h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

12th, 13th or even 14th Century would still not include a cape. A cloak, certainly

Didn't I start out saying this might be perceived as a bit silly?

In response to Tacysa - I would call 'an oily claok' oilskins, although that would more usually be jacket & trousers.

Isn't the current theory that there were several legends of folk heroes which have coalesced to form the modern stories?

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Yep.

As a slight aside the popular image of Robin in 'tights' (they'd've been hosen, but let's not niggle ), doublet and pointy hat actually owes more to 15th Century fashions than it does the most popular supposed time for his existance (12th Century).

In the same way, I'd have thought that if there ever have been versions of Robin Hood in cape rather than cloak, that would stem from Victorian versions of the tale.

Didn't the cape develop as a symbolic cloak? Once people didn't need to wear cloaks anymore, in 18th-19th-Century cities and the like, the adoption of capes still allowed them to do whatever bits of ritual used to be done with cloaks - sweeping it off the shoulder when flouncing, laying it over puddles and the like