The legend of Robin Hood began more than 600 years ago. The man, if he existed at all, lived even earlier. Now Professor James Holt, one of Britain's premier historians and author of the standard work on Magna Carta, unravels pure invention from real possibility and offers the detailed fruits of more than twenty years' research. He brings us closer than ever before to the significance and centuries-long appeal of the Robin Hood legend. He roundly assesses the evidence for the historical "Robin Hood" -- candidates include Hobbehod, tenant of the archbishopric of York and Robert Hood of Wakefield. His conclusion is more somber, but more fascinating, than popular imagination allows: he finds that the tale originated with the yeomen and hangers-on of the households of noblemen and gentry in the later Middle Ages, living in a society never far from violence and expressing through Robin Hood their love of adventure, their discontent and their readiness to idealize lawlessness. Professor Holt's great achievement is not merely to reconstruct the historical basis of the stories, but never to lose sight of the human imagination that sustained them. - Jacket flap.