Frank Sidgwick

Ballads of Robin Hood and other Outlaws Frank Sidgwick

Book Excerptnote 6: See H. L. D. Ward's _Catalogue of Romances_, 506, under the Romance of Fulk Fitz-Warine.]III. HISTORICAL ROBIN HOODSIn 1852 Joseph Hunter issued, as No. 4 of his 'Critical and Historical Tracts, ' _The Great Hero of the ancient Minstrelsy of England, Robin Hood_. Amongst other discoveries, he found, in an Exchequer document of expenses in the royal household of Edward II., the name of 'Robyn Hode' occurring several times as a 'vadlet' or 'porteur de la chambre, ' at the salary of threepence per diem, between March and November of 1324. Various other researchers have succeeded in tracing half a dozen people, all named Robin or Robert Hood, within a period of some forty years of the fourteenth century; but few have pressed identification with Robin Hood the outlaw so far as Hunter, 'who, ' says Professor Child, 'could have identified Pigrogromitus and Quinapalus, if he had given his mind to it.' Working on the above datum, Hunter shows how probable it is that Robi