Robin Hood plays should be banned, wrote an advisor to King Henry VIII in 1536 – they were, he argued, teaching the public how to defy the king’s officers. It was basically the medieval equivalent of claiming video games make kids violent, part of a longstanding movement to ban performances and tales of Robin Hood. This hero was really a villain, these medieval campaigners complained.
A new film out tomorrow, The Death of Robin Hood, echoes this claim. Set in the far north of England in the year 1247, the film sees a wounded Robin Hood (Hugh Jackman), a “wicked and murderous bandit”, reflect on his life of crime. “He was no hero,” claims the film’s tagline.
IMDB
But in our time of cost-of-living crises and rising authoritarianism, do we need a villainous Robin Hood? One Reddit comment summed it up nicely: “Not sure I love the idea of tearing down a folk hero who fought against wealth inequality and greed from upper classes in the current era we’re in. Feels pretty tone deaf.”
The optics aren’t great. This hero-to-villain recasting comes in the wake of Jackman’s performance at Rupert Murdoch’s 95th birthday earlier this year, attended by members of the Trump family.
But do the film’s claims about Robin Hood’s villainous origins even stack up? What is the truth behind the legend?
The history of Robin Hood
We first see literary references to Robin Hood in the 1370s, when poet William Langland wrote that rhymes and romances of Robin Hood were shared in taverns. Soon after, around 1405, a literary commentary on the Ten Commandments, framed as a conversation between a rich man and a poor man, complained that people would rather go to the pub to hear a tale of Robin Hood than attend church services.
The earliest known Robin Hood narrative survives within a critical source that rubbishes Robin’s popular appeal: Scotichronicon, compiled in the 1440s by Scottish abbot Walter Bower. The chronicle was a rejection of English claims over Scottish sovereignty. Bower emphasised both the piety of the Scottish church and the periods of violence regularly breaking out across the border.
He estimated that the Robin Hood myth originated during the Second Barons’ War (1264-67), in which the forces of Henry III and Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, battled for control over England. Bower imagined Robin was one of the many disinherited soldiers who ravished the country following de Montfort’s defeat in 1265, placing him among those who stole crops and looted churches to make their living:
At this time there arose from among the disinherited and outlaws and raised his head that most famous armed robber Robert Hood, along with Little John and their accomplices. The foolish common folk eagerly celebrate the deeds of these men with gawping enthusiasm in comedies and tragedies.
The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, Wikimedia Commons
This is the very source that inspired director Michael Sarnoski’s 2026 vision.
Yet Bower also admits that some of Robin’s exploits are commendable. In the very next sentence, he paraphrases a circulating tale where Robin is attacked by a viscount, while diligently holding a Mass in his forest hideout. Despite the danger, and the pleas of his men to flee, his spiritual strength ensures he is the victor.
This Robin is the one most visible in the later Middle Ages: not a violent bandit, but a star of action adventure stories that upheld the sanctity of the church and emphasised community values.
Robin Hood as medieval superhero
The most common way everyday people engaged with the Robin Hood tradition was through play-games – a mix of costumed roleplays with genuine sporting competitions – which were held in spring and summer. Evidence for these community performances date to the mid 1420s, where players in Exeter were paid 20 pence for playing a Robin Hood game for the mayor.
Men would dress as Robin Hood and Little John and raise funds for community projects. These appearances were essentially the equivalent of superheroes at shopping malls today, but Robin’s presence in medieval communities was not just about fun: it signalled things in the community needed fixing. Whether a church needing repairs, or a social rent needing to be reconciled, if Robin Hood was in your town, he was there to help.
De Worde Gest
Those who refused to serve the community became Robin’s enemies. In the literary tradition, this is the Sheriff of Nottingham and the greedy bishops of the church. Robin was not strictly anti-authority, but anti-corrupt authority.
He was staunchly loyal to the king, but challenged corrupt civic officials. He observed Mass three times a day, but harassed the greedy clerics of the church. This reflected Robin’s fundraising role, encouraging all to do their part and chastising those who did not.
The famous “rob the rich to give to the poor” mantra is a 16th-century simplification of this altruistic spirit. Far from being a bloodthirsty criminal, the original Robin had a communal mindset – not an individualistic one.
Violence as an outlaw’s last resort
Jackman has said that in the 15th-century poem A Gest of Robyn Hode, the outlaw is depicted as a violent cutthroat – but “from these grim beginnings emerged a hero”.
Yet the Gest famously features the first glimpses of a gentrified Robin, depicted as the gracious host of feasts. This is not a softening of some earlier, violent version of the outlaw, but a simple reflection of his role as the host of the feasts of his communal games.
While some tales contain violent episodes, they were not hidden, but were celebrated by communities. The oldest surviving Robin Hood play, circa 1475, features the beheading of a knight – a moment intended to elicit a cheer from the audience at the defeat of an enemy.
The early Robin Hood tales featured violence, but they were not inherently violent stories: no more than Superman is violent because he fights his enemy Lex Luthor. Reading violence into the medieval literary tradition goes against the grain of their context as cautionary tales, which also contain comedy, friendship and love.
Robin does not harm the poor or the innocent – only those who are selfish, or isolated from society. Violence is a last resort for this outlaw. His primary weapon is guilt and shame. He is someone who demands better from his audience and leads by example.
It is therefore pretty telling that those who complained about Robin’s popularity were often the kinds of people the outlaw would attack. If you had a guilty conscience, you had something to hide – priests and public officials complaining the outlaw was being too hard on them is quite the tell.
Wikimedia Commons
Robin’s real criminal origins
To what extent, then, does The Death of Robin Hood’s portrait of Robin as a violent criminal ring true?
The earliest traces of the Robin Hood tradition is a nickname for criminals, dated to 1262. A Berkshire fugitive had his name changed by a London clerk, from William le Fevere to William Robinhood (“Robehod”). Records show a short string of such aliases likely imposed by clerks: to be a Robin Hood was to be a violent criminal.
There was no character yet – only the name. By the end of the 13th century, “Robin Hood” begins to appear as a surname for both individuals and families, without any criminal implications. These were tax-paying people, law-abiding citizens, yet they named themselves after Robin Hood. Perhaps someone didn’t like being called a Robin Hood and they decided to own it, like reclaiming a slur?
By the mid-14th century, we begin to see the green-clad outlaw of Sherwood Forest emerge as a hero against the grain of the typical outlaw story, not fighting for his own freedom but for the rights of the community at large. Robin Hood was not modelled on the criminals of the 13th century, but on the spirit of those who challenged a label they refused to wear.
So, flipping the script on a violent Robin Hood is not so new after all.
