To my loving parents,

Maria Luísa and Alberto Alarcão (1931-2025)

Any search for the origins of the sentimental, or ‘romantic’, connection between Robin Hood and Maid Marian - totally absent, in fact, from the earliest surviving textual evidences (14th-15th centuries), whether one considers traditional popular ballads, historical records and/or legendary similes and allusions -, might imply a backward move from the eponymous 17th century broadside ballad² to Anthony Munday’s and Henry Chettle’s companion plays³, and, ultimately, to the May Games of the late medieval-early modern period, when both characters act as, or play the roles of, Lord (or King) and Lady (or Queen) of May. Although controversial, the views held by Jim Lees, an independent researcher who chaired The Robin Hood Society, may be quoted here:

“Whereas Chettle and Munday name her as Matilda, whose name is changed upon entering the Forest of Sherwood, in truth the reverse is the case. The ‘Maid Marian’ was originally portrayed as the personification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, who Robin idolised and worshipped. The character then became degraded, evolving over a period and eventually embodied in the ‘Matilda’.

[…]

E. L. Hargreaves, in her book Festivals, Holidays, and Saint Days (1915), states that ‘The Catholic church has dedicated the month of May to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Of course the Catholic dedication of May to the Virgin mother contains reminder of the Purification and honour due to chastity’. In the Catholic hymnary She is honoured in several hymns as ‘Queen of the May’.

[…]

This then is the case of the Maid Marian, Queen of the May (Virgins). She is a faint echo of the Blessed Virgin Mary who was adored in the festivals from which the May Games sprang, and the fact that she is a chaste and pure personality is never lost sight of. […] May, Maiden and maid all have the same meaning: virgin and maiden, being specific to the Virgin Mary.”⁴

Unlike Robin, however, this Lady/Queen seems to have been influenced and moulded by the existence of a female character closely associated with a jolly friar in the Morris dances, themselves a frequent feature of the May Games; that bond is illustrated and documented in the so-called “Tollet’s (or Betley) Window”, which ornamented the old Betley Hall, Staffordshire⁵, and frequently depicted in the bibliography dedicated to the English outlaw.

Likewise, notwithstanding other possible influences, this merry friar may have contributed to the characterization of Friar Tuck and his inclusion in the Robin Hood band and legend. Considering the specific theme of this article, I will not be pursuing this ethnological/anthropological line of research, even though its relevance has been hinted at in my dissertation⁶ and should be duly recognized here.

Despite the possible influence of a 13th century French pastourelle⁷, the coupling of Robin and Marian seems thus to date, by and large, from the late medieval-early modern period, with folklore (including theatre), rather than ballads, playing a major part⁸. Indeed, besides the absence of Marian, there are remarkably few women in the oldest surviving ballad cycle⁹, recorded in manuscript form since the mid-15th century: the Sheriff of Nottingham’s wife (“Potter”), Sir Richard at the Lee’s wife (“Gest”), the Prioress of Kirklees (“Gest” and “Death”), the old woman who, for some unknown reason, is cursing Robin Hood (“Death”), and the female mourners (also “Death”).¹⁰ As J. C. Holt puts it, regarding the medieval corpus,

“[…] there is no Maid Marian. Marian only made her way into the legend via the May Games and that not certainly until the sixteenth century. It was not simply that Robin’s devotion to the Virgin Mother left no room for other women. It was rather that there was no place for them in the context of the tales. Only the sheriff’s wife in The Potter cuts any kind of figure. Her hospitality to Robin and his respect for her may carry a distinct echo of courtly love.”¹¹

In other words,

“Os textos que chegaram até nós não contêm a mais leve referência a Marian, com quem, segundo a lenda, Robin teria dividido os prazeres da vida na floresta e as agruras da proscrição […]. Aliás, pese embora a idealização baladística da floresta, desenhada por vezes a partir do incipit, o universo em que os textos se fundam e que eles reconstituem é […] essencialmente masculino, violento ou até bárbaro, pouco consentâneo com uma fora-da-lei, por mais aventureira, determinada e viril que ela fosse.”¹²

As well as a proper Christian name, “Marian” is an adjective related to the cult of, and devotion to, Saint Mary, Herself traditionally associated with the month of May, which includes Mother’s Day. Mary’s own status as a ‘spiritual mother’ for Catholic and - up to the 16th century Reformation(s) - Christian believers, as well as a model for all women, a paradigm of virtue and perfection and thus the opposite of everything that Eve stood for in medieval theological thought and exegesis, account for what Derek Pearsall has suggestively called “Mariolatry”¹³. Out of the many religious and lyrical English medieval poems dedicated to the Virgin, let me recall here “I sing of a Maiden”, with its beautiful and touching simplicity:

This Marian devotion, patent in many poems of the 14th and 15th centuries¹⁵, imprinted powerful traces in the oldest surviving Robin Hood ballads (particularly “Monk”, “Guy of Gisborne” and “Gest”)¹⁶, a fact which inspired my title: “Robin Hood and Maiden Mary”, rather than the phonetically akin, and more predictable one, “Robin Hood and Maid Marian”. For strictly orthographic reasons, I will be using the versions published in R. B. Dobson and J. Taylor’s anthology¹⁷, instead of F. J. Child’s (see above, n.9).

Starting with “Monk”, the fact that Robin did not pray to the Virgin at mass or matins for over two weeks explains his spiritual discomfort¹⁸ and his imprudent visit to St. Mary's Church, Nottingham, where he is recognised by a monk and later arrested by the sheriff’s men. The name of the church is, obviously, significant, as is also the fact that, in the first fit of the “Gest”, the £400 loan granted by Robin to Sir Richard at the Lee takes place in the name of Mary¹⁹, besides the fact that the knight’s creditor is the wealthy Abbot of St. Mary’s, York. Thus, notwithstanding Robin’s humanity and generosity, this loan can hardly be dissociated from the outlaw’s personal devotion to the Virgin²⁰.

Likewise, the slight delay of Sir Richard in fit IV, when he is expected back in the forest, one year on, to repay his debt, lies behind Robin’s decision not to start his meal, for fear that Mary may be displeased with him²¹. In the meantime, however, another traveller comes to the greenwood: a monk of St. Mary’s Abbey, who, when asked to pay a toll, will not avow the sum of more than £800 he is carrying with him. In an amusing and ingenious twist, which explores the monk’s affiliation, the outlaws ascribe the monk’s presence to the purpose of repayment, confiscate the whole amount as a penalty for the monk’s deceit, and even thank the Virgin for paying such good interest, far beyond the wildest dreams of medieval usury. The episode is too long to be quoted here in full²², but I will transcribe a few stanzas as an example:

In the last fit of the “Gest”, religious feelings and motivation are invoked by Robin to leave the court, after less than two years, and go back to the forest, in order to visit a chapel he had founded and dedicated to Mary Magdalene²⁴. The existence of this chapel has never been historically or archaeologically located or documented; moreover, the allusion to Mary Magdalene, rather than to Mary, is somewhat surprising. However, it could be argued that Robin Hood and Mary Magdalene - “[…] that good outlaw of the New Testament”, to borrow Stephen Knight’s simile and expression²⁵ - are, to some extent, united by a common repentance, having been pardoned, respectively, for his forest offences and her moral sins, by the English king and by Jesus Christ.

Jacques Dalarun provides a possible explanation for this female trilogy:

“De imediato, uma antinomia: Eva, Maria; uma simbolizando […] as mulheres reais e a outra a mulher ideal. Por razões de estratégia eclesial, de disciplina clerical, de promoção de uma nova moral, Eva é […] a mulher de que o clérigo se deve afastar, a mulher […] de que se devem purificar as uniões principescas, a filha do Diabo. A Virgem-Mãe […] é projectada pelos homens para fora do alcance das mulheres terrestres. Nesta abertura agudizada entre as duas figuras […] perfila-se Madalena. Os séculos XI e XII marcam o grande desenvolvimento do seu culto. A figura complexa de origem evangélica torna-se mais intensa e mais necessária. Mais intensa visto que os homens, os clérigos, a investem do sentimento novo da consciência […]. Mais necessária para as mulheres, para quem as vias da salvação são então bem escarpadas, senão mesmo sem saída. Entre a porta de morte e a porta de vida, a pecadora bem-vinda é uma porta entreaberta para uma redenção possível, mas ao preço da confissão, do arrependimento, da penitência.”²⁶

Robin Hood’s distress in “Monk” and in fit IV of the “Gest” reappears in “Guy of Gisborne”, although now for different reasons: the ominous dream of which we only know the final part. Robin’s devotion to the Virgin is once again present, as it is only Robin’s request for protection that allows him to overcome Guy’s initial superiority in the fight:

Mary’s protection in this ballad contrasts with “Monk”, if we bear in mind that the outlaw is ironically captured in a church consecrated to the Virgin²⁸; conversely, Mary responds favourably to Little John’s request of protection for Robin²⁹. Additionally, some excerpts from “Potter” and the “Gest” highlight the influence of the Marian cult in Robin Hood’s courteous attitudes towards all women³⁰.

If courtesy is, without a doubt, one of the main features of the hero in the earliest surviving ballads, such emphasis may arguably be seen as a sign of the importance of chivalric values and behaviour, extolled in manuals, treatises and guidebooks, but also mediated, of course, by medieval romance³¹. In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, for instance, Gawain’s moral character unites, in paradigmatic fashion, the virtues of courtesy³² and Marian devotion³³; in fact, they are inextricably linked, since only through the protection offered by the Virgin can the temptation embodied in Lady Bertilak’s third (and last) visit to Gawain’s bedroom be resisted to³⁴. But, as many literary critics and historians have argued since the late 1950s, seeking to relate the earliest surviving corpus with the social rank of both the outlaw and the original listening audiences³⁵, the popular Robin Hood ballads can (should?) also be seen as a trivialised, and parodical version or imitation of courtly codes, modes, practices, and genres; almost - so to speak - as ‘mock-romances’ in the context of a non-canonical ‘matter of the greenwood’.

Not unexpectedly, and notwithstanding other literary, social, and cultural developments of the hero’s status and of the myth itself, the Protestant Reformation and its Puritan offshoots would bring about the effacement of Robin Hood’s devotion to the Virgin Mary; an example is collaterally provided by A. G. Dickens when he points out, speaking of the Book of Common Prayer, that “[…] the invocations to the Virgin and the saints, retained in 1549, were omitted altogether in 1552 and subsequently.”³⁶ As suggested above (see n.3), the Maid Marian depicted in 17^th and 18^th century poems, plays, and operas is largely a pastoral version of a formerly aristocratic lady, illustrating the eradication of the Marian devotion (and thus of the Maiden Mary connection) patent in the late medieval literary corpus.

This being the case, I would like to conclude by suggesting a topic for further projects and research: the collection and analysis of any material or documental evidence pertaining to the Marian cult in the regions and counties primarily associated with the Robin Hood legend: Sherwood, Nottinghamshire, and Barn(e)sdale, Yorkshire.