MAYBE Bernard Madoff is just a modern-day Robin Hood.
Let’s put that differently. Maybe Robin Hood was just an old-time Bernard Madoff.
Some new evidence points that way.
A British academic has run across a note in a very old history book — Ranulf Higden’s “Polychronicon,” that attempts to cover the history of the world from the creation to 1357. Julian Luxford was examining a copy in the library at Eton College and found a note in Latin on one page. The note was written by a monk around 1460. Translated, it read:
“Around this time, according to popular opinion, a certain outlaw named Robin Hood, with his accomplices, infested Sherwood and other law-abiding areas of England with continuous robberies.”
Perhaps Robin was not robbing from the rich and giving to the poor. He could have been robbing from both and living high on the proceeds. That behavior would be more in keeping with the general run of outlaws through history.
But it’s a bit late for the monk’s version of the Merry Men to get much traction. Centuries of gilded legends and decades of swashbuckling movie portrayals by Errol Flynn, Sean Connery and Kevin Costner have set the image of the medieval bandit firmly in the hero column for modern folks.
Still, there is a chance for the revisionists to have their say. Director Ridley Scott is at work on a new film about Robin Hood. Russell Crowe has been signed to play Robin, and Cate Blanchett will play Maid Marian. The film trade papers say that Crowe was originally going to play the Sheriff of Nottingham, who would have been the hero.
Scott could still go back to his original concept. Who would play Robin Hood?
How about Al Pacino?
Patrick S. Kelley
Editorial Page Editor