English Movies 007

First Name Terms: Robert Genealogy

Robin Hood is now an internationally celebrated superhero, thanks to American movie remakes. He’s regarded as a sort of proto-James Bond, in Medieval England. Filmed from differing (variant) interpretations of the same story, he has been played by screen idols from Errol Flynn to… Sean (007) Connery.

The name Robin is an English pet-name variant, of the Norman form: hrodberht, pronounced: RAH-bert; meaning one who shines out. The original Germanic form, similarly pronounced as RO-bert, was used in Anglo-Saxon England. But it was the variant introduced by the Normans, which became trendy. Thus its pet form, Robin; but this confusion, is as nothing compared to the controversy surrounding the green-clad outlaw of Sherwood Forest.

Today historians still argue about whether or not he ever actually existed. The evidence is inconclusive. He first appears in the early fifteenth-century, in four lines of rhyming slang, “Robyn hode in Sherewoode stod.” The poem A Gest of Robyn Hode (note spelling Robyn) about a medieval commoner who becomes an expert archer and swordsman, to redistribute wealth from rich to poor folks, was thought to refer to late twelfth-century England. When Plantagenet King Richard the Lionheart was far away on the third crusade, his conniving brother John was up to no good. John wanted to be king and there was much skullduggery afoot. With these interrelated royals throwing their weight around, there wasn’t much law and order about to protect local peasants.

However, most experts now believe this timeframe is impossible. Later folklore could place archenemy, the Sherriff of Nottingham, and the Merry Men, Little Jon, Much the Miller’s Son and Will Scarlet in that period. But references to Maid Marian and Friar Tuck – from a fifteenth-century ballad – suggest either the thirteenth or fourteenth-century is far more coherent.

Then there’s the suggestion Robin was actually a dispossessed Earl, outlawed, and struggling to regain his title. But this plot twist also – propagated in Anthony Munday’s plays – is far less cogent, than having Robin born of churlish stock.

So that’s time, now for place. Nottingham Forest was always a problematic setting. Some believe border woodlands between Barnsdale and Nottinghamshire is more likely. This would give credence to Yorkshire’s Robin Hood’s Well site, associated since 1422. Also to Robin’s grave, so claimed, in Kirklees Priory, Mirfield, West Yorkshire. But this dubious and inauthentic headstone is on very shaky ground!

What’s cold, white and wears yellow-chequered trousers?
Rupert the Fridge, of course!

Rupert is an accepted name variant common in both English and German. It’s from Old German: ‘hroberahtus’, but via Latin: ‘rupertus’. Rupert the Bear first appeared as a comic character in the Daily Express on 8 November 1920. Created and drawn by Mary Tourtel, commissioned to try to snatch readers from the Daily Mirror and Mail. Rupert and his chums & pals: Bill Badger, elephant Edward Trunk, Willie the mouse, are all anthropomorphic illustrations. The Professor, who lives in a castle, often joins them for exotic adventures in far-off lands.

Chris Barber, Mowbray Publishing

About the Author

Chris Barber is the author of the genealogy handbook, ‘Who Do You Think You REALLY Are?’ Find great genealogy tips and advice in his free minicourse, and discover the easy methods you will need to begin your own
Robert genealogy
research. Download for free now at
http://www.genealogyofsurnames.com/
.

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