fat, dancing

974
01:09:33,020 --> 01:09:35,600
pantomime dame figure.

975
01:09:36,220 --> 01:09:38,500
Played, of course, by a man and played
comically.

976
01:09:40,100 --> 01:09:43,000
She is a symbol of fecundity in the May
celebrations.

977
01:09:43,700 --> 01:09:47,380
And I don't know if I can say it, a
prick or a prancer, a terror of feats, a

978
01:09:47,380 --> 01:09:49,180
waggler of bollocks while other men
sleep.

979
01:09:49,540 --> 01:09:51,000
You can cut that, can't you?

980
01:09:52,779 --> 01:09:54,960
So she's not at all a dignified figure.

981
01:09:55,320 --> 01:10:00,500
And the only man she's in a sexual
relationship with is the bawdy, Raya,

982
01:10:00,500 --> 01:10:01,500
Robin.

983
01:10:02,519 --> 01:10:06,800
Marion's sexually promiscuous
representation in the May Games is a

984
01:10:06,800 --> 01:10:10,220
reflection of one of the commonly held
beliefs about women at the time.

985
01:10:10,980 --> 01:10:14,540
A man's attitude to women in the 16th,
17th century is quite appalling.

986
01:10:17,340 --> 01:10:21,600
I think she's probably quite, probably
rightly in that particular age, quite

987
01:10:21,600 --> 01:10:24,460
suspicious of men, always thinking that
they want something.

988
01:10:25,660 --> 01:10:31,520
Representations of women often ran to
extremes, two of the extreme types.

989
01:10:32,000 --> 01:10:36,700
of women were eve on the one hand and
the virgin mary on the other

990
01:10:36,700 --> 01:10:43,660
from the beginning of the tale

991
01:10:43,660 --> 01:10:48,860
robin is a devotee of the virgin mary
you will do no woman any harm no company

992
01:10:48,860 --> 01:10:55,520
any harm that a woman is in in contrast
to eve mary was seen as the

993
01:10:55,520 --> 01:10:56,520
virgin as

994
01:10:57,379 --> 01:11:01,260
not sexual, as completely spiritual, as
pure.

995
01:11:02,620 --> 01:11:06,220
Maid Mary and Dodge have two roles, and
this is very, very important to the

996
01:11:06,220 --> 01:11:11,680
tales and to the survival of the tales,
because in the late 16th century, she

997
01:11:11,680 --> 01:11:16,340
has this role as an aristocrat, and here
you're talking about courtly love and

998
01:11:16,340 --> 01:11:19,580
the ideal woman, and there's nothing
naughty ever happens in the forest.

999
01:11:21,520 --> 01:11:28,520
Maid Marian as Robin Hood's girlfriend
doesn't appear until the 1590s, when

1000
01:11:28,520 --> 01:11:34,040
an Elizabethan playwright, Anthony
Munday, created one of several

1001
01:11:34,040 --> 01:11:35,040
stage plays.

1002
01:11:35,980 --> 01:11:41,260
And in them, Robin swears an oath that
he will remain faithful to her forever

1003
01:11:41,260 --> 01:11:43,180
until they can eventually get married.

1004
01:11:43,600 --> 01:11:46,500
And so that's very much a reflection of
the courtly tradition.

1005
01:11:49,070 --> 01:11:54,670
The courtly love tradition is normally
associated as beginning with the

1006
01:11:54,670 --> 01:11:57,470
troubadours in 11th century France.

1007
01:11:58,910 --> 01:12:04,770
There is usually an image of the beloved
or perhaps some type of secret lover

1008
01:12:04,770 --> 01:12:05,770
within the song.

1009
01:12:06,370 --> 01:12:13,070
Often in these songs, the joy that goes
along with fantasizing about the lover,

1010
01:12:13,230 --> 01:12:15,410
fantasizing about the sex.

1011
01:12:15,770 --> 01:12:19,110
is also connected to the joy of
composing the song.

1012
01:12:20,670 --> 01:12:25,210
Courtly love does not mean that you end
up with the woman. Courtly love means

1013
01:12:25,210 --> 01:12:29,690
you do things for that woman
symbolically. You go out and perform

1014
01:12:29,690 --> 01:12:30,690
show your love for that woman.

1015
01:12:31,070 --> 01:12:36,910
Courtly love sees woman as someone who
needs to be put on a pedestal and

1016
01:12:36,910 --> 01:12:37,930
worshiped from afar.

1017
01:12:38,710 --> 01:12:42,710
And of course, here you also have
symbols and representations of women.

1018
01:12:43,130 --> 01:12:47,370
You have woman on the one hand set up on
a pedestal, and on the other hand,

1019
01:12:47,470 --> 01:12:50,530
woman is who tempted Adam into sin.

1020
01:12:54,610 --> 01:12:59,070
Out of these two extreme stereotypes, a
single version of Maid Marian eventually

1021
01:12:59,070 --> 01:13:03,210
emerges over 200 years after her first
appearance in the legend.

1022
01:13:03,800 --> 01:13:08,040
The great time for Robin and Marion as a
love story is the Victorians. It's the

1023
01:13:08,040 --> 01:13:09,039
19th century.

1024
01:13:09,040 --> 01:13:14,420
And there you see again Marion
reappearing as the great love interest

1025
01:13:14,420 --> 01:13:17,880
life. Once before I said goodbye to a
man going to war.

1026
01:13:18,540 --> 01:13:19,720
He never came back.

1027
01:13:26,020 --> 01:13:27,020
That's been nice.

1028
01:13:33,770 --> 01:13:38,590
Again, at taste, nothing happens in the
Greenwood that shouldn't. They will wait

1029
01:13:38,590 --> 01:13:42,390
until they are married. And, of course,
in the end, with the Victorians, in

1030
01:13:42,390 --> 01:13:45,270
their story, they're married by Richard
the Lionheart when he comes back from

1031
01:13:45,270 --> 01:13:47,990
the Crusades. And this is one of the
great moments of the story.

1032
01:13:49,830 --> 01:13:52,110
Robin would have been married in this
building.

1033
01:13:52,630 --> 01:13:55,310
Well, not exactly in this building. He
would have been married at the door,

1034
01:13:55,410 --> 01:13:58,550
because in those days you got married at
the church door rather than inside.

1035
01:13:59,260 --> 01:14:03,580
But since that time, in the 14th
century, the church was extended. So he

1036
01:14:03,580 --> 01:14:06,820
have got married at that spot there,
which is where the church would have

1037
01:14:06,820 --> 01:14:08,100
in the 12th century.

1038
01:14:10,360 --> 01:14:15,200
The church would have been built about
five years before King Richard the

1039
01:14:15,200 --> 01:14:17,840
Lionheart came to the throne. He was the
son of Henry II.

1040
01:14:18,990 --> 01:14:24,250
King Henry II had had his Archbishop
Thomas Becket murdered, and as a result

1041
01:14:24,250 --> 01:14:28,590
to do penance by building a number of
stone churches around the country, this

1042
01:14:28,590 --> 01:14:33,370
being one of them. And we remember that
story with his stone head, which is just

1043
01:14:33,370 --> 01:14:34,129
up there.

1044
01:14:34,130 --> 01:14:38,970
And opposite it, on the other side, we
have Thomas Becket, who was his

1045
01:14:38,970 --> 01:14:42,490
Archbishop, and they continue their feud
to this day, peering at each other

1046
01:14:42,490 --> 01:14:43,490
across the aisle.

1047
01:14:45,100 --> 01:14:49,680
Though the Victorians view the marriage
of Robin Hood and Maid Marian as the

1048
01:14:49,680 --> 01:14:54,540
perfect ending to their perfect
Victorian love story, the 20th century

1049
01:14:54,540 --> 01:14:59,300
Marian finally becomes a fuller
character in her own right, enjoying

1050
01:14:59,300 --> 01:15:01,060
equality with Robin Hood.

1051
01:15:01,420 --> 01:15:06,500
Her sense of playing the traditional
female role has been non -existent

1052
01:15:06,500 --> 01:15:11,340
as the story in this particular film
happens, her husband, they had one night

1053
01:15:11,340 --> 01:15:12,960
together and then he left to go on the
crusade.

1054
01:15:13,390 --> 01:15:17,730
So she's presiding over a village that
has no men.

1055
01:15:19,130 --> 01:15:25,830
In her own small way, fighting for the
rights of the villagers who she, for

1056
01:15:25,830 --> 01:15:26,970
of a better word, presides over.

1057
01:15:28,550 --> 01:15:33,730
During the 20th century, if you look at
Robin Hood for children, the way in

1058
01:15:33,730 --> 01:15:39,610
which... Marion is presented is almost
like a survey history of changing 20th

1059
01:15:39,610 --> 01:15:44,330
century attitudes towards girls and
women and their fears

1060
01:15:47,710 --> 01:15:52,370
And by the time we get to Robin
McKinley's Robin Hood book for children,

1061
01:15:52,370 --> 01:15:58,150
in the 1970s, there are a large number
of strong women or girl characters here.

1062
01:15:58,530 --> 01:16:04,330
And Marion herself really becomes
virtually the leader of the gang. For

1063
01:16:04,330 --> 01:16:06,890
she's a better archer, even than Robin
Hood.

1064
01:16:07,210 --> 01:16:10,030
And towards the end, it is proposed...

1065
01:16:10,350 --> 01:16:15,970
that after the evil Sheriff of
Nottingham has been defeated, that

1066
01:16:15,970 --> 01:16:18,610
should become the Sheriff of Nottingham.

1067
01:16:20,550 --> 01:16:27,150
The story of Robin Hood, Maid Marian and
the Merry Men, is not merely about the

1068
01:16:27,150 --> 01:16:29,610
adventures of a single outlaw and his
band of followers.

1069
01:16:30,030 --> 01:16:35,170
Our search for the real Robin Hood
ultimately leads us to a point in

1070
01:16:35,770 --> 01:16:40,030
When man's struggle for justice,
equality, and rule of law would take a

1071
01:16:40,030 --> 01:16:41,030
step forward.

1072
01:16:43,470 --> 01:16:47,950
The laws of this land enslave people to
its king.

1073
01:16:49,370 --> 01:16:53,510
A king who demands loyalty but offers
nothing in return.

1074
01:16:55,130 --> 01:16:59,690
I think the core value of Robin Hood,
the robbing from the rich to give to the

1075
01:16:59,690 --> 01:17:00,830
poor, is the thing that's going to
survive.

1076
01:17:02,010 --> 01:17:04,430
We haven't approached that core.

1077
01:17:05,100 --> 01:17:07,360
from a literal money sense.

1078
01:17:07,840 --> 01:17:13,420
We've jumped off from there into a
metaphor, and that's why we've shifted

1079
01:17:13,420 --> 01:17:17,620
timeline and put it into the era of the
Magna Carta and our redress of the

1080
01:17:17,620 --> 01:17:21,120
balance. Our robbing from the rich is
their rights and privileges.

1081
01:17:28,860 --> 01:17:34,220
Between about 1180 and 1280, there was
tremendous social...

1082
01:17:34,440 --> 01:17:41,240
And it's a very important century for
changes in social structure, in law, in

1083
01:17:41,240 --> 01:17:42,260
the rights of man.

1084
01:17:42,480 --> 01:17:46,240
And then, of course, famously in 1215,
the Magna Carta.

1085
01:17:46,700 --> 01:17:49,660
This Charter of Rights was written by
your father.

1086
01:17:50,020 --> 01:17:52,700
There are the names of all the barons
that signed the Charter.

1087
01:17:52,920 --> 01:17:55,640
Fitzrobert, Baldwin, Marshall, and
myself.

1088
01:17:56,920 --> 01:18:02,900
What he wanted was a charter. The Magna
Carta, at the time, was an attempt by

1089
01:18:02,900 --> 01:18:03,900
the barons of England.

1090
01:18:04,250 --> 01:18:05,990
Take control of John and control him.

1091
01:18:06,490 --> 01:18:10,110
You build a country like you build a
cathedral. From the ground up.

1092
01:18:11,710 --> 01:18:13,270
Empower every man.

1093
01:18:14,470 --> 01:18:15,990
And you will gain strength.

1094
01:18:17,010 --> 01:18:22,070
He was a brutal, unpleasant monarch who
took so much money from people that they

1095
01:18:22,070 --> 01:18:23,390
had to start fighting back.

1096
01:18:26,050 --> 01:18:29,270
We have paid in money and men for King
Richard's wars.

1097
01:18:29,630 --> 01:18:31,250
And we have no more to give.

1098
01:18:33,280 --> 01:18:38,780
John needs more money to fight his
battles in France, as Richard had done

1099
01:18:38,780 --> 01:18:43,040
him, but John does not have the strength
of personality or sheer psychopathic

1100
01:18:43,040 --> 01:18:47,840
nature, I reckon, that Richard had, and
has great difficulty in getting that

1101
01:18:47,840 --> 01:18:52,460
money off the barons, who eventually
come close to rising up against him.

1102
01:18:53,100 --> 01:18:57,400
John at this point meets with the barons
in London and they sit down at

1103
01:18:57,400 --> 01:19:02,240
Runnymede on the Thames just outside
London and John signs the Magna Carta,

1104
01:19:02,240 --> 01:19:03,199
Great Carta.

1105
01:19:03,200 --> 01:19:07,900
He promises that the king should not be
above the law. He promises he should not

1106
01:19:07,900 --> 01:19:09,640
impose any unjust taxes.

1107
01:19:10,100 --> 01:19:15,700
By the insistence of his knights and his
barons and the dukes that he must pay

1108
01:19:15,700 --> 01:19:19,040
attention to them, he must listen to
them. It's the beginning of a kind of

1109
01:19:19,040 --> 01:19:20,040
sense of parliament.

1110
01:19:20,970 --> 01:19:24,230
Of course, most important for the rest
of it is the start of the writ of habeas

1111
01:19:24,230 --> 01:19:29,170
corpus. If someone is imprisoned
innocently, you can demand their

1112
01:19:29,710 --> 01:19:34,130
This is a definite sea change in the
relationship between a king and his

1113
01:19:36,050 --> 01:19:40,210
But John, as soon as the barons have
left London again, gets the support of

1114
01:19:40,210 --> 01:19:41,870
Pope and dumps Magna Carta.

1115
01:19:42,230 --> 01:19:43,450
We look to you!

1116
01:19:43,730 --> 01:19:44,930
Look to your estate!

1117
01:19:47,280 --> 01:19:52,200
Civil war breaks out between John and
his barons in the fall of 1215.

1118
01:19:52,840 --> 01:19:57,900
Not surprisingly, John conducts the war
ruthlessly, ordering devastating raids

1119
01:19:57,900 --> 01:19:58,900
on the countryside.

1120
01:19:59,640 --> 01:20:04,240
John heads up to the north of England
again to try and rally his supporters.

1121
01:20:05,180 --> 01:20:09,160
Nottingham Castle was held for John by
Philip March, his sheriff in the area at

1122
01:20:09,160 --> 01:20:13,400
the time. But John falls ill and dies at
Newark Castle in 1216.

1123
01:20:14,460 --> 01:20:20,400
To general relief, King John dies a
fittingly inglorious death from

1124
01:20:20,400 --> 01:20:25,440
October. His nine -year -old son, Henry
III, is placed on the throne and the

1125
01:20:25,440 --> 01:20:28,060
Magna Carta is reissued in his name.

1126
01:20:28,300 --> 01:20:32,880
The reality is that the Magna Carta is a
deal between barons and kings.

1127
01:20:33,120 --> 01:20:38,020
So as much as it may be associated
historically with the Declaration of

1128
01:20:38,020 --> 01:20:42,680
Independence, in truth, the Magna Carta
doesn't reset the table.

1129
01:20:43,310 --> 01:20:44,430
for all men.

1130
01:20:44,770 --> 01:20:47,290
It only resets the title for some men.

1131
01:20:48,370 --> 01:20:53,450
It has come to represent far, far more
than that. It's representation of the

1132
01:20:53,450 --> 01:20:55,170
idea that no one is above the law.

1133
01:20:55,430 --> 01:20:59,190
It's representation of the idea that no
one should be falsely imprisoned.

1134
01:20:59,590 --> 01:21:01,550
These are important things worldwide.

1135
01:21:02,470 --> 01:21:07,650
Given that Robin Hood allegedly lived
during the first part of the 12th

1136
01:21:07,710 --> 01:21:11,950
can a link be made between the Magna
Carta and the real Robin Hood?

1137
01:21:12,330 --> 01:21:16,690
There is nothing in the tales that link
Robin Hood to Magna Carta. But what

1138
01:21:16,690 --> 01:21:20,450
there is, is clear understanding that
people knew about corrupt lords.

1139
01:21:21,210 --> 01:21:24,130
Choose carefully the spot where you
would place your dagger.

1140
01:21:24,390 --> 01:21:26,470
But I will choose carefully as well.

1141
01:21:26,850 --> 01:21:31,390
They knew about a wealthy church that
had ceased caring about the people and

1142
01:21:31,390 --> 01:21:32,390
only interested in itself.

1143
01:21:32,690 --> 01:21:38,770
And these things told in popular tales
suggest, you know, popular support for

1144
01:21:38,770 --> 01:21:39,770
those concepts.

1145
01:21:40,280 --> 01:21:43,580
I think that's probably as close as
you'll get for a direct relationship

1146
01:21:43,580 --> 01:21:44,199
the two.

1147
01:21:44,200 --> 01:21:49,320
The most telling link between the Magna
Carta and the people who embrace and

1148
01:21:49,320 --> 01:21:55,620
spread the tales of Robin Hood is found
in Article 39, which reads,

1149
01:21:55,880 --> 01:22:02,320
No free man shall be arrested or
imprisoned or deprived of his property

1150
01:22:02,320 --> 01:22:09,060
or outlawed or exiled unless by legal
judgment of his peers.

1151
01:22:10,700 --> 01:22:17,160
This article, in essence, creates for
the yeoman class, the rising middle

1152
01:22:17,420 --> 01:22:22,160
the conditions it needs to thrive under
the protection of common law.

1153
01:22:23,040 --> 01:22:25,320
Before that, people were owned.

1154
01:22:26,100 --> 01:22:29,640
After that, they were still owned a
little bit. Nothing was put right

1155
01:22:29,860 --> 01:22:32,280
But it was a time of awareness.

1156
01:22:33,200 --> 01:22:37,720
The yeoman class eventually succeeds in
bringing the ideals of liberty,

1157
01:22:37,920 --> 01:22:40,740
equality, and justice to the modern
world.

1158
01:22:41,080 --> 01:22:46,660
And no hero embodies their values and
hopes more than Robin Hood.

1159
01:22:47,160 --> 01:22:53,840
A hero who represented that spirit in
man was vital. And that is

1160
01:22:53,840 --> 01:22:56,240
where Robin Hood came from.

1161
01:22:57,140 --> 01:23:00,500
In the end, this may be the real Robin
Hood.

1162
01:23:00,880 --> 01:23:02,300
The real reason.

1163
01:23:02,960 --> 01:23:04,400
His story lives on.

1164
01:23:05,920 --> 01:23:10,120
We can't prove he lived. We can't prove
he didn't live. But I do think that's

1165
01:23:10,120 --> 01:23:13,680
irrelevant. It's far more interesting to
me that there are tales about him that

1166
01:23:13,680 --> 01:23:17,280
still live. And it's far more
interesting to me that this man, if he

1167
01:23:17,280 --> 01:23:19,640
existed, ceased to be a person and
became a hero.

1168
01:23:20,960 --> 01:23:25,500
He is a true hero. He is just an
adventurer who gets out there and does.

1169
01:23:26,500 --> 01:23:30,920
You must take the sword to my father.

1170
01:23:32,240 --> 01:23:33,440
It will bring me peace.

1171
01:23:33,880 --> 01:23:39,240
It's courtesy, it's willingness to help
people, it's kindness with prisoners,

1172
01:23:39,460 --> 01:23:41,900
it's willingness to treat women
properly.

1173
01:23:42,460 --> 01:23:45,640
Alongside that, who doesn't want to
fight against corrupt officials?

1174
01:23:47,240 --> 01:23:51,300
Who across the world does not recognise
the idea of corruption amongst those in

1175
01:23:51,300 --> 01:23:52,300
power?

1176
01:23:52,680 --> 01:23:57,640
Even in our own century, we are still
telling tales about Robin Hood,

1177
01:23:57,640 --> 01:24:02,340
reinventing and retelling the story,
because every generation needs to

1178
01:24:02,340 --> 01:24:04,160
understand the spirit of Robin Hood.

1179
01:24:05,140 --> 01:24:10,160
It's always going to be the same thing,
robbing from the roots and give to the

1180
01:24:10,160 --> 01:24:14,700
poor, redressing the balance. That's the
core of Robin Hood. That's why it

1181
01:24:14,700 --> 01:24:18,520
lasted so long, and that's why it'll
continue to last, because there's still

1182
01:24:18,520 --> 01:24:19,880
balance that needs to be redressed.

1183
01:24:20,750 --> 01:24:21,930
And that hasn't changed.

1184
01:24:22,910 --> 01:24:27,350
So that's why I don't think that Robin
Hood will fade away.