121. The knight would have given something for the use of the four hundred pound had the abbot been civil, though under no obligation to pay interest. In 270 the knight proffers Robin twenty mark (3⅓ per cent) for his courtesy, which seemingly small sum was to be accompanied with the valuable gift of a hundred bows and a hundred sheaf of peacock-feathered, silver-nocked arrows. But though the abbot had not lent for usury, still less had he lent for charity. The knight’s lands were to be forfeited if the loan should not be punctually returned, 86 f, 94, 106; and of this the knight was entirely aware, 85. “As for mortgaging or pawning,” says Bacon, Of Usury, “either men will not take pawns without use, or, if they do, they will look precisely for the forfeiture. I remember a cruel moneyed man in the country that would say, The devil take this usury; it keeps us from forfeitures of mortgages and bonds.” But troubles, legal or other, might ensue upon this hard-dealing unless the knight would give a quittance, 117 f.
135–37. A ram was the prize for an ordinary wrestling-match; but this is an occasion which brings together all the best yeomen of the West Country, and the victor is to have a bull, a horse saddled and bridled, a pair of gloves, a ring, and a pipe of wine. In Gamelyn “there was set up a ram and a ring,” v. 172.
181–204. The sheriff is decoyed into the wood by Robin Hood in No 121, 56–69, No 122, A, 18–25, B, 20–27, as here by Little John. Fulk Fitz Warine gets his enemy, King John, into his power by a like stratagem. Fulk, disguised as a collier, is asked by King John if he has seen a stag or doe pass. He has seen a horned beast; it had long horns. He offers to take the king to the place where he saw it, and begs the king to wait while he goes into the thicket to drive the beast that way. Fulk’s men are in the forest: he tells them that he has brought the king with only three knights; they rush out and seize the king. Fulk says he will have John’s life, but the king promises to restore Fulk’s heritage and all that had been taken from him and his men, and to be his friend forever after. A pledge of faith is exacted and given, and very happy is the king so to escape. But the king keeps the forced oath no better than the sheriff. Wright, p. 145 ff. There is a passage which has the same source, though differing in details, in Eustace the Monk, Michel, pp. 36–39, vv 995–1070. The story is incomparably better here than elsewhere.
213–33. The black monks are Benedictines. There are two according to 213 f, 218, 2254, but the high cellarer only (who in 91–93 is exultant over the knight’s forfeiture) is of consequence, and the other is made no account of. Seven score of wight young men, 2293, is the right number for a band of outlaws; so Gamelyn, v. 628. The sheriff has his seven score in Guy of Gisborn, 13.
243–47. “What is in your coffers?” So Eustace the monk to the merchant, v. 938, p. 34, Michel: “Di-moi combien tu as d’argent.” The merchant tells the exact truth, and Eustace, having verified the answer by counting, returns all the money, saying, If you had lied in the least, you would not have carried off a penny. When Eustace asks the same question of the abbot, v. 1765, p. 64, the abbot answers, after the fashion of our cellarer, Four silver marks. Eustace finds thirty marks, and returns to the abbot the four which he had confessed.
213–272. Nothing was ever more felicitously told, even in the best dit or fabliau, than the “process” of Our Lady’s repaying the money which had been lent on her security. Robin’s slyly significant welcome to the monk upon learning that he is of Saint Mary Abbey, his professed anxiety that Our Lady is wroth with him because she has not sent him his pay, John’s comfortable suggestion that perhaps the monk has brought it, Robin’s incidental explanation of the little business in which the Virgin was a party, and request to see the silver in case the monk has come upon her affair, are beautiful touches of humor, and so delicate that it is all but brutal to point them out. The story, however, is an old one, and was known, perhaps, wherever monks were known. A complete parallel is afforded by Pauli’s Schimpf und Ernst, No 59 (c. 1515). A nobleman took a burgess’s son prisoner in war, carried him home to his castle, and shut him up in a tower. After lying there a considerable time, the prisoner asked and obtained an interview with his captor, and said: Dear lord, I am doing no good here to you or myself, since my friends will not send my ransom. If you would let me go home, I would come back in eight weeks and bring you the money. Whom will you give for surety? asked the nobleman. I have no one to offer, replied the prisoner, but the Lord God, and will swear you an oath by him to keep my word. The nobleman was satisfied, made his captive swear the oath, and let him go. The hero sold all that he owned, and raised the money, but was three weeks longer in so doing than the time agreed upon. The nobleman, one day, when he was riding out with a couple of servants, fell in with an abbot or friar who had two fine horses and a man. See here, my good fellows, said the young lord; that monk is travelling with two horses, as fine as any knight, when he ought to be riding on an ass. Look out now, we will play him a turn. So saying, he rode up to the monk, seized the bridle of his horse, and asked, Sir, who are you? Who is your lord? The monk answered, I am a servant of God, and he is my lord. You come in good time, said the nobleman. I had a prisoner, and set him free upon his leaving your lord with me as a surety. But I can get nothing from this lord of yours; he is above my power; so I will lay hands on his servant; and accordingly made the monk go with him afoot to the castle, where he took from him all that he had. Shortly after, his prisoner appeared, fell at his feet, and wished to pay the ransom, begging that he would not be angry, for the money could not be got sooner. But the nobleman said, Stand up, my good man. Keep your money, and go whither you will, for your surety has paid your ransom. Ed. Oesterley, p. 49. The gist of the story is in Jacques de Vitry, Sermones Vulgares, fol. 62, MS. 17,509, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris; Scala Celi (1480), 159 b, “De Restitucione,” and elsewhere: see Oesterly’s note, p. 480. A very amusing variety is the fabliau Du povre Mercier, Barbazan et Méon, III, 17; Montaiglon et Raynaud, II, 114; Legrand, III, 93, ed. 1829.[[75]]
2933. Reynolde. Possibly Little John borrows this Reynolde’s name in 149, but there is no apparent reason why he should. In the following very strange, and to me utterly unintelligible, piece in Ravenscroft’s Deuteromelia, which may have been meant to have only enough sense to sing, Renold, a miller’s son, mickle of might (was he rechristened Much?), becomes one of Robin Hood’s men. (Deuteromelia, p. 4: London, for Tho. Adams, 1609.)
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By Lands-dale hey ho,
By mery Lands-dale hey ho,