Materiality and the canon: manuscripts, fragments, and medieval outlaw literature

ABSTRACT

This essay examines the place of outlaw literature, particularly the English tradition of Robin Hood narratives, on the outskirts of the literary canon. It considers that the ‘flawed’ material contexts for much of the literature is linked to a set of anxieties around incompleteness, lack of clear origins, and fragmentariness, and that the material contexts also lead to assumptions around literariness. It takes as case-studies one later-medieval manuscript and a fragment from the same period, both preserving important and unique pieces of Robin Hood literature, and argues for them as typical material survivals from this period.

KEYWORDS:

• Robin Hood
• marginal
• fragment
• miscellany
• materiality

Acknowledgement

The author wishes to thank the anonymous reviewer of this essay for extremely helpful suggestions and feedback.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 On English outlaw traditions see Maurice Keen, The Outlaws of Medieval Legend, 3rd edn (New York, NY: Routledge, 2001); Stephen Knight, Robin Hood: An Anthology of Scholarship and Criticism (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1999) and Robin Hood: A Mythic Biography (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003); and the essays in Bandit Territories: British Outlaws and their Traditions, Helen Phillips (ed.) (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2009).

2 Douglas Gray, Later Medieval English Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), p. 383.

3 See Knight, Robin Hood for an excellent overview of the various stages in the development of the literary history of the outlaw.

4 Knight, Robin Hood, p. xi; see also Stephanie L. Barczewski, Myth and National Identity in Nineteenth-Century Britain: The Legends of King Arthur and Robin Hood (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), which argues that the legends are ‘symbiotic’ (p. v).

5 Ralph Hanna, Pursuing History: Middle English Manuscripts and their Texts (Redwood, CA: Stanford University Press, 1996), p. 9.

6 Ralph Hanna, ‘Miscellaneity and Vernacularity: Conditions of Literary Production in Late Medieval England,’ in S. G. Nichols and Siegfried Wenzel (eds), The Whole Book: Cultural Perspectives on the Medieval Miscellany (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996), pp. 37–52 (p. 37). For important recent interventions on miscellany culture see Insular Books: Vernacular Manuscript Miscellanies in Late Medieval Britain, ed. Margaret Connolly and Raluca Radulescu (Oxford University Press, 2015); and New Directions in Medieval Manuscript Studies and Reading Practices: Essays in Honor of Derek Pearsall, ed. Kathryn Kerby-Fulton, John J. Thompson and Sarah Baechle (Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame University Press, 2014). See also the essays in the special issue of The Yearbook of English Studies 33 (2003), ed. Philippa Hardman.

7 See the work of Lisa Fagin Davis, as well as the Fragmentarium Laboratory for Medieval Manuscript Fragments < https://fragmentarium.ms> [Date accessed: 29 November 2023].

8 William Duba and Christoph Flüeler, ‘Editorial,’ Fragmentology: A Journal for the Study of Manuscript Fragments 1 (2018), pp. 1–5 (pp. 2–3) https://doi.org/10.24446/a04a [Date accessed: 29 September 2023].

9 Lesley Coote and Alexander L. Kaufman, ‘Introduction: The Medieval Outlaw/ed Canon: Literary and Ideological Thresholds and Boundaries,’ in their Robin Hood and the Outlaw/ed Literary Canon (New York: Routledge, 2019), pp. 1–18 (p. 3). See also here Daniel Sawyer (page ref needed) who writes that ‘the most truly normal manuscript containing Middle English is fully absent. “Fully” means not even surviving as a fragment: even manuscripts surviving as one fragmentary leaf are extraordinary and, in their continuing existence, unrepresentative.’

10 The term ‘popular’ is contentious, but I refer readers to Elisabeth Salter’s useful discussion, wherein she cites Raymond Williams’ distinction: though the ‘modern sense of popular has been understood to mean “widely favoured” or “well liked,”’there ‘lingers the pejorative view of “popular” […] where this means inferior kinds of work’ or ‘substandard or banal’ in form’; Salter, Popular Reading in English, c. 1400–1600 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2012), p. 6 and following.

11 Fragments and Assemblages: Forming Compilations of Medieval London (Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press, 2013), p. 5.

12 Gray, Later Medieval, p. 398.

13 Alexander L. Kaufman, ‘A Desire for Origins: The Marginal Robin Hood of the Later Ballads,’ in Karl Fugelso with Vincent Ferré and Alicia C. Montoya (eds), Studies in Medievalism XXIV (2015), pp. 51–62 (p. 54 n. 13). The fytte was printed in the Norton Anthology of English Literature, gen. ed. M.H. Abrams, 6^th edn, 2 vols (New York; Norton, 1993), pp. 384–89. See also Coote and Kaufman, ‘Introduction’, p. 1 and n. 1, who observe that the first four editions of the Norton Anthology also included the seventeenth-century ballad Robin Hood and the Three Squires, found in the Percy Folio (London, British Library, Additional MS 27879).

14 Chaucer to Spenser: A Critical Reader, 1375–1575 (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 1999), pp. 413–22; Medieval Drama: An Anthology, Greg Walker (ed.) (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2000); The Broadview Anthology of Medieval Drama, Christina M. Fitzgerald and John T. Sebastian (eds) (Ontario: Broadview, 2012).

15 Old and Middle English Literature c.850–c.1450, Elaine Treharne (ed.), 3rd edn (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009).

16 Make We Merry was published in 2019 and can be read here: https://www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/obp.0170 [Date accessed: 29 September 2023]. I thank the reviewer of this paper for drawing my attention to its existence.

17 The excellent TEAMS Middle English Texts initiative publishes high-quality editions of lesser-known texts, including outlaw material, all open access: https://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text-online [Date accessed: 12 September 2023].

18 Coote and Kaufman, ‘Introduction,’ p. 2.

19 The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, F.J. Child (ed.), 5 vols (Barker, 1904; rptd. New York: Dover, 1965). Volume 3 contains a substantial collection of ballad texts, many of which have been shown to be medieval in origin.

20 London: Heinemann, 1976, rptd. Sutton, 1997.

21 Robin Hood and Other Outlaw Tales, Stephen Knight and Thomas H. Ohlgren (eds), TEAMS (Kalamazoo, MI: The Medieval Institute, 1997) <https://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/knight-and-ohlgren-robin-hood-and-other-outlaw-tales> [Date accessed: 29 September 2023]. It should be noted that not all of these editions take account of all extant witnesses.

22 On the relation of The Tale of Gamelyn to the Canterbury Tales and its manuscripts see A.S.G. Edwards, ‘The Canterbury Tales and Gamelyn,’ in Christopher Cannon and Maura Nolan (eds), Medieval Latin and Middle English Literature: Essays in Honour of Jill Mann (Cambridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2011), pp. 76–90. Knight, Robin Hood, p. 75 argues for a strong connection between Gamelyn and ‘Robyn and Gandelyn’, a tale from the mid fourteenth-century. For an edition of and commentary on Gamelyn see Knight and Ohlgren, Robin Hood, pp. 184–226.

23 See Helen Phillips, ‘Introduction,’ in her edited collection Robin Hood: Medieval and Post-Medieval (Dublin: Four Courts, 2005), pp. 9–20, for an excellent summary of scholarship to that point.

24 Outlaws in Literature, History and Culture, gen. eds Lesley Coote and Alexander L. Kaufman. See https://www.routledge.com/Outlaws-in-Literature-History-and-Culture/book-series/OUTLAWS [Date accessed: 29 September 2023]. There is an International Association for Robin Hood Studies that holds a biennial conference and publishes the open-access Bulletin of the International Association for Robin Hood Studies. See https://www.boldoutlaw.com/robspot/iarhs.html and https://openjournals.bsu.edu/biarhs [Date accessed: 29 September 2023].

25 See Sabina Rahman, ‘“Forget History. Forget You’ve Seen Before. Forget What You Think You Know”: Re/Establishing Space for People of Color in Otto Bathurst’s Robin Hood,’ and Lauryn Mayer, ‘Reel Fury: White Fragility and the Backlash Against Bathurst’s Robin Hood,’ in The Bulletin of the International Association for Robin Hood Studies 3.1 (2019), pp. 1–9 and pp. 10–22 respectively: <https://openjournals.bsu.edu/biarhs/article/view/3639> [Date accessed: 29 September 2023].

26 Kaufman, ‘A Desire for Origins,’ p. 51.

27 Coote and Kaufman, ‘Introduction,’ p. 1.

28 Ibid.

29 ‘Everybody’s Robin Hood,’ in Phillips (ed.), Robin Hood, pp. 21–41 (p. 21; emphasis mine).

30 Kaufman, ‘A Desire for Origins,’ p. 55. Kaufman further links this refraction to the variation in the media versions of the outlaw.

31 ‘Introduction,’ p. 8. They elaborate as follows: ‘[t]he literary history of the early texts is a history of obscurity, mismanagement, and with the Geste, what can best be described as a physical series of fragments, incomplete and complete texts and uncertain origins.’

32 J.C. Holt, Robin Hood (London: Thames & Hudson, 1993), p. 15.

33 Thomas H. Ohlgren and Lister M. Matheson, ‘Robin Hood and the Monk and the Manuscript Context of Cambridge University Library MS Ff.5.48,’ Nottingham Medieval Studies 48 (2004), pp. 80–115 (pp. 80–1). Robin Hood and the Monk a 358-line poem, occurs in the manuscript at ff. 128^v–35^v. For a full description of the manuscript see Ohlgren and Matheson, ‘Robin Hood and the Monk’, 81ff. For the prose contents of the manuscript see Margaret Connolly, The Index of Middle English Prose, Handlist XIX: Manuscripts in the University Library, Cambridge (Dd-Oo) (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2009), p. 149; see also The DIMEV: An Open-Access, Digital Edition of the Index of Middle English Verse 2586 < Digital Index of Middle English Verse: No. 2586 (dimev.net)> [Date accessed: 29 September 2023]. There is one fragment of the poem: a single leaf that is listed on DIMEV as ‘untraced’ (no. 4586–2); Dobson and Taylor wrote that a ‘stray fifteenth-century manuscript leaf, now among the Bagford Ballads in the British Library,’ is close to stanzas 69–72 and 77–80 of Robin Hood and the Monk (p. 114). For this see The English Broadside Ballad Archive: https://ebba.english.ucsb.edu/ballad/37232/image [Date accessed: 29 September 2023] where the item is no. 37232. DIMEV lists several modern editions of the poem and Pearsall observes that the version of the ballad in Dobson and Taylor, Rymes (pp. 113–22) is closer to the manuscript than is Child’s version (vol. 3, 1888, pp. 97–101); Derek Pearsall, ‘Little John and the ballad of Robin Hood and the Monk’, in Robin Hood, ed. Phillips, p. 42 n. 1. Ohlgren and Matheson note that the poem was not printed or given its present title until Jamieson’s Popular Ballads and Songs was issued in 1806; ‘Robin Hood and the Monk,’ p. 80.

34 Knight, Robin Hood, pp. 47–8; for a detailed discussion of the date of this manuscript, including the reference to King Edward, see Ohlgren and Matheson, ‘Robin Hood and the Monk’, p. 80, in particular n. 3 and 4.

35 Pearsall observes that the most important character in the poem, Little John, is not even mentioned in the poem’s title; ‘Little John’, pp. 25, 42.

36 Ohlgren and Matheson, ‘Robin Hood and the Monk,’ p. 82. Ohlgren further notes that a chemical composition was applied to some of the leaves, resulting in a blackening of the manuscript in places (pp. 82–3).

37 The poem occupies ff. 14^v–19 in this manuscript (see DIMEV 2585). See also Connolly, Handlist, pp. 118–19 and Thomas H. Ohlgren, ‘Richard Call, the Pastons, and the manuscript context of Robin Hood and the Potter,’ Nottingham Mediaeval Studies 45.1 (2004), pp. 80–115. For a recent discussion of CUL MS Ee.4.35 see Jack R. Baker, ‘Christ’s Crucifixion and Robin Hood and the Monk: A Latin Charm Against Thieves in Cambridge, University Library, MS Ff.5.48,’ Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society 14.1 (2008), pp. 71–85. On the play Robin Hood and the Sheriff see Dobson and Taylor, Rymes, p. 203ff.

38 Kaufman, ‘A Desire for Origins,’ p. 52. For printed editions of the Gest see Dobson and Taylor, Rymes, p. 71ff.

39 Kaufman, ‘A Desire for Origins,’ p. 52.

40 Ohlgren, ‘Richard Call,’ p. 210. Ohlgren also notes some exceptions (p. 211, n. 3) and makes it clear that the kind of engagement lacking is with material and intertextual contexts from which can be gleaned a wealth of information (p. 210).

41 See for example Ten Bourdes, ed. Melissa M. Furrow, TEAMS (Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 2013) < https://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/furrow-ten-bourdes> [Date accessed: 29 September 2023].

42 Ohlgren and Matheson, ‘Robin Hood and the Monk,’ pp. 93, 94.

43 Ibid., p. 88. There are selections from John Mirk’s Instructions for the Parish Priest at the beginning of the volume.

44 Ibid., p. 97.

45 Ibid., pp. 81, 101. However, Ohlgren also notes that a key theme of the poem—the violation of sanctuary by civil and monastic authorities—would have been ‘of vital concern to a parish priest’ (p. 101).

46 Ibid., p. 108.

47 Ibid., p. 83. Ohlgren also remarks on the carelessly executed penmanship.

48 Connolly and Radulescu, Insular Books, pp. 1, 3.

49 Carrie Griffin, ‘Anthologies and Miscellanies,’ in Siân Echard and Robert Rouse (eds), The Encyclopedia of Medieval Literature in Britain (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2017), pp. 129–38 (p. 134).

50 See Michael Johnston, Romance and the Gentry in late Medieval England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), esp. pp. 12–15.

51 Gray, Later Medieval, p. 398.

52 ‘But I can rymes of Robyn hood, and Randolf erle of Chestre’; Piers Plowman B-text, Passus V, l. 402; quoted in Dobson and Taylor, Rymes, p. 1.

53 Kaufman, ‘A Desire for Origins’, p. 51.

54 On folk performances see John Marshall, ‘”goon in-to Bernysdale”: The Trail of the Paston Robin Hood Play’, in Catherine Batt (ed.), Essays in Honour of Peter Meredith, (Leeds: Leeds Studies in English ns. 29, 1998), pp. 185–217; John Marshall, ‘Robin Hood Plays and Combat Games’, in Pamela M. King (ed.), The Routledge Research Companion to Early Drama and Performance (Abingdon: Routledge, 2017), pp. 170–84. On manuscript culture and drama see the essays in Early British Drama in Manuscript, ed. Tamara Atkin and Laura Estill (Turnhout: Brepols, 2019).

55 Gray, Later Medieval, p. 582.

56 The manuscript is accessible here: https://mss-cat.trin.cam.ac.uk/Manuscript/R.2.64 [Date accessed: 20 August 2021]. For the full text see Dobson and Taylor, Rymes, pp. 202–07.

57 Ibid., p. 203.

58 Robyn Hod and the Shryff of Nottingham: Introduction, Robin Hood and Other Outlaw Tales, ed. Stephen Knight and Thomas H. Ohlgren, TEAMS (Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 1997) < https://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/robyn-hod-and-the-shryff-off-notyngham> [Date accessed: 16 November 2021].

59 Knight and Ohlgren, ‘Introduction,’ wherein they base this claim on records of performance. They also dispute the view held by that many historians of drama, who assume that the Reformation put a stop to such performances. See further Paul Whitfield White, Theatre and Reformation: Protestantism, Patronage and Playing in Tudor England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 163 ff.

60 Knight and Ohlgren, citing The Paston Letters A.D. 1422–1509, ed. James Gairdner (New York, NY: AMS Press, 1965), p. 185.

61 Edward Hall, The History of England during the Reign of Henry the Eighth, ed. Sir H. Ellis (London: Johnson, Rivington et al., 1809), p. 515 (qtd. in Knight, Robin Hood, p. 46).

62 Ibid.

63 Dobson & Taylor, Rymes, p. 204.

64 Robin Hood, p. 147ff.

65 Dobson and Taylor, Rymes, p. 203.

66 All quotations are from Dobson and Taylor, Rymes, pp. 203–07.

67 Dobson and Taylor, Rymes, p. 38.

68 Knight, Robin Hood, p. 21.

69 Holt, Robin Hood, pp. 162–63.

70 Edwards, ‘The Canterbury Tales and Gamelyn,’ pp. 76, 77.

71 W.W. Skeat, The Chaucer Canon (Oxford: Clarendon, 1900), p. 143 (qtd. in Edwards, ‘The Canterbury Tales and Gamelyn,’ p. 77).

72 Knight, Robin Hood, pp. 22, 29 (illustr. p. 30).

73 <https://universitytimes.ie/2021/02/university-of-leicester-announces-cuts-to-its-english-literature-curriculum/> [Date accessed: 21 September 2021].