Gamelyn vs. Robin Hood

By A. E. Chandler

The most famous English outlaw is Robin Hood, but he was by no means alone in the forest. Other outlaws, both fictional and real, can be traced throughout medieval England. Some of these outlaws influenced Robin Hood’s legend, whilst others have faded from history. Gamelyn’s story shares many similarities with Robin’s; it’s also its own kind of animal.

Image I - Sons robbing travellers in the forest

Gamelyn is the youngest son of a knight who bucks tradition and on his deathbed divides his land amongst his three sons, rather than giving all to the firstborn. Growing up as his eldest brother’s ward, Gamelyn develops incredible physical strength, though he must stand by and watch as his lands go to waste. At last he gains control over his inheritance following an argument with his brother. Soon after, Gamelyn competes in and wins a wrestling match, inviting everyone at the fair to follow him home to celebrate at his brother’s hall. When his brother bars the gate, Gamelyn is able to kick it in and break the defiant porter’s neck with one blow, throwing the body down the courtyard well. The other servants, knowing Gamelyn to be a friend to themselves and his tenants, don’t try to resist his wishes. The guests feast for seven days and nights, at the end of which Gamelyn’s brother manages to chain him up in the hall. The brother holds a feast for some wealthy churchmen, all of whom refuse to help Gamelyn. Instead he is freed by a servant named Adam the Spencer, and the two beat everyone with staffs, breaking the brother’s back and placing him in Gamelyn’s chains.

The sheriff gets involved and, after initially driving him off, Gamelyn and Adam flee to the woods where they meet the King of the Outlaws and his seven-score men. The brother heals, becoming the new sheriff. Gamelyn’s lands are confiscated, and he becomes King of the Outlaws when the former man is pardoned. At the shire court, Gamelyn is imprisoned, but his middle brother Ote comes and bails him out. Gamelyn returns to the forest, stealing from passing churchmen. On the day of the assize, the eldest brother declares that Ote will hang, as Gamelyn has not fulfilled his court date. Gamelyn then makes a dramatic entrance, freeing Ote and placing the corrupt sheriff, justice, and jury on trial, hanging them all. The King pardons Ote, Gamelyn, and all the outlaws, making Gamelyn Chief Justice of the Forest.

The historical note at the end of my novel, The Scarlet Forest: A Tale of Robin Hood, borrows from my academic research when it discusses why we can date the existence of Robin Hood’s legend to the early to mid thirteenth century, whilst the first written stories we have of him come from the fifteenth century. Gamelyn’s story was composed in the mid fourteenth century, in between Robin’s origin and his first known extant written tales. From the dialect used, Knight and Ohlgren have speculated that Gamelyn’s story was likely written in Leicestershire, or perhaps Lincolnshire, both of which are near Robin Hood’s territory of Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire, and both of which have connections to Robin’s legend.

The Tale of Gamelyn is found in twenty-five early manuscripts, whereas four of the five medieval tales we have of Robin Hood survive in only one. (The fifth, A Gest of Robyn Hode, survives in five fragmented copies, and these are all printed, rather than handwritten. No handwritten copy of Gest is known to exist.) Gamelyn owes this larger number to a vague association with Geoffrey Chaucer, suspected by some of intending to include a version of Gamelyn in The Canterbury Tales. As a side note, William Shakespeare later wrote the play As You Like It based on Thomas Lodge’s 1590 Rosalynde, which was in turn based on Gamelyn.

Image II - Decorated border& initial,
beginning of the Reeve's Tale

Some of the similarities between Gamelyn’s story and Robin’s are due to their shared genre of medieval outlaw literature, whilst some are due to one story influencing the other. Unfortunately, it is not always possible to tell which way the influence flowed, due to the scarcity of source material. One instance where we do know that it was Gamelyn’s story affecting Robin’s comes from the modern period. J. C. Holt, the leading expert on Robin Hood, has argued that Gamelyn is the inspiration for the character of Gamwell, who was added to early modern rhymes of Robin Hood. Gamwell merged with Will Scarlet, creating a relative of Robin’s who is on the run from the law after killing his father’s disrespectful steward with an overzealous blow to the head. The medieval Gamelyn’s vaunted strength, and the emphasis placed on his high-born familial ties seem to have been incorporated into Robin Hood’s legend in the person of Will Gamwell.

The early modern Robin Hood is closer to Gamelyn than the medieval Robin Hood, though whether this is due to direct influence by Gamelyn is up for debate. As Maurice Keen notes, Gamelyn is loved by the lower classes in his Tale - his tenants, servants, the spectators at the fair, the outlaws - and he in turn consistently earns this love. The medieval Robin Hood is more nuanced; when it comes to the lower classes he has allies, such as the uncle of Much the Miller’s son, as well as opponents (such as the potter, and fellow-outlaw Guy of Gisborne). In Gest when the people of Nottingham see Robin leading his band toward the city they try to flee, even old women on crutches, convinced they will all be massacred. The more universal love from the peasantry that Robin experiences in post-medieval tales comes after the idea of robbing the rich to feed the poor was introduced to his legend in the sixteenth century. The sixteenth century also saw Robin elevated to become the Earl of Huntingdon, which inevitably made him a landlord, like Gamelyn, with an automatic obligation of good lordship toward his peasants. The medieval Robin Hood is not a nobleman but himself a peasant, though anyone calling him that likely would receive a punch in the face, as he is a type of high-ranking peasant called a yeoman, and takes every opportunity to remind his audience of his status. The medieval Robin is fiercely proud to be a yeoman, and is just as disinclined toward raising his social status as he is toward lowering it. Gamelyn is constantly struggling to affirm his status, whereas Robin’s is always secure. As the son of a knight and as a landlord, Gamelyn’s station is much above the medieval Robin’s, and so the social issues dealt with in his tale are different.

Image III - scribe dipping his quill

Gamelyn and the medieval Robin Hood legend do, however, share much in common. One example lies in both Robin and Gamelyn rebelling against corruption, to fight for the preservation of the established social order. Gamelyn hits its audience (and not infrequently its characters) over the head with this theme, whilst in Robin’s tales it is used with greater skill. Gamelyn and his eldest brother are stuffed into the roles of outlaw king and sheriff respectively halfway through their story. At its climax, Gamelyn turns the officials of justice into the defendants at their own biased trial, convicting and hanging them as they had already intended to do to him. Robin Hood behaves like a corrupt forester, overzealously enforcing forest law where it should not exist. At the same time, he shows himself to be “the criminal who upholds justice better than the Sheriff . . . the robber who can be more generous than the gentry . . . the excommunicant who shows more devotion than the clergy . . . preserv[ing] what they claim to love by being [his] own hypocrite” as his wife tells him in The Scarlet Forest: A Tale of Robin Hood. In a similar vein, when Gamelyn is faced with cold-hearted clergymen, he simply attacks them at the first opportunity; the medieval Robin Hood is known to rob monks, but he is also extremely devout, especially with regard to the Virgin Mary, and is often shown praying and attending mass. He even (with disastrous results as it turns out) entrusts his life to a nun.

Whilst Gamelyn’s character is simplistic, the medieval Robin Hood’s is more complex. Perhaps this is why The Tale of Gamelyn is concluded to be fictional, whilst the truth about Robin’s tales is still up for debate.

Images (British Library) attributions: 

I , II, III

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A. E. Chandler holds a Master of Arts with Merit from the University of Nottingham, where she wrote her dissertation on the social history behind Robin Hood. When not teaching or volunteering with the Glenbow Museum’s military collection, she writes historical fiction as well as contemporary fiction concerning history. Chandler has had stories, poetry, and articles published, in addition to a book of collected non-fiction entitled Into the World, and her new novel The Scarlet Forest: A Tale of Robin Hood.

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English vs. French: The Hundred Years' War and Its Effect on Language

By Rosanne E. Lortz

“…we few, we happy few, we band of brothers.”

The St. Crispin’s Day speech, written by Shakespeare and placed in the mouth of King Henry V, contains some of the most stirring phrases in the English language. Yet, interestingly enough, that very language might not have been what spilled from Shakespeare’s pen had the Hundred Years’ War not been fought.

Before the war began in 1337, French—not English—was the language of literature and the language of the aristocracy in England. It does not take much digging around to unearth why. The Norman Conquest in 1066 established a monarchy and a ruling class who spoke French, and the later Plantagenet kings—Richard the Lionheart comes to mind—continued to spend as much (or more) time in their continental holdings as they did in England.

English, the language of the conquered Anglo-Saxons, existed of course, but only for menial, non-important purposes. Historian Elizabeth Hallam writes that:

Although in 14th century England everyone spoke some form of English, French was still the language of polite society, and used for less formal governmental business which was not transacted in Latin. The country gentry and middle class continued to use French for normal correspondence: there are almost no extant English letters before 1400. Proclamations in London were still made in French, which was also the language of the law….

So what changed? How did the language of English gain ascendancy over French? Hallam hypothesizes that, “the transformation was almost certainly a result of the surge of patriotism and nationalism associated with the Hundred Years’ War: the French language came to be associated with the enemy.”

During the same time period that the battles of Crecy and Poitiers were fought, schools began to use English in the classroom as a medium with which to teach Latin. And in 1363, a couple years after the treaty of Bretigny, “parliament was opened by a declaration of the summons in the native tongue,” something that had previously always been done in French. According to the philologist Oliver Farrar Emerson, “Soon English petitions to parliament, English wills, letters, and gild statutes appear.”

Because of the war with France, the language of English began to be used by all levels of English society for all manner of purposes. Books were the last hold out. But by the last quarter of the century, Geoffrey Chaucer showed that the vernacular could be a fitting vehicle for great literature, and English began to be used in that arena as well.

The change in language effected by the Hundred Years' War was radical. At the beginning of the fourteenth century, French was the accepted language of all formal discourse in England. By the end of the fourteenth century, Oxford University was forced to urge the learning of French “lest the Gallic tongue be utterly forgotten.”

Which leads us back to one of those interesting what-if’s in history: if not for the Hundred Years’ War and the animosity it created between French and English, would the Bard’s St. Crispin’s Day speech have been written entirely in French?

“…nous frères d’armes.”

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Rosanne E. Lortz is the author of I Serve: A Novel of the Black Prince, a historical adventure/romance set during the Hundred Years' War, and Road from the West: Book I of the Chronicles of Tancred, the beginning of a trilogy which takes place during the First Crusade.

You can learn more about Rosanne's books at her Author Website where she also blogs about writing, mothering, and things historical.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Emerson, Oliver Farrar. “English or French in the Time of Edward III.” Romanic Review 7.2 (April-June 1916): 127-143.

Hallam, Elizabeth, ed. Chronicles of the Age of Chivalry. London: Salamander Books Ltd., 2002.

Boundaries: Medieval Women in Medieval Gardens.

by Judith Arnopp

Most of my novels feature at least one scene with a woman in a medieval garden. It may not be a key moment in the book but I like to illustrate how intricately linked high status women were to their gardens.

While I was at university I wrote a paper tracing the evolution of the medieval garden motif from its biblical roots through medieval art and on to Chaucer’s development of the garden as a literary device.

The ideal of the garden was initially evoked in King Solomon’s Song of Songs and it is there that we see the first links between the enclosed garden and womanhood.

The tradition slowly expanded to incorporate the story of the Fall from Paradise and The Cult of the Virgin Mary, until the motif expanded into secular love poetry.

Medieval literature depicts noblemen striding about the world, galloping into battle in the service of the king, embarking upon arduous pilgrimage and living and breathing upon a vastly dangerous, stimulating stage. These men are shown to be invincible, self-assured and in control and there were few limits placed upon them.

The women in this literature are portrayed very differently; they rarely travel, they never fight and are usually to be found within the vicinity of the castle walls. Their role is to marry, provide heirs and be an asset to their husband. Life for most medieval woman was closeted; we see them safe within the walls of the castle, sewing, strumming musical instruments, listening to minstrel’s songs or to tales of courtly-love.

The favoured place for these activities was the garden and many manuscripts illustrate this. We see women sitting among the flowerbeds, sometimes planting and maintaining the gardens or, more often, we find them in a lovers tryst. Other times they are shown sitting in the shade of a tree listening to a minstrel’s tales and, paradoxically, the stories they are listening to are of other women also dwelling within the safety of their own gardens.

But these fictional women were not always as ordinary as they seemed and many of them faced complex difficulties. They were invariably highborn, young and fair and most of them expressed a personal desire that, because they were subject to male authority, could not be fulfilled.

Chaucer managed to depict the plight of these women so empathetically that there can be little doubt that he was conscious of their plight. Even when projecting patriarchal prejudices through the mouths of his male narrator he managed, not to indoctrinate, but to reveal how flawed male expectations were.

In The Merchant’s Tale May is married to a decrepit, selfish old man or higher status than herself. Her needs and wishes are not considered by anyone and only the narrator takes the time to reflect upon what her reaction may have been to the consummation of her marriage. Her husband, Januarie, builds an idyllic garden in which to make love to her and the following scenes are a horrific inversion of the story of Eden. The walls that enclose May in the pleasure garden lead her to make dramatic and hair-raising choices but, instead of condemning her infidelity, Chaucer chooses to ultimately reward her with the ‘maisterie’ that, according to the tale told by the Wife of Bath, all women desire.

Emelye in The Knight’s Tale is similarly captive within a garden, and its walls serve to serve as a prison cell. She expresses the wish to follow the goddess Diana, to run freely through the woods, to hunt and remain chaste forever but she is not given the choice to do so. Hotly pursued by Palamon and Arcite who fight in mortal combat for her hand, Emelye is instead given as a prize in the male game of war.

Throughout The Canterbury Tales the garden becomes a place of imprisonment, the lovely grounds in The Franklins Tale and The Shipman’s Tale become places of sexual transaction and solicitation. In The Merchant’s Tale the garden becomes a place of sexual violence and adultery. Also The Parlement of Foules revisits this idea of feminine entrapment and the question is; why does Chaucer pick the garden, a place of peace and beauty, as the scene for feminine suffering?

In every way the woman and the literary garden are parallel; they are both fertile, they are both fragrant and decorative and they are both controlled by a male gardener. Left to their own devices they will go wild. In both art and literature the garden wall sometimes encompasses an area so vast that the garden is more like a park. This is a metaphor for the wider boundaries placed upon medieval women, even those that seem to have escaped male rule.

Eve, the first female transgressor, was sent from the safe walls of Eden on a journey that was to lead her female children to other gardens. The Virgin Mary, made perfect by the idealisation of man, is painted within her wattle walled garden, a perfect flower of femininity, the fertile, unflawed mother of the perfect child. Wherever we look in medieval art we find women and gardens, walled gardens that secure and encumber the feminine tendency to stray from the path of moral rectitude.

Women must remain in the garden and those few that do escape into the world, perhaps to go on pilgrimage like the wife of Bath, the Prioress and the second nun, can only do so because they have managed to escape from the bounds of matrimony.

Even these empowered women, the female pilgrims, are subject to limitations upon their freedom, the nuns are answerable to the male authority of the church and the lusty, unrepentant Wife of Bath must, unless she wishes to lose her independence by remarrying, remain chaste.

A medieval woman was monitored for signs of wildness just as a garden was and this provided Chaucer with the perfect allegory. A garden, cultivated like May and Emelye, is a controlled environment where the gardener maintains constant vigilance in case his flourishing flower beds should run rampant and wild seeds take hold.

There is a wonderful example of a medieval garden at Tretower in Powys and is well worth a visit. Please visit their Website.

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