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

This may seem fairly silly but stuck in the office this morning I have been asked at least four times if Robin Hood wore a cape. Not a capelet or a doublet, but a cape. My response was that when it was raining he probably did (if in fact he existed). The nay sayers maintain that it was not part of his regular gear (whatever that means) and was only added in Hollywood representations for more flair and dash.

Opinions?

In my imagination, Robin Hood's wearing a cloak, of Lincoln Green. Always.

Since you asked for opinions Evidence being very thin on the ground, of course.

(Sorry - just popped back because I remembered reading Az's advice earlier in the day and realised what I've just done. So...

Trin

There we go )

Ahh, but doesn't that get in the way of his quiver of trusty arrows?

Quiver outside the cloak, maybe? Or throws one corner of the cloak off when an arrow is needed?

Historically, *everyone* owned a cloak (not a cape, there's a difference kids!) at that time. In fact cloaks were common cold/wet weather gear right up until the 18th Century.

Well then, did he wear a cape as well as a cloak? Or just the cloak?

Hollywood also had him wearing tights*...

If he wore a hat, he may have also, at times, worn a cape.

A cloak is, I think, a heavier version of a cape, and typically includes a hood, which would take place of a hat, but would also interfere with hat-wearing when the hood was deployed, as it were.
Inclement weather would prompt one to don hat and cape whilst evading the Sheriff

As indication Robin wore a hat, examine the trademark symbol used by the popular flour manufacturer.

Competing evidence comes in the original name for the semi-mythic character-- "Robin 'O The Hood"
.. which implies he wore one**.
Since hoods form part of a cloak, we can infer Robin Hood may indeed often have been thus garbed.
Also, a hooded cloak would be ideal forest camouflage-wear.




*The 'Peter Pan' look




**Unless he was a gangsta!

Oh no! Not another one of those cliquey, highbrow, super-intellectual Forum discussions . . .




az

<< Well then, did he wear a cape as well as a cloak? Or just the cloak?>>

It would’ve been just the cloak. Capes didn’t really become popular for another 3-400 years or so and then they were used mostly as fashion accessories.

Just to clarify a cloak is a long (typically mid-calf) garment that can be wrapped around the entire body and at the period Robin Hood is set in would’ve been rectangular and secured at the right shoulder using a brooch. A cape is a shorter (typically waist-length or shorter) garment that is usually semi-circular and was worn either on the left shoulder as a fashion accessory or (in later periods, 18th and 19th Century in particular) over both shoulders (usually with a cloak or overcoat) as an additional protection from the rain.

<< A cloak is, I think, a heavier version of a cape, and typically includes a hood, which would take place of a hat, but would also interfere with hat-wearing when the hood was deployed, as it were.>>

The cloak with attached hood is something of a myth. Hoods would normally have been separate and come with a mantle (circle of fabric or leather that sits on the shoulders and generally stops the hood moving too much).

What are those heavily oiled things that sort oy look like cloaks?

My grandfather always wore one and it smelled like I imagine Robin Hood would. I think that's what he wore.

If hood's were separate from cloaks, then Robin Hood may or may not have worn a cloak at all - it's completely unknown. And the cape is right out, it's at least as unknown as the cloak, and probably more so.

Based on contemporary sources and my own research of historical clothing Robin Hood would definitely have owned a cloak, there's no 'may or may not' about it.

(Contemporary sources meaning early Medieval illustrations and suchlike, just to clarify)

can you supply a reference to these illustrations, to satisfy my curiosity?

btw, with the input of this thread and a few other sources the tenor of the office question has now veered toward a definition of the *cape* as a kind of *cloak*, with each opposing side quoting various dictionary definitions and historical sources. My reply them all is that we are wrongly trying to apply modern context to historical fact.

Keep up the good work!

And

'Historical fact' is the problem though, isn't it? If there was a Robin Hood (big 'if') and if he lived when they say he did (there's another), then he would have worn a cloak as Mr D described.

Maybe it's wrong to apply historical fact to a mythical figure who's been reimagined - and so reclothed - many times over the course of history?

what?

Some assumptions are necessary but the historical period is without question, the era of Richard I *the Lionheart* who was king for a relatively short time (1189 to 1199). So the period costume would seem to include the cloak but exclude the cape. No?

That makes sense, certainly. But I don't know at what point versions of the legend start locating him in that exact period. I mean, Robin Hood was a fairly fuzzily-defined folk hero trickster figure - no Sheriff of Nottingham, no Maid Marian, etc. - for at least a couple of centuries before various versions started giving him a more specific history (Earl of Huntingdon, Loxley and all that stuff didn't turn up until the late 16th century, for instance).

Right - just had a Google:

http://www.robinhood.ltd.uk/robinhood/theorigins.html

You're going to say he would still have had a cloak either way, aren't you?