WOOL
Clothed in Lyncolne grene
Ever y t h ing we t h in k we k now of Robin
Hood is pieced toget her, f rom ba llads,
literary mentions and other references
reaching back as far as the 14th century.
In one ba llad he is a tat tered gent lema n,
happy to give the proceeds of his
righteous lawlessness away to the poor;
in another he keeps it for himself. Two
constants, however, are his hostility to
corrupt monks and officials and his
costume of Lincoln green.
Today it is simply a colour, but the
term meant far more to medieval
audiences. Lincoln was a major centre of
the wool trade, renowned for its wealth
and the quality of its cloth. As Michael
Drayton, an Elizabethan poet, put it:
“Lincoln anciently dyed the best green
in England.”
Despite living in the forest, Robin
always has a plentiful supply of the best
fabrics to supply new clothes to those in
need, in exchange for favours and for
disguises. In one of the earliest surviving
ballads, ‘A Geste of Robyn Hode’, Little
Joh n is refer red to a s a draper a nd Robin
as the richest ‘marchaunt in mery
Englond’. Robin gets an unexpected
royal visitor – ‘Edwarde, our comely
kynge’ – who begs Robin to sell him
‘grene cloth’. When Robin obliges, the
king and his retinue ride to Nottingham
‘clot hed in Ly ncolne g rene’, ter r if y ing
the townspeople, who initially mistake
them for the outlaws looking for revenge.
Steep prices for certain kinds of
fabr ics, backed up by sumpt ua r y laws,
ensured class, status and even character
could be divined by a glance at someone’s
clothes. One law was aimed specifically
at ensuring social differentiation,
castigating ‘the Outragious and
Excessive Apparel of divers People,
against their Estate and Degree’. The
clothing of servants couldn’t contain gold
or silver embroidery; craftsmen or
yeomen could not wear silk, nor could
their clothes be embroidered at all. The
resentments these laws stirred up can be
heard roiling through tales of Robin
Hood and even the rhyme at the heart of
the 1381 Peasants’ Revolt (which
protested social divides): ‘When Adam
delved and Eve span/Who was then the
Gentleman?’
Many a yarn has
been spun about
Robin Hood and his
merry men“Despite living
in the forest
Robin always has a
plentiful supply of
the best fabrics”