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Robin Hood: More Hoodlum Than Hero?
March 16, 2009Was Hood not so good?
LONDON -- A British academic says he's found proof Britain's legendary outlaw Robin Hood wasn't as popular as folklore suggests.
Julian Luxford said a newly found note in the margins of an ancient history book reveals rare criticism of the bandit.
According to legend, Hood roamed 13th-century England from a base in Sherwood Forest, stealing from the rich to give to the poor.
But Luxford says an inscription in a history book, written by a medieval monk in around 1460 offers a different view.
Writing in Latin, the monk accuses Hood of "infesting Sherwood and other law-abiding areas of England with continuous robberies."
Luxford said it was not entirely surprising that monks, as part of England's clerical establishment, harbored negative feelings about the bandit.
The note was found in a in a book called the "Polychronicon" and may be the earliest written reference to Hood.
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