En investigación histórica nunca se puede decir que se ha escrito la última palabra. La Historia es un relato y, como tal, la Historia es una historia. Cuando se tienen numerosos testigos, ya textuales o arqueológicos, cada historiador se ve impelido a reescribir la Historia desde su criterio y época. Por otro lado, cuando los testimonios son escasos o conforman una leyenda, buena parte del trabajo histórico es especulativo. Sin embargo la crítica textual, la historia comparada y el cotejo de relatos dispares con hechos suficientemente confirmados pueden aportar luz a episodios de los que poco se sabe con certeza, y lo poco que se conoce puede resultar contradictorio. Éste ha sido el trabajo de Graham Philips y Martin Keatman en torno a la leyenda de Robin Hood, uno de los mitos medievales más conocidos y recurrentes hasta nuestros días. A salvo de algún nuevo documento que pudiera aparecer, posible pero poco probable, los autores desmenuzan los datos de la Gesta, la relacionan con otras leyendas, exponen convincentemente sobre la posible historicidad de algunos personajes y apuntan a las tres figuras que pudieron ser la base histórica para la leyenda de Robin más allá del arquetipo mítico que pueda representar.
Los tres apéndices que completan el volumen son realmente flojos siendo uno de ellos una simple guía turística.
Seguro que los autores no han escrito la última palabra sobre Robin Hood, ejemplo de ello es la película de Ridley Scott del año 2010 donde el realizador juega con la idea del suplantador ofreciendo una arista más a la poliédrica figura del personaje y al desarrollo del mito, pero desde la historiografía han aportado una sólida argumentación que habrá de servir de base a posibles futuras investigaciones. ( )

Too complicated.

That is the only description I can offer as a summary of the thesis -- or, rather, the very many theses -- in this book.

Be it stated that I have studied the origins of the Robin Hood legend at great length, and have my own opinions. So I perhaps have a "conflict of interest" here. But I am also a folklorist, and I know how these things work. There is a core legend, arising perhaps from some minstrel tale, around which details accumulate. In the case of Robin Hood, we don't know what the core was like. But there almost certainly was one.

Yet Phillips and Keatman posit that there were three original inspirations for the Robin Hood legend, all real but poorly documented: Robert Hood of Wakefield, Robert Fitz Odo of Loxley, and Fulk FitzWarren.

Some of this makes sense. The single most important source for the Robin Hood legend, the "Gest of Robyn Hode" (probably printed at least five times by 1520), unquestionably shares many elements with the legendary story of Fulk. And many references in the "Gest," including a mention of "Edward our comely king," place us in the reign of Edward II (1307-1327), when Robert Hood of Wakefield was alive.

But the whole Robert Fitz Odo business is a red herring to explain references to "Loxley." There are no references to Loxley in the early Robin Hood ballads. Even the links to Fulk FitzWarren look like strap-on elements, not source material. Every indication is that tales of an outlaw named Robin Hood were in circulation by the early thirteenth century. By the late fourteenth century, these were probably reaching a somewhat settled form consisting of several ballads. In the fifteenth century, some unknown poet took these materials and collated them together. He or, more likely, some earlier poet had brought in materials from the story of Fulk, and of other legendary characters such as Gamelin and Hereward the Wake and Eustace the Monk. The result was the "Gest."

A century after that, a hack writer by the name of Anthony Munday took the materials known to him and rewrote again, taking Robin Hood the yeoman archer and converting him to Robin Hood the displaced nobleman. He also took Robin Hood the bachelor and gave him a wife, and stuck him, most improbably, in the reigns of Richard I and John -- before the longbow was even in use!

To understand the Robin Hood legend requires understanding legends in general, and the way they grow and change. Phillips and Keatman make some interesting points, but their thesis just doesn't make folkloric sense. And it's much too complicated. If you want some interesting notes about the evolution of the legend, there is good material here. But the whole is less than the sum of its parts. ( )