I became once a little late to listen to about the assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Within the days main as much as the 2024 election, I deleted the knowledge apps from my phone and purposefully disengaged with social media, factual as I had in 2016 and 2020. This time, being disconnected felt so factual that I didn’t ache plugging in all over again.
So I became once ignorant when a colleague caught me within the hall after a morning class in early December. “Aren’t you the Robin Hood guy?” she asked. Broken-down to this query, I chuckled and acknowledged certain.
Then she asked me what I regarded as Thompson’s extinguish in light of my look at. It’d be one in a protracted circulate of comparisons between the assassin, speculated to be a man named Luigi Mangione, and the legendary outlaw. Reddit, notably, has latched onto the premise of Mangione, who’s scheduled to appear in court Friday, as a “noble outlaw” pick. The comparison has no longer long previous uncared for, and articles exploring the premise have appeared in Politico, The Globe and Mail, and HuffPost.
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I’ve spent most of my grownup life studying the Robin Hood story, including how the story impressed writers ranging from John Keats to J. R. R. Tolkien. I even convey a class at my university entitled “Robin Hood By contrivance of the Ages.” While I indulge in the Errol Flynn movie and Disney’s vulpine hero, it’s the medieval Robin Hood who’s closest to my heart.
Now not just like the Robin Hood viewed in twentieth-century movies, this Robin became once slightly rather a lot rougher. The medieval version of the outlaw became once at risk of extortion and bouts of violence. Rob, as an illustration, this excerpt from “The Gest of Robyn Hode,” the medieval ballad that serves because the root for the enduring “archery contest” adapted so over and over on conceal conceal:
“Therof no pressure,” than sayde Robyn;
“We can pause smartly inowe;
But loke ye pause no husbonde harme,
That tilleth with his ploughe. …“These bisshoppes and these archebishoppes,
Ye shall them bete and bynde;
The hye sherif of Notyingham,
Hym holde ye on your mynde.”
In Fresh English, this scene reads,
“Subsequently no pressure,” then Robin acknowledged.
“We can pause smartly enough.
But peep to pause no husbands shatter
who till with their ploughs. …“These bishops and archbishops,
you shall beat and bind.
The excessive Sheriff of Nottingham,
you may more than probably light assist him on your mind.”
Right here Robin makes his intentions certain: He’s ordering his Merry Males to head away the working class alone and as an alternative to pause violence against the unparalleled figures he believes to be adverse. Compose no mistake, this version of Robin Hood became once standard with commoners, the overwhelming majority of whom usually known as Christians. As a topic of truth, a level of recognition with the Everyman is among the core facets of a folkloric outlaw hero, from mythical characters comparable to Robin Hood to exact-life, valorized figures love the American gangster John Dillinger.
At the least for a undeniable phase of the population, Luigi Mangione because the alleged insurance assassin represents the the same carry out of noble outlaw, a stand up who fights an unjust or adverse authority. But outlaw heroes have always had a subtle and nuanced relationship with Christianity.
Despite his morally uncertain actions, the medieval Robin Hood became once on the overall depicted as strongly Christian. But this Christianity is tinged (a couple of of my college students have even acknowledged “execrable”) by violence. Now not just like the gentler and more straightforwardly benevolent recent variations, this Robin never does any “robbing from the rich and giving to the unhappy.” Somewhat, he’s taken into fable factual attributable to his violence, because he directs that violence toward of us who exploit the meek and the downtrodden.
Doubtless no longer coincidentally, these are the divulge same of us whom Jesus identifies as “blessed” at some level of the Sermon on the Mount. And while it’s some distance upright that Christians may more than probably light never contain the violence of outlaw heroes, we are able to and will piece in their rejection of exploitation of the old and the susceptible—the Prophets undoubtedly pause (Amos 5:7–15; Ezek. 23:22–29).
Even with out the generosity to the unhappy that has since change into Robin Hood’s trademark, this carry out of directed violence has always been smartly liked by the lower and middle classes, even the strongly Christian viewers of the Center Ages. But there is a exact pressure between this sort of propensity for violence and the gospel message. Yes, the desire to dispense retribution to of us who shatter the susceptible has shades of God’s justice. There is some noble motive here. But outlaw justice and divine justice are no longer the the same. God’s goodness has nothing to pause with extinguish.
Doubtless the ideally suited technique in which the noble outlaw falls rapid of the gospel considerations the query of victory. Renowned Robin Hood pupil Stephen Knight observes that by his very nature as a symbol of resistance, Robin never achieves a mountainous-scale victory. He may more than probably emerge triumphant in some skirmishes and battles, nonetheless he never succeeds in altering the social panorama. The noble outlaw, by nature, must be a hero who endures, who resists—no longer one who overcomes.
That means the noble outlaw is actually doomed to failure, which is a mountainous share of the romance and elegance of this carry out of hero. But this propensity to failure also sets Robin Hood’s myth—let alone the insurance assassin’s—smartly other than that of Christianity. Robin’s followers would be hastily helped, nonetheless they never fully triumph. By contrivance of his death and resurrection, Jesus provides of us who apply him with final victory over sin and death.
Christianity does more than face up to: It transforms.
Perry Neil Harrison is a professor of English at Fortress Hays Suppose College. His look at specializes within the Robin Hood story thru the centuries.
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