BEVIS OF HAMPTON ANONYMOUS (1320s) A
Middle English ROMANCE, extant in varying forms in six
manuscripts, Bevis of Hampton is most closely related to
the ANGLO-NORMAN Boeuve de Haumtone. The story,
with some variations, runs thus: After his father, Guy
of Southampton, is murdered by his mother’s lover,
Bevis is sold to SARACEN merchants, who carry him off
to the land of Ermonye in the East. Here, Bevis is raised
among the Saracens, establishes himself as a knight
through feats of bravery, and has Josian, the king’s
daughter, fall in love with him. After being imprisoned
for seven years, escaping, rescuing Josian from an
unwilling arranged marriage, and acquiring a marvel-
lous horse and a giant servant, Bevis and his new wife
fl ee to Cologne, where Josian is baptized. Afterward,
Bevis returns to reclaim his patrimony in England
before being forced once more into exile in the East.
Eventually, after the birth of two sons, a period of sep-
aration from Josian, and an eventual reunion, Bevis
wins back his English lands once more for one of his
sons, marries the other off to the daughter of King
Edgar of England, and conquers and converts the king-
dom of Mombraunt in the East for himself, where both
he and Josian die after many years of happy marriage.
Recent critical approaches to the romance have
emphasized its articulation of national and cultural
identity. Like many medieval romances, Bevis defi nes
English identity through a contrast with the racial, reli-
gious, and cultural other: the Saracens. However, Bevis
himself is constructed as a curiously hybridized fi gure:
English and Christian, but raised in the East, married
to a Saracen convert, and returning to live in the East
rather than England. As such, the romance questions
the processes of medieval cultural identity, asking
whether Christian knights can remain culturally unaf-
fected by the Saracens with whom they have contact,
especially those knights who live for extended periods
in the lands of the East.
FURTHER READING
Calking, Siobhan Bly. Saracens and the Making of English
Identity. New York, N.Y.: Routledge, 2005.
Rouse, Robert Allen. The Idea of Anglo-Saxon England in Mid-
dle English Romance. Cambridge, UK: D.S. Brewer, 2005.
Robert Allen Rouse
BIBLICAL ALLUSIONS An allusion is a refer-
ence to a generally well-known literary text, event, or
person that the author leaves unexplained but expects
his/her readers to know and understand. In English lit-
erature of the premodern period, both the Bible and
the CLASSICAL TRADITION provide a large storehouse of
possible allusions that authors of the period frequently
drew upon to enrich their own writings. Any part of
the Bible was “fair game” for reference, but the Cre-
ation and Fall of humanity, Genesis and Exodus, the
Incarnation and Passion, and the Apocalypse provided
the most common ones. As such, Adam and Christ are
typological partners, as are Isaac and Christ, Eve and
Mary, and so forth. Certainly others make an appear-
ance, but the chief biblical allusions derive from the
liturgical year and the essential catechetical story.
See also EXEGESIS, HAGIOGRAPHY, VIRGIN LYRICS.
Larry J. Swain“BIRTH OF ROBIN HOOD, THE” ANONY-
MOUS (1681–1684) At times also referred to as
“Robin Hood’s Birth, Breeding, Valour, and Marriage,”
this later ROBIN HOOD BALLAD is one in which we start
to see a change in the character of Robin Hood. The
poem is 220 lines long and arranged into 55 four-line
STANZAs rhyming abcb. There are three surviving ver-
sions of this ballad. In each, the title character has
begun to be gentrifi ed.
This poem begins with the introduction of Robin of
Locksley, Nottinghamshire. His father was a forester,
and his mother (named Joan) was a niece to Guy of
Warwick and sister to Gamwell of Gamwell Hall. The
main narrative involves Robin and his mother traveling
on Christmas Eve to visit her brother Gamwell. When
they arrive, the feast resembles the royal banquets of
SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT and not of the secre-
tive and illegal forest feasts Robin and his men orga-
nized as a result of poaching. As the feast continues,
Robin is told by his uncle that he shall inherit his land
when he dies, and Robin agrees, but only if Little John
can be his page.
Robin then leaves the hall to venture into Sherwood
Forest, where a group of yeomen are living, apparently
under his watch. While there, Robin encounters Clo-“BIRTH OF ROBIN HOOD, THE” 81