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Robin Hood and Maid Marian (poster, ca. 1880)
Robin Hood and Maid Marian (poster, ca. 1880)

Maid Marian (short for maiden) usually named Lady Marian Fitzwalter of Leaford (first mentioned c. 1200-1400), is the female companion to the legendary figure Robin Hood. Robin Hood is an archetypal figure in English folklore, whose story originates from medieval times but who remains significant in popular culture where Stemming from another, older tradition, she became associated with Robin Hood only in the sixteenth century. [1]

Contents

History

The earliest Medieval Robin Hood stories gave him no female companion. The Robin Hood character at this time was a rather brutish woodsman and a female companion would have been out of place. [2]

Maid Marian was originally a character in May Games festivities (held during May and early June, most commonly around Whitsun) [3] and is sometimes associated with the Queen or Lady of May of May Day. Whitsun ( Old English for "White Sunday" is the 49th day (seventh Sunday after Easter Sunday. May Day occurs on May 1 and refers to any of several Public holidays In many countries May Day is synonymous with International Workers' Day, or Labour She became associated with Robin Hood in this context, as Robin Hood became a central figure in May Day, associated as it was with the forest and archery. Both Robin and Marian were certainly associated with May Day festivities in England (as was Friar Tuck); these were originally two distinct types of performance — Alexander Barclay, writing in c. Friar Tuck is a companion to Robin Hood in the legends about that character 1500, refers to "some merry fytte of Maid Marian or else of Robin Hood" — but the characters were brought together. [4]

Marian is likely derived from the French tradition of a shepherdess named Marion and her shepherd lover Robin (not Robin Hood). The best known example of this tradition is Adam de la Halle's Le Jeu de Robin et Marion, circa 1283. Adam de la Halle, also known as Adam le Bossu ( Adam the Hunchback) (1237?-1288 was a French -born Trouvère, Poet and Musician The Jeu de Robin et Marion is reputedly the earliest French secular play with music and is the most famous work of Adam de la Halle. [5]

Marion, indeed, remained associated with such celebrations long after the fashion of Robin Hood faded again. [6]

Many early Robin Hood tales deal with Robin's devotion to the Virgin Mary (such as in Robin Hood and the Monk). Robin Hood and the Monk is Child ballad 119 and among the oldest existing ballads of Robin Hood, existing in manuscript from about 1450 AD This aspect of the character slowly vanishes as Maid Marian makes her way into the tales. This, combined with Marian's initial status as a maid, suggests another possible origin for the character.

Marian did not immediately gain the unquestioned role as Robin's love; in Robin Hood's Birth, Breeding, Valor and Marriage, his sweetheart is 'Clorinda the Queen of the Shepherdesses'. Robin Hood's Birth Breeding Valor and Marriage is Child ballad 149 [7] Clorinda survives in some later stories as an alias of Marian. [8]

Character

In narrative terms, Maid Marian was first attached to Robin Hood in the late sixteenth century as Robin was gentrified and given a virginal maid to pine after. Her biography and character have been highly variable over the centuries, being sometimes portrayed as a pagan or Saxon and other times as a high born Norman. For their language see Anglo-Saxon language. Anglo-Saxon is the term usually used to describe the invading Tribes in the south The Normans were the people who gave their names to Normandy, a region in northern France. (Marian's role was not entirely virginal in the early days. In 1592, Thomas Nashe described the Marian of the later May Games as being played by a male actor named Martin, and there are hints in the play of Robin Hood and the Friar that the female character in these plays had become a lewd parody. )

In an Elizabethan play, Alexander Munday made her a pseudonym of Matilda Fitzwalter,[9] the historical daughter of Robert Fitzwalter, who had to flee England because of an attempt to assassinate King John. Robert Fitzwalter (d 9 December, 1235) leader of the baronial opposition against King John of England, belonged to the official aristocracy created by John (24 December 1167 &ndash 19 October 1216 reigned as a King of England from 6 April 1199 until his death This was legendarily attributed to King John's attempts to seduce Matilda. [10] The Ballad of Robin Hood and Maid Marion which dates at least to the 17th Century presents a more active Marion who disguises herself as a page and (unrecognized) holds her own against Robin himself in a sword fight. [11]

In the Victorian Era she reverted to her previous role as the dainty maid. Culture The Victorian fascination with novelty resulted in a deep interest in the relationship between modernity and cultural continuities This highborn woman appears in many movies, under various characters: in The Adventures of Robin Hood, she is a courageous and loyal woman, whose initial antagonism to Robin springs not from aristocratic disdain but out of dislike of robbery;[12] in The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men, she, though a lady-in-waiting to Eleanor of Aquitaine during the Crusades, is a mischievous tomboy capable of escaping over the countryside disguised as a boy. The Adventures of Robin Hood is an American swashbuckler film released in 1938 and directed by Michael Curtiz and William Keighley The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men is a live action Disney version of the Robin Hood story in Technicolor which was filmed in For other Eleanors of England see Eleanor of England (disambiguation Eleanor Duchess of Aquitaine (1122&ndash1 April 1204 The Crusades were a series of military campaigns of a religious character waged by much of Christian Europe against external and internal opponents [13] With the rise of modern feminism in the 20th century, the character has often been depicted as an adventurer again, sometimes as a crack archer herself. Feminism is a discourse that involves various movements theories, and Philosophies which are concerned with the issue of Gender difference, advocate The twentieth century of the Common Era began on Archery is the practice of using a bow or Crossbow to shoot Arrows Archery has historically been used in Hunting and Combat and has In modern times, a common ending for Robin Hood stories became that he married Maid Marian and left the woods for a civilized, aristocratic life.

Marian's actual connection to the Plantagenet royals tends to vary. The House of Plantagenet (planˈtadʒɪnɪt also called the House of Anjou, or the First Angevin dynasty, was originally a noble Generally she is depicted as a high-ranking lady of the court. In the famous Errol Flynn film, she is a ward of the court, an orphaned noblewoman under the protection of King Richard. Errol Leslie Thomson Flynn ( June 20, 1909 &ndash October 14, 1959) was an Australian Film Actor, most Richard I (8 September 1157 &ndash 6 April 1199 was King of England from 6 July 1189 until his death In the Kevin Costner epic Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, she is a maternal cousin to the sovereign. Robin Hood Prince of Thieves is a 1991 Adventure film directed by Kevin Reynolds. Possibly the oddest connection is found in the animated Disney Robin Hood; it is stated that Maid Marian is King Richard's niece, even though she is depicted as a fox and he as a lion.

Literature

Douglas Fairbanks as Robin Hood giving Enid Bennett as Maid Marian a dagger
Douglas Fairbanks as Robin Hood giving Enid Bennett as Maid Marian a dagger

There have been several books based on the fictional character:

Television

Movies

Music

References

  1. ^ Holt, J. C. Robin Hood p 37 (1982) Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0-500-27541-6.
  2. ^ Jeffrey Richards, Swordsmen of the Screen: From Douglas Fairbanks to Michael York, p 190, Routledge & Kegan Paul, Lond, Henly and Boston, 1988
  3. ^ pp. 11-12, Knight
  4. ^ Jeffrey Richards, Swordsmen of the Screen: From Douglas Fairbanks to Michael York, p 190, Routledge & Kegan Paul, Lond, Henly and Boston, 1988
  5. ^ Ronald Hutton, The Stations of the Sun, p 270-1, ISBN 0-19-288045-4
  6. ^ Ronald Hutton, The Stations of the Sun, p 274, ISBN 0-19-288045-4
  7. ^ Holt, J. C. Robin Hood p 165 (1982) Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0-500-27541-6.
  8. ^ Allen W. Wright, "A Beginner's Guide to Robin Hood"
  9. ^ Additional discussion of the story of Matilda and how it changed to Maid Marion is available in Thomson, Richard (1829). Richard Thomson, sometimes spelled Thompson, was a Dutch -born English theologian and translator An Historical Essay on the Magna Charta of King John: To which are Added the Great Charter in Latin and English. London: J. Major and R. Jennings, pp. 505-507.  
  10. ^ Allen W. Wright, The Search for the Real Robin Hood
  11. ^ Francis James Child, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, 1888. [1]
  12. ^ Jeffrey Richards, Swordsmen of the Screen: From Douglas Fairbanks to Michael York, p 200, Routledge & Kegan Paul, Lond, Henly and Boston, 1988
  13. ^ Jeffrey Richards, Swordsmen of the Screen: From Douglas Fairbanks to Michael York, p 201, Routledge & Kegan Paul, Lond, Henly and Boston, 1988

External links

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