Phlebotomy

So for one reason or another, I ended up reading about phlebotomy/blood letting this week which in turn led me to the unfortunate phlebotomisation of Robin Hood. This one comes from Child’s edition of folk tales and I’ve abridged the original to keep to the pertinent bits:

Disney's Robin Hood

 ‘I will neuer eate oor drinke,’ Robin Hood said,

‘Nor meate will doo me noe good,

Till I haue beene at merry Churchlees,

My vaines for to let blood.’

Will Scarlet and Little John ride off with Robin looking for Churchlees/Kirklees:

They two bolde children shotten together,

All day theire selfe in ranke,

Vntill they came to blacke water,

And over it laid a planke.

Upon it there kneeled an old woman,

Was banning* Robin Hoode;

‘Why dost thou bann Robin Hoode?’ said Robin,

 ‘To giue to Robin Hoode;

Wee weepen for his deare body,

That this day must be lett bloode.’

 ‘The dame prior is my aunts daughter,

And nie vnto my kinne;

I know shee wold me noe harme this day,

For all the world to winne.’

*banning may be cursing, or lamenting an approaching death

They make their way to Churchlees/Kirklees eventually and give the prioress “Twenty pound in gold”

 And downe then came dame prioresse,

Downe she came in that ilke,

With a pair off blood-irons in her hands,

Were wrapped all in silke.

‘Sett a chaffing-dish to the fyer,’ said dame prioresse,

‘And stripp thou vp thy sleeue:’

I hold him but an vnwise man

That will noe warning leeve.

Shee laid the blood-irons to Robin Hoods vaine,

Alacke, the more pitye!

And pearct the vaine, and let out the bloode,

That full red was to see.

  

And first it bled, the thicke, thicke bloode,

And afterwards the thinne,

And well then wist good Robin Hoode

Treason there was within.

Red Roger then enters and tries to kill the weakened Robin. Little John takes the treachery badly:

‘Now giue me leaue, giue me leaue, master,’ he said,

‘For Christs loue giue leaue to me,

To set a fier within this hall,

And to burne vp all Churchlee.’

But Robin stays his hand and he goes to die quietly in “yonder streete” with his “bright sword “ at his head, his “yew-bow” by his side and his arrows at his feet.

This is already quite a wordy post so I praise you for making it this far. The points I’d like to raise at this point for the uninitiated are that blood-letting was a generally practiced medical technique up until really quite recently. It was practiced at set points throughout the year amongst religious communities and in part recreated the phlebotomisation of Christ on the cross. 

When visiting Valmont in 1259, bishop Eudes comments on the monks saying:

“some of them  had themselves bled without the abbot’s permission; we advised them to determine amongst themselves at what periods of the year and how often it should be permitted to anyone to undergo bleeding”

While the late eleventh century constitutions of Archbishop Lanfranc state:

“Permission for being bled is at all seasons to be sought…[and] the hour for blood-letting in winter is after the gospel of High Mass; in summer after None and before Vespers; in Lent after Vespers. When those to be bled have put on their night shoes and come to the place allotted for the purpose, they shall turn to the east and make a double obeisance…” 

Some more liturgy follows before they remove their tunics and, in silence, are bled. 

All terribly ritualised, and very important, which makes the prioress’s betrayal of Robin all the more dramatic which was no doubt its intended purpose (I’m intentionally omitting the academic debate over this, as well as the different editions of Robin’s death). 

Notes

Knowles, D., ed., The monastic constitutions of Lanfranc (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd, 1951) pp. 92-94

Rawcliffe, C., 'On the threshold of eternity: Care for the sick in East Anglian monasteries', in East Anglia's History: Studies in honour of Norman Scarfe, ed. by C. Harper-Bill, Rawcliffe, C., and Wilson, R. (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2002)

The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, ed. F. Child, 5 vols, (New York: 1957) no. 120a

'The Register of Eudes Rigaud', ed. by J. O'Sullivan (London: Columbia University Press) p. 402