1540 - Robin Hood's Stone (Whitby Laithes)

Record
Date	1540
Topic	Robin Hood's Stone (Whitby Laithes)

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Robin Hood's Stone.

Robin Hood's Stone and Little John's Stone (photo: Panoramio user 'whitby-mick', 20 August 2010.)

By Henrik Thiil Nielsen, 2016-05-27. Revised by Henrik Thiil Nielsen, 2021-01-08.

Record

[1540:]
MANERIUM DE WHITBY-LATHES, CUM DIVERSIS CLAUSIS VOCATIS GRESSE-FERMES
[... p. 727:] Willelmo Laverok et Rob. Garstange per ii copias curiæ, ut dicitur: de xx s. de redd. i clausi voc. Robyn-Hood-stone¹ ib. per a. solv.^[1]

Source notes

Atkinson, vol. II, p. 727 n. 1: "This stone, with another near it, popularly called Little John's Stone, was still in situ in the earlier part of the present [i.e. the 18th] century, and had a legend connected with it which may be met with in [Lionel] Charlton, [The History of Whitby, and of Whitby Abbey (1779),^[2]] p. 146. Both stones have now been removed, and are, I was informed, set up again near the enclosing fence of the field in which they stood. Almost beyond question, like the other monoliths of the district, they marked the site of ancient British interments."

IRHB comments

For the etiological myth (myth of origin) 'accounting for' or 'explaining' the presence of these stones, see the page on the place-name Robin Hood's Stone (Whitby Laithes).

According to Colin Platt, Robin Hood's Stone, 'an important close of pasture' at the Whitby Laithes grange, which belonged to Whitby Abbey, was at the time to which the record cited above refers farmed by "George Bushel and John Master".^[3] Platt's source is the MS source of the above record quotation. As far as I can see, Bushel and Master held the next piece of land mentioned in the Whitby Laithes ministers' accounts, not Robin Hood's Stone.

Lists

Not included in Sussex, Lucy, compil. 'References to Robin Hood up to 1600', in: Knight, Stephen. Robin Hood: A Complete Study of the English Outlaw (Oxford, UK; Cambridge, Massachusetts: Blackwell, 1994), pp. 262-88.

MS sources

York: Monastic Possessions of the dissolved abbey of Whitby, and of its cell, Middlesborough (22 April 1539 – 21 April 1541), National Archives, SC 6/HENVIII/4624.

Printed sources

Atkinson, J. C., ed. Cartularium Abathiæ de Whiteby Ordinis S. Benedicti fundatæ Anno MLXXVIII (The Publications of the Surtees Society, vols. LXIX-LXXII) (Durham; [London]; Edinburgh, 1879-81), vol. II, pp. 726-27.

Brief mention

Dobson, R. B., ed.; Taylor, J., ed. Rymes of Robyn Hood: an Introduction to the English Outlaw (London, 1976), p. 307, s.n. "Whitby: Robin Hood's Close and Little John's Close"
Platt, Colin. The Monastic Grange in Medieval England: a Reassessment (New York, 1969), p. 244.

Also see

Notes

Records links1501-1600texts

[1] Atkinson, J. C., ed. Cartularium Abathiæ de Whiteby Ordinis S. Benedicti fundatæ Anno MLXXVIII (The Publications of the Surtees Society, vols. LXIX-LXXII) (Durham; [London]; Edinburgh, 1879-81), vol. II, pp. 726-27.

[2] Charlton, Lionel. The History of Whitby, and of Whitby Abbey. Collected Rom the Original Records of the Abbey, and other Authentic Memoirs, Never Before Made Public. Containing, Not Only the History of Whitby and the Country Adjacent, But also the Original and Antiquity of many Particular Families and Places in other Parts of Yorkshire (York; London; Whitby, 1779), p. 146.

[3] Platt, Colin. The Monastic Grange in Medieval England: a Reassessment (New York, 1969), p. 244.

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