Woodcut on the first page of Geste of Robyn Hode, attributed to the press of Jan van Doesborch at Antwerp, it ca. 1510–1515.

The author of the Gest shares with that other fifteenth-century  compiler, Sir Thomas Malory, the ability to combine and develop  materials of high potency and complexity into a generically new whole of great future impact, which manages to convey and even enhance the source materials’ innate values and power. 

(Knight and Ohlgren, 1997)

The association of the earliest and most striking Robin Hood ballad collection, “A Geste of Robyn Hode,” with Wynkyn de Worde (d. 1534) and Jan van Doesborch (c. 1470/80–1536), both around 1510, connects Robin Hood to two printers linked to the “father of English printing,” William Caxton (c. 1415–92). Many scholars now agree on c. 1450 as the probable date of its compilation, if not composition; Stephen Knight, in particular, associates the “Geste” teasingly with both Sir Thomas Malory (of Morte Darthur fame) and Caxton without, as far as I have seen, going any further.

This paper is a thought experiment following up on these suggestions. Here I argue that the timing, publishing history, genre, literary associations, and content of this compilation all demand that students of the history of printing evaluate the possibility that this text is a lost Caxton (whether printed by him, outsourced to colleagues in the Netherlands, privately circulated to select readers, or simply considered for printing and found in the printshop after his death), and perhaps even a lost Malory. A strong or at any rate a provocative case can be made for Malory as the author of the “Geste” and for Caxton as its publisher. Or, to put it another way, can what we know about Caxton and Malory, two major players in fifteenth-century English literature and publishing whose names come up in this context, shed light on the still mysterious “Geste of Robyn Hode”?

This is a matter that should be discussed by historians in the field. Nobody else from the critical period fits as well with the facts that we have. Ockham’s razor should come into play. Let’s consider the two most obvious suspects and attempt to solve this cold case. 

Part I: The case for Caxton

The case for Caxton as the original printer of the “Geste” certainly ties in with the idea that the “Geste” reflects an “urban, mercantile ideology.” (Ohlgren (2000); Tardif). It’s true that the persistent characterization of Caxton as “the merchant,” pure and simple,—which he was, without question, a most skillful one—has not been altogether helpful in the field. In too many cases it has limited the appreciation and even the comprehension of Caxton’s work as a writer, critic, publisher, diplomat, and founding father of English literary culture at large. Nevertheless, an “urban, mercantile” element would be of obvious interest to Caxton and other entrepreneurial printers. The “Geste” does not speak exclusively to a primary gentry audience, as certain scholars (following J. C. Holt) have argued. It speaks to yeomen—archers and veterans of Britain, who were often also hardy entrepreneurial craftsmen and merchants of many different kinds. 

Caxton clearly did not write the “Geste.” He is not much of a poet, though he appreciates poetry: read his attempt to conclude Geoffrey Chaucer’s “House of Fame” for confirmation of this fact. When he wanted an epitaph for Chaucer (c. 1342-1400), to mark that poet’s tomb in Westminster Abbey, he commissioned it from a wandering Italian humanist, Stefano Surigone, who lectured on grammar and rhetoric at Oxford ca. 1454–71. (Blake 1967; Kingston 2022) But Caxton is an indefatigable, intelligent, often charming prose writer, a perceptive editor-translator, a pioneering critical essayist, and an insightful, visionary entrepreneur of print technology. Many of his practices form the bedrock of our literary culture, from the publisher’s blurb to the publicity flyer. 

We do not know who wrote most ballads, and they are near-impossible to date in most cases. (McLane) Neither do we know who started the broadside ballad industry that was going to explode in importance at the low end of the print market in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and continue into the nineteenth, in some places later still. (These inexpensive publications were not produced as collectors’ items for a limited, elite audience, as is sometimes suggested, though that visionary scholar John Selden (1584–1654) and his admirer Samuel Pepys (1633–1703) ranged themselves among the antiquaries who were to collect them in the seventeenth century.) But if you had to pick a likely suspect, Caxton would be the first person to look at, not because there was nobody else, but mostly because it is more like him than anyone else. And Wynkyn de Worde (d. 1534), as his right-hand man, confidant, and successor, is inseparable from him.

There are four possibilities to consider, as we try to figure out what is most probable. First, Caxton might have printed the “Geste” and his successor Wynkyn de Worde simply reprinted it when he took control of the press, three years after his death, as he reprinted a number of Caxton’s editions and translations including Malory’s Morte Darthur. Wynkyn de Worde’s longtime association with Caxton as the foreman of his printshop from c. 1476 or 1481 onward, and his interest in the lower end of the market and in illustrated texts both fit with the “Geste.” Wynkyn de Worde also had unparalleled access to Caxton’s workshop, with everything as yet not printed but under consideration—all the works in the pipeline, or being held for possible later production, in it. As Caxton’s main literary executor and inheritor of the printing office, he is rather in the position of Christopher Tolkien rummaging in his father’s garage and printing the resulting finds. Or, Wynkyn might have found it on his own. We cannot tell for sure.

It’s also possible that the socially subversive “Geste” was privately circulated to a limited audience, and perhaps outsourced to a printer overseas (probably in the Low Countries, though Caxton also outsourced different sorts of work to French printers) from the start. Caxton and de Worde, a native of Alsace or the Palatinate, both had such contacts. 

If an earlier fifteenth-century English printshop put out a version of the “Geste” closer to the time of its composition, it would most likely be the partnership at the Sign of the Red Pale. It is not consistent with the work of the other printers known to be working in England, as for instance John Lettou and William de Machlinia, a London partnership chiefly concerned with printing common law books—also connected with Caxton (by their use of his Type 3 c. 1481-82). (Partridge; Trapp, 139–40) The Dutch printer who issued his own sixteenth-century version of the “Geste”, Jan van Doesborch of Antwerp, could well have reprinted a piece that might have come to him from Wynkyn de Worde,  or from Caxton, whether either one of them had as yet ventured to print it or not. In this he would be following in the footsteps of the astute Gerard Leeu (c. 1450–92), the printer whose cleverness was admired by Erasmus and later eulogized by his workmen as “a man of grete wisdome in all maner of cunning.” Leeu reprinted two of Caxton’s works, Paris and Vienne (Antwerp 1492) and The Chronicles of England (Antwerp 1493), soon after Caxton’s death. (The last volume was in press at the time of Leeu’s own death in a printshop labor dispute with his head typographer.) 

One third of van Doesborch’s publications were English-language works. Notable affinities with Caxton’s practices are apparent (including van Doesborch’s interest in Raoul LeFevre’s Jason, which he published in a Dutch translation in 1521; Caxton had translated and printed this History of Jason in French and English in 1477, the French edition probably in collaboration with David Aubert, in Ghent, or possibly Colard Mansion in Bruges), and the English translation at his new press in Westminster. (As Putter points out, Caxton needed a member of the local guild as his partner in order to publish abroad.) (Putter, 2023, 215–218; Besamusca; Bühler) Elizabeth de Bruijn discusses possible connections between Jan van Doesborch and Wynkyn de Worde. It seems clear that at least some of Caxton’s literary choices as a multilingual publisher and translator of popular fiction were attracting the next generation of printers, not only in Britain but in the Netherlands as well. 

The fact that no copies of any earlier fifteenth-century English edition survive would be no surprise—look at how few copies we have of other Caxtons. Some exist in single copies, others as fragments, and one in a large presentation manuscript that was apparently never printed. Caxton mentions a number of works he translated or printed that we do not have any surviving exemplar of at all—as, for instance, the “life and miracles” of one Robert, earl of Oxford, mentioned in the prologue to the Four Sonnes of Aymon of 1489, which may be a jesting reference to the “Geste of Robin Hood” itself. (Crotch, 107)

We tend to underestimate the subversiveness of Caxton’s work as a printer: his association with political players and Lancastrian conspirators like Lady Margaret Beaufort (31 May, 1443–29 June 1459), mother of the future Henry VII, a translator herself, and John de Vere (8 September 1442–10 March 1515), 13th earl of Oxford, Henry’s commander in chief at Bosworth Field, each of whom encouraged him to translate a specific prose romance that related to their own political predicament, not to mention the endlessly mystifying knight prisoner Sir Thomas Malory. Caxton’s recurrent social criticism, his sympathy for persecuted Lollards, and his skill in working around Archbishop Thomas Arundel’s 1407 law against translating the Bible into English by publishing English biblical material in other forms reveal him as a Robin Hood in his own right, or at least a kindred spirit. (Goodman 1995; Wollock)

Part II: The Case for Malory

Where would Caxton (or any other printer) get the “Geste”?

One possibility that deserves consideration: from the same person who supplied him with King Arthur. There are definite points of intersection between the “Geste” and the Morte Darthur. On the chivalric history end, they resonate with one another on many levels, as complementary depictions of chivalry in authority as against chivalry in conflict with it, the chivalry of the knight and the king or the chivalry of the yeoman who rides beside them, the rebel knight or the outlaw. Such parallels and contrasts recur in chivalric romances where the king is an idealist, like the young King  Arthur, aspiring “to stand with true justice” all the days of his life, as against romances of revolt like The Four Sonnes of Aymon (Westminster: Caxton, 1489), where the aging Emperor Charlemagne reveals his dark side to become own his knights’ vengeful adversary. Malory shows this within the Morte Darthur on multiple occasions, as knights become outlaws, run mad in forests, or take refuge in them, and kings veer from youthful idealism to ingrained evil or impassioned acts of extreme misconduct and judicial abuses of power. (Knight; Calin) As with Caxton, a case can be made.

P. J. C. Field contended in 1982 that Malory wrote the Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnell, whose story was also sung as the ballad The Marriage of Sir Gawain (Percy Folio MS: Child 31, Roud 3966). Ralph Norris supports that argument. (Norris, 2009) The “Geste” is an equally likely contender as a Malory production.

At a first glance it would seem that the issues addressed in the “Geste”—judicial corruption and collusion with tight-fisted monastic landlords, income inequality, oppressive officials—as well as the outlaws’ freedom in robbing the self-satisfied rich—ties in better with the “rap sheet” of Sir Thomas Malory of Newbold Revell (1414–71) than with any other fifteenth-century English author. The account of Malory’s activities as a poacher, cattle-raider, and destroyer of monastic records rests on the statements of his accusers, in the context of active conflict between adherents of the Duke of Warwick and the notoriously “ungovernable” Humphrey Stafford, First Duke of Buckingham (15 August 1402–10 July 1460). (Rawcliffe) Malory himself, imprisoned to await trial, never got his day in court. 

Malory was, indeed, a master compiler. Look at his big book about King Arthur. It is a “composite romance” par excellence, combining different Arthurian and non-Arthurian sources to produce a new Arthurian narrative. 

The “Geste of Robyn Hode” is not a “composite romance,” it is a “composite ballad,” built on the same principles as the “composite romances” by putting together a series of earlier narratives to make a new, longer and more complex work.

All “compilers” were not created equal. Look at Caxton’s Charles the Grete (Westminster, 1485), a translation of Jean Bagnyon’s compilation on the life and adventures of Charlemagne and his knights, Fierabras. (Geneva, 1478) It’s a fascinating work in its own right and a good read, put together by  an enterprising Swiss civil rights lawyer. But, essentially, it is constructed like a sandwich (or, to be fair, a tryptych) with the central romance of the Saracen giant Fierabras flanked by a slice of  legendary biography on either side. (Goodman 1985) It is without question a compilation of the simplest and most straightforward kind. Now, look at any one of the three works under discussion here, the Wedding, the Morte Darthur,  and the “Geste”. They are each of them much more elaborate, complex, and adventurous in their recombinations of source materials. 

All three of these works associated with Malory can absolutely be viewed as “composite romances,” just like Chaucer’s “Squire’s Tale,” put together from preexisting sources to make a new, original, recycled artistic presentation. (Goodman 1983)

The “Geste” fits with the known preoccupations of Sir Thomas of Newbold Revell: malfeasance of brutal government officials and powerful monastic landlords, the joy of bringing a gang of like-minded friends to attempt to right social wrongs, robbing the rich who are robbers themselves. Malory’s Morte Darthur is notable for the laborers who appear throughout the story: churls and shepherds, minstrels, dairymaids and cowherds, even the pillagers who kill and rob wounded fighters after a battle, figures normally absent from his courtly sources. His Merlin comes disguised as a beggar by the wayside, a hunter, a child and an old man. Disguise is even more common throughout the tales of Robin Hood.

Whoever wrote the “Geste” knew the conventions of Arthurian romance. Arthur refusing to eat until an adventure has been brought to his attention parallels Robin’s refusal to eat without a guest. The band of outlaws mirrors the king’s circle of picked knights, the monarchical chivalric order. (Boulton; Keen; Hobsbawm) The quarrel between Arthur and Little John parallels conflicts between Arthur and various knights who leave his court because they feel slighted or are expelled from the fellowship, for instance, the unprepossessing Sir Balin, newly released from prison, King Bagdemagus, disappointed of a seat at the Round Table, and in the end, Lancelot. 

The author of the “Geste” emerges as an astute reader and admirer of Chaucer. The murderous Prioress of Kirklees who kills Robin Hood recalls that chilling figure, the Prioress of the Canterbury Tales, though Malory makes chivalrous amends in the Morte Darthur, where the traumatized Queen Guinevere herself becomes a prioress, “as reson wolde.” 

Malory revels in hunting and the greenwood and celebrates songwriting and musical performance as knightly crafts. He introduces Sir Tristram’s musical skills early in his story: “And so Trystrams lerned to be an harper passyng all other, that there was none such called in no contrey. And so in harpynge and on instrumentys of musyke in his youthe he applyed hym for to lerne.” (Malory I:375, l. 12–15) Tristram’s skill in music was already well established in other versions of the legend, as was his fondness for hunting and his superior woodcraft: “he laboured in hyntynge and in hawkynge—never gentleman more that ever we herde rede of.” (Malory I:375, l. 16–17)

As Eugène Vinaver notes, “Malory’s description of a gentleman’s education is to a large extent original.” None of these skills are mentioned in his French source. (Malory III: 1456, n. 375) Songwriting and hunting were well established as knightly skills from other medieval sources, some much earlier, like the “seven knightly skills” listed in the Disciplina Clericalis of Petrus Alfonsi early in the twelfth century. (Harper; Orme 87)) Malory’s effusion that all gentlemen ought to be grateful to Tristram for his contributions to the art of hunting is also new, one of the few places where the author speaks up in his own voice. 

Sir Dinadan’s composition and dispatch of a satirical song against King Mark of Cornwall to console his friends Lancelot and Tristram goes even further. This is an appreciation of song as a mode of attack and of psychotherapy, a potent remedy for depression and frustration. Songwriters know this from experience, better than anyone else. A songwriter wrote this. Just as Sir Orfeo celebrates the minstrel’s profession, Malory here salutes the knightly songwriter on the attack. (Kim 2003) “But ye shall se what I shall do: I woll make a lay for hym, and whan hit is made, I shall make an harpere to syng hit afore hym.” The resulting lay, detailing Mark’s despicable conduct, which is taught to many harpers by one “coryous harper” named Elyot, is “the worste lay that ever harper songe with harpe or with ony other instrument.” (Malory II: 618) Sir Tristram, another musician of note, appreciates the lay when it is sung to him in secret: “O Lord Jesu! That sir Dynadan can make wondirly well and yll. There he sholde make evyll!” (Malory II: 626) Sir Dinadan does not conceal his authorship, which is acknowledged by the singer when King Mark asks how he dared to sing it: “Sir, seyde Elyas, “wyte thou well I am a mynstrell, and I muste do as I am commanded of thos lordis that I beare the armys of. And, sir, wyte you well that sir Dynadan, a knyght of the Table Rounde, made this songe and made me to synge hit afore you.” (Malory II:627)

Like their heroes, Troilus, Robin, Lancelot, and Tristram, both Chaucer and Malory go out loving, singing and shooting, down to their last arrows. Or at least they picture themselves, through their heroes, ending up that way, rather than living happily ever after in the corrupt and corruptible environs of the royal court, or even the forest hermitage. Caxton does his part to extend their reach by printing their socially subversive works.  In the case of the Morte Darthur, he brings that monumental work out in August 1485, just as Henry Tudor set sail to challenge Richard III for the English crown, under the banner of the Red Dragon. Caxton’s celebrated preface, a kind of reader’s guide, stands as perhaps the earliest critical essay on any work of English literature. 

We need to consider the appearance of these literary masterpieces in print as part of the continuing influence of Geoffrey Chaucer and his friends, the Lollard knights (the cream of British military intelligence, it would appear), which were carried forward by a substantial number of knightly activists, among them Sir John Oldcastle (c. 1370–14 December, 1417), in connection with his abortive rebellions of 1413–1416 against Henry V’s administration. It is one dimension of the legacy of British fourteenth-century knighthood, the generation that fought the Hundred Years’ War. The contentious fifteenth century was a hazardous time for such men—and women—of action. The work of Malory and Caxton also continues the legacy of Chaucer as a writer of poetry and prose, a translator, a composer of “many a song and many a lecherous lay,” and a compiler of experimental composite art forms. 

This paper places its faith in certain medieval principles of detection. Chaucer teaches us that we are hard-wired to confess. Writers put themselves into their work. This is why history, biography, archival research, and textual analysis are all critical for interpretation. Without them, any form of theory is a shot in the dark. 

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