Abstract

Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne is one of the earliest extant Robin Hood ballads. It is also one of the most grisly of the medieval outlaw tales, with a total of five deaths and several intense moments of violence connected directly to Robin, especially his decapitation, disfigurement and flaying of the bounty hunter Guy of Gisborne’s body. The cultural meaning of Robin’s violence and his treatment of Guy’s body resides in the animal skin (a horse hide) the bounty hunter wears. As this study demonstrates, the hide carries a series of identities, some of which transgress species boundaries and, through their connections to social mobility and monetary economies, also transgress class boundaries. Guy’s appropriation of the hide, and, thus, of these transgressive identities, threatens traditional social structures that rely upon clear divisions between both. Robin’s treatment of Guy, then, specifically his violence towards the bounty hunter’s body, is a rejection of all that he and his second skin represent; it is an attempt to eradicate the new social order. Additionally, Robin’s transferal of the hide to himself renders him an alternate source of justice, one which reinforces class boundaries and reinscribes the social hegemony of the very system that excludes him through the practice of outlawry.