Frontiers are just that, borders between “civilization” and “the wilderness”. And they change as previous badlands become gentrified. So we can’t expect that the yeomen remain where they can no longer find purpose.
Still, no matter the change in demographic, there’s nothing wrong with a symbol that indicates where the city has come from. Indeed, it could have been integrated into the current logo to show a link between past and future, and more than that, a direction.
Gerry Quinn
1 month ago
Nottingham Building Society: “We’re with the Sheriff now.”
“in the context of modern post-imperial Britain it probably makes sense to bin the Victorian Robin Hood”
I enjoyed the article, but it talked as if Robin of Sherwood wasn’t on ITV in the 1980’s in which Robin was explicitly portrayed as a grubby Anglo-Saxon resisting oppressive Norman occupiers. They even had a Saracen as one of the outlaw gang (very woke avant la lettre!).
A Robot
1 month ago
Great article! Ms Harrington asks where might Robin flourish today? Thanks to the demographic changes outlined in the article, Nottingham is the UK’s gun crime capital. So the latter-day Merry Men in Nottingham can still “survive on a mixture of foraging, poaching, and banditry”, plus welfare benefits, of course. Though not mentioned in Piers Plowman or Ivanhoe, their exploits are glorified in rap lyrics.
Wilfred Davis
1 month ago
I don’t really follow the writer’s conflation of the Robin Hood legends and the British Empire.
I always thought of Robin Hood as a rebel, fighting back against whichever authority has dispossessed him, and on the side of the poor. Whether that was as a medieval yeoman or impoverished minor aristocrat of the Victorians (and 20th century), it was certainly nothing to do with Imperialism.
Given that Mary says “the hollowing-out of middle class life in the British Isles, and the way both Tories and, now, Labour, seem always to favour policies that fall hardest on their shoulders” I would say there was as much call for Robin Hood now as there ever was.
Kiddo Cook
1 month ago
Further decline in the Spirit of England……..off shored to Sarawak…
Georgivs Novicianvs
1 month ago
The Nottingham Building Society should add some French Norman lord, corrupt, excommunicated from the Church and sexually loose, to its brand, all in the name of diversity.
“Robin is much older than Victorian nationalist myth-making”
“Just four years after that conflict concluded with the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, Sir Walter Scott defined Robin Hood for Britain’s era of peak nationalism”
Poor old ‘Victorian nationalist myth makers’ and poor old Walter Scott, getting it in the neck again. Prof. Hobsbawms unquiet ghost continues his mischief.
Walter Scott was neither a victorian nor a ‘myth maker’.
Firstly he was a Georgian – to his finger tips. In manner, vision and temperament. He was born in the reign of George III and died in the second year of the reign of King William IV. He achieved his peak popularity under George IV – at a time when Victoria was but the unmarried daughter of the Duke of Kent.
Secondly, Scott was utterly meticulous in his methods, judicious in his selection of episodes and perspicacious in his rejection of spurious or forged material. He did not ‘invent’ the modern character of Robin Hood, he carried over into the prose romance the authentic folk-tales of Northern England and Southern Scotland.
There is really no need to do the ‘Deconstructionists’ work here for them.
Without getting too far into the minutiae of the Ballad Tradition, It was, in fact, the antiquary and lifelong Jacobin Joseph Ritson who ‘invented’ the ‘subversive’ or ‘democratic’ Robin Hood.
The true Robin Hood, being a good Yeoman, was utterly pro-feudal in the true sense that Disraeli expounded – “Now, what is the fundamental principle of the feudal system, gentlemen? It is that the tenure of all property shall be the performance of its duties. Why, when the Conqueror carved out parts of the land, and introduced the feudal system, he said to the recipient, “You shall have that estate, but you shall do something for it: you shall feed the poor; you shall endow the Church; you shall defend the land in case of war; and you shall execute justice and maintain truth to the poor for nothing.”
John Tyler
1 month ago
Enjoyable read, but comparing Robin Hood with anything in real life is a bit of a stretch!
Gordon Arta
1 month ago
I doubt that the NBS were remotely concerned with Ms Harrington’s garbledegook. ‘Folkloric representation of the middle class’ Seriously? It’s simple. A few young activists came up with a whizzo right-on idea, and a feeble-minded governing body didn’t have the backbone to tell them where to put it.
Of course they won’t be concerned… but if you think that’s what the article was about, you’re missing the wood for the trees in Sherwood Forest proportions.
Chipoko
1 month ago
Perhaps people who hold accounts with Nottingham Building Society should consider closing them and taking their ‘financial diversity’ elsewhere.
David Yetter
1 month ago
Of course, for a completely different take on Robin Hood, consider the view of the late Fr. John Romanides, that the historical Robin of Locksley should be regarded as an Orthodox Christian martyr. (The view of Robin himself is a bit stretched, but rests on the perfectly defensible view that the English church remained Orthodox until the Norman Conquest: England was out of communion with Rome at the time of the mutual anathemas of 1054, over an investiture issue. The Normans had a papal blessing to reduce the English church to Papal rule. The coronation rite of Harald Godwinson did not include the filioque in the Creed. The Normans systematically replaced bishops with new bishops the way the Crusaders would later do in the Orthodox East. Harald’s daughter married Prince Vladimir Monomach of Kiev. And Saxons fleeing the conquest almost uniformly headed for Constantinople or Kiev.)
Claire Grey
1 month ago
Excellent article, informative, insightful and literary, thank you Mary.
William Amos’s comment re Walter Scott is a useful amendment I think, thanks to him for that.
I live in a small provincial town in a rural area and I would say there are still plenty of “yeomen” round here, not the most daring kind maybe, but perhaps our relative ease and plenty mean that lies more or less dormant at present. Who knows, the future is hidden.
Mark Melvin
1 month ago
The suggestion that yeoman of Britain are limited to being mercenaries or perpetrating illegal or highly questionable activities from overseas beyond the grasp of the British nanny state really rather irks me. I saw an opportunity outside London in 1985 and took it. I saw limited options in that era London, and wider England. I see fewer today sadly. I’m an accountant by the way. Not a mercenary, drug dealer, people trafficker or whatnot. I know a real lot of people just like me. And yes, I’d rather have had my career in England. Rather disappointed by this article. Mary writes very well and interestingly usually. Just don’t get this one at all.
David Cienski
1 month ago
I would have thought that Robin Hood, with his stealing from the rich and giving to the poor, would have been excellent avatar for Financial Diversity.
mike flynn
1 month ago
How sad an outlook. Nottingham demographic changes, so remove the myth that so attracted these people to GB? They came for the welfare certainly. But didn’t they also come because, compared to where they come from, GB offers one the chance to become this liberated yeoman? Why do the people in charge today need to destroy the truth and myths that made the west the place to be?
Peter Christine
1 month ago
Isn’t the point of folklore to illustrate those character virtues to which we aspire, or in the case of the Sheriff those we should avoid rather than to vainly dissect the stories while missing the point? Long live Flynn and Rathbone in our consciousness!
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Frontiers are just that, borders between “civilization” and “the wilderness”. And they change as previous badlands become gentrified. So we can’t expect that the yeomen remain where they can no longer find purpose.
Still, no matter the change in demographic, there’s nothing wrong with a symbol that indicates where the city has come from. Indeed, it could have been integrated into the current logo to show a link between past and future, and more than that, a direction.
Nottingham Building Society: “We’re with the Sheriff now.”
Well-played, sir.
I expect Lloyds will be trading the black horse for a rainbow coloured unicorn
I wish I hadn’t suggested that
Don’t give them any ideas . . .
“A new N, a new us.”
“in the context of modern post-imperial Britain it probably makes sense to bin the Victorian Robin Hood”
I enjoyed the article, but it talked as if Robin of Sherwood wasn’t on ITV in the 1980’s in which Robin was explicitly portrayed as a grubby Anglo-Saxon resisting oppressive Norman occupiers. They even had a Saracen as one of the outlaw gang (very woke avant la lettre!).
Great article! Ms Harrington asks where might Robin flourish today? Thanks to the demographic changes outlined in the article, Nottingham is the UK’s gun crime capital. So the latter-day Merry Men in Nottingham can still “survive on a mixture of foraging, poaching, and banditry”, plus welfare benefits, of course. Though not mentioned in Piers Plowman or Ivanhoe, their exploits are glorified in rap lyrics.
I don’t really follow the writer’s conflation of the Robin Hood legends and the British Empire.
Yes, I thought that Robin Hood, William Tell, King Arthur, etc, etc were children’s fiction.
Yes, bit of a leap wasn’t it? The Victorians liked it, so…
I always thought of Robin Hood as a rebel, fighting back against whichever authority has dispossessed him, and on the side of the poor. Whether that was as a medieval yeoman or impoverished minor aristocrat of the Victorians (and 20th century), it was certainly nothing to do with Imperialism.
Given that Mary says “the hollowing-out of middle class life in the British Isles, and the way both Tories and, now, Labour, seem always to favour policies that fall hardest on their shoulders” I would say there was as much call for Robin Hood now as there ever was.
Further decline in the Spirit of England……..off shored to Sarawak…
The Nottingham Building Society should add some French Norman lord, corrupt, excommunicated from the Church and sexually loose, to its brand, all in the name of diversity.
Is Blackadder Norman?
“Robin is much older than Victorian nationalist myth-making”
“Just four years after that conflict concluded with the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, Sir Walter Scott defined Robin Hood for Britain’s era of peak nationalism”
Poor old ‘Victorian nationalist myth makers’ and poor old Walter Scott, getting it in the neck again. Prof. Hobsbawms unquiet ghost continues his mischief.
Walter Scott was neither a victorian nor a ‘myth maker’.
Firstly he was a Georgian – to his finger tips. In manner, vision and temperament. He was born in the reign of George III and died in the second year of the reign of King William IV. He achieved his peak popularity under George IV – at a time when Victoria was but the unmarried daughter of the Duke of Kent.
Secondly, Scott was utterly meticulous in his methods, judicious in his selection of episodes and perspicacious in his rejection of spurious or forged material. He did not ‘invent’ the modern character of Robin Hood, he carried over into the prose romance the authentic folk-tales of Northern England and Southern Scotland.
There is really no need to do the ‘Deconstructionists’ work here for them.
Without getting too far into the minutiae of the Ballad Tradition, It was, in fact, the antiquary and lifelong Jacobin Joseph Ritson who ‘invented’ the ‘subversive’ or ‘democratic’ Robin Hood.
The true Robin Hood, being a good Yeoman, was utterly pro-feudal in the true sense that Disraeli expounded –
“Now, what is the fundamental principle of the feudal system, gentlemen? It is that the tenure of all property shall be the performance of its duties. Why, when the Conqueror carved out parts of the land, and introduced the feudal system, he said to the recipient, “You shall have that estate, but you shall do something for it: you shall feed the poor; you shall endow the Church; you shall defend the land in case of war; and you shall execute justice and maintain truth to the poor for nothing.”
Enjoyable read, but comparing Robin Hood with anything in real life is a bit of a stretch!
I doubt that the NBS were remotely concerned with Ms Harrington’s garbledegook. ‘Folkloric representation of the middle class’ Seriously? It’s simple. A few young activists came up with a whizzo right-on idea, and a feeble-minded governing body didn’t have the backbone to tell them where to put it.
Of course they won’t be concerned… but if you think that’s what the article was about, you’re missing the wood for the trees in Sherwood Forest proportions.
Perhaps people who hold accounts with Nottingham Building Society should consider closing them and taking their ‘financial diversity’ elsewhere.
Of course, for a completely different take on Robin Hood, consider the view of the late Fr. John Romanides, that the historical Robin of Locksley should be regarded as an Orthodox Christian martyr. (The view of Robin himself is a bit stretched, but rests on the perfectly defensible view that the English church remained Orthodox until the Norman Conquest: England was out of communion with Rome at the time of the mutual anathemas of 1054, over an investiture issue. The Normans had a papal blessing to reduce the English church to Papal rule. The coronation rite of Harald Godwinson did not include the filioque in the Creed. The Normans systematically replaced bishops with new bishops the way the Crusaders would later do in the Orthodox East. Harald’s daughter married Prince Vladimir Monomach of Kiev. And Saxons fleeing the conquest almost uniformly headed for Constantinople or Kiev.)
Excellent article, informative, insightful and literary, thank you Mary.
William Amos’s comment re Walter Scott is a useful amendment I think, thanks to him for that.
I live in a small provincial town in a rural area and I would say there are still plenty of “yeomen” round here, not the most daring kind maybe, but perhaps our relative ease and plenty mean that lies more or less dormant at present. Who knows, the future is hidden.
The suggestion that yeoman of Britain are limited to being mercenaries or perpetrating illegal or highly questionable activities from overseas beyond the grasp of the British nanny state really rather irks me. I saw an opportunity outside London in 1985 and took it. I saw limited options in that era London, and wider England. I see fewer today sadly. I’m an accountant by the way. Not a mercenary, drug dealer, people trafficker or whatnot. I know a real lot of people just like me. And yes, I’d rather have had my career in England. Rather disappointed by this article. Mary writes very well and interestingly usually. Just don’t get this one at all.
I would have thought that Robin Hood, with his stealing from the rich and giving to the poor, would have been excellent avatar for Financial Diversity.
How sad an outlook. Nottingham demographic changes, so remove the myth that so attracted these people to GB? They came for the welfare certainly. But didn’t they also come because, compared to where they come from, GB offers one the chance to become this liberated yeoman? Why do the people in charge today need to destroy the truth and myths that made the west the place to be?
Isn’t the point of folklore to illustrate those character virtues to which we aspire, or in the case of the Sheriff those we should avoid rather than to vainly dissect the stories while missing the point? Long live Flynn and Rathbone in our consciousness!