Robin Hood & Medieval Settler Colonialism

We’re getting a new Robin Hood series come November. There have been so many disappointments associated with that proto-Ranger tale, I am loathe to get my hopes up. “Modern take on a classic tale” always makes me leery. But… Sean Bean as the Sheriff of Nottingham bodes well…

Robin Hood is described as a sweeping, romantic adventure, a modern take of the classic tale that brings historical authenticity, psychological depth, and a heightened focus on the relationship between Rob and Marian.

Following the Norman invasion of England, Rob (Jack Patten) – a Saxon forester’s son – and Marian (Lauren McQueen), the daughter of a Norman lord – fall in love and work together to fight for justice and freedom. As Rob rises as the leader of a band of rebel outlaws, Marian infiltrates the power at court, as both work together to thwart royal corruption and bring peace to the land.

Also starring are Sean Bean as the Sheriff of Nottingham, Lydia Peckham as Priscilla of Nottingham, Steven Waddington (that’s Duncan Heyward from Last of the Mohicans) as the Earl of Huntingdon and Connie Nielsen as Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine.

The series is clearly going hard with the Saxon resistance to the Norman Conquest. This hinge-point in the 11th Century can quite rightly be seen as a medieval episode of settler-colonialism.

It’s a peculiar episode, too, because while the Normans did permanently settle the island kingdom, they didn’t fully displace the “indigenous” population — they displaced the Anglo-Saxon aristocracy. They set up a new legal and economic system, with everlasting impact, but the Anglo-Saxon culture persisted in modified form “underneath” that social layer. And there was a kind of assimilation in both directions. That was an even more pronounced phenomenon in Ireland and Scotland, where the Norman aristocracy to some extent “went native.” The phenomenon wasn’t total — a more accurate term might be “cultural fusion” — but it was strong enough that the Hiberno-Norman lords in the Irish hinterlands were gradually Gaelicized to a degree that they were often described as being “more Irish than the Irish.”

Níos Gaelaí ná na Gaeil féin

A story for another time, perhaps…

The Conquest was brutal — and not just at Hastings in 1066. The Harrying of the North, which was a series of campaigns to repress rebellion in 1069-70, was utterly savage, even by medieval standards.

Anglo-Norman chronicler Orderic Vitalis wrote of it a half-century later:

The King stopped at nothing to hunt his enemies. He cut down many people and destroyed homes and land. Nowhere else had he shown such cruelty. This made a real change. To his shame, William made no effort to control his fury, punishing the innocent with the guilty. He ordered that crops and herds, tools and food be burned to ashes. More than 100,000 people perished of starvation. I have often praised William in this book, but I can say nothing good about this brutal slaughter. God will punish him.

Some historians consider William’s campaign a genocide. Not sure that fits; the term genocide — which is a modern coining — has a specific meaning: the deliberate and systematic killing or persecution of a large number of people from a particular national or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group.

The campaign in Northumbria does not seem to have been aimed at wiping out a population for the sake of wiping out a population — it was an exceptionally harsh punitive measure taken to avenge rebellion and discourage similar rebellions. But, as always, it is important to recognize that such distinctions are meaningless to those who are doing the dying. And a lot of people died at the hands of William I and his Norman reivers.

The deaths caused by the harrying — direct killings and indirect deaths through dire and deliberately induced famine — were legion. If the 100,000 figure is accurate, it would have represented over 4 percent of England’s total population at the time. Some believe that such numbers are exaggerated. But no one denies that the harrying was bloody, savage, unjust and cruel.

The brilliant The Rest is History Podcast did a deep dive on the Norman Conquest and takes on the brutal subjugation in Episode 6:

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I hope for a solid retelling of the Robin Hood tale. As mentioned, the “modern take” thing always makes me leery of creators working a particular cultural agenda that violates the history. But I do not expect a completely faithful rendering; I don’t believe it’s possible, or even desirable. A tale must resonate with its audience and cannot be trapped in amber. I hope only for a “reckless verisimilitude” in James Ellroy’s wonderful phrase.