Robin Hood, the noble archer?

    I always wondered why Robin of Locksley, the son of a nobleman, would be so good with a longbow.  Ranged combat was disdained by the European knight.  He certainly didn't pick up the knack while fighting in the Crusades...  Where, then, did the character learn to wield a bow with such ability?  It is this quality, above all others, that is the centerpiece to his persona.  He may have been a fine swordsman, but it's his skill with a bow that set him apart.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/eoskins/6682273899/

    My familiarity with the Robin Hood story originates in the more kiddie friendly forms of his tales.  In the earliest references, Robin Hood is quite clearly portrayed as a yeoman.  The term "yeoman" was used to describe a variety of professions (farmers who owned their land, attendants to nobles, non-noble professional soldiers), but all of them were commoners.  One early tale names the King of Robin's time as Edward, not Richard (as is now common).  The earliest known reference to Robin is in the poem "Piers Plowman" (1377), where a character boasts familiarity with Robin's tales.  Yeah, there have been a couple of changes to the character over time.
    The early rise of the Robin stories coincides with the narrowing of the financial gap between the lesser nobility and the commoners in England during the Hundred Years War.  Various plagues, famines, and military conflicts had put a serious dent in the workforce, increasing the demand (and value) of labor.  The nobles, whose vassals had died off, couldn't very well collect taxes from them were then doubly feeling the pinch.  Nobles were also being regularly called upon to go to war on behalf of their king, which was not an inexpensive exercise (and they pass the taxes on to you, the commoners).  When economic hierarchies break down, social change is in the wind.
    Robin's portrayal as an archer is one of the few constants in all of his stories.  Even if he can be bested with a sword or quarterstaff (and he was), he had no peer with the longbow.  While archers had previously played a part on many battlefields around the world, the longbow did not come into full flower on the European battlefield until Falkirk (1298).  It became the greatest weapon the English had in their wars against the French (and English laws did as much as possible to promote archery practice among the commoners, outlawing many games that interfered with valuable practice time).  English archers were trained professionals on the battlefield, not impressed levies.  The longbow overturned traditional hierarchies on the battlefield, by dropping those big expensive armored targets (and also slaughtering pikemen) at range. Defeating a knight on horseback took either another noble knight, a rank of pikemen, or a single skilled archer.

http://blog.histouries.co.uk/2010/10/12/
a-short-history-of-the-english-longbow/

    Where the longbow came from is a bit of a mystery.  Some suggest that its design (length and materials) was adapted from the Welsh.  The longbow's greatest advantage over it's more widely used cousin, the shortbow, is in range (read: power).  Its advantage over the crossbow (or arbalest) is in rate of fire.  While its ancestry may be somewhat clouded, its effectiveness on the battlefield is unquestioned.  The English Yeomanry (in this usage, professional soldiers), employing the longbow, made a bloody mess of the opposing French Chivalry on many notable occasions.
    Utilizing the longbow as the central image for a commoner who opposes the aristocracy seems pretty damn perfect.  Long before the six-shooter became the image of the American western outlaw, the longbow was evening the odds in Sherwood Forest.  The common people were becoming educated enough to recognize that they were being taken advantage of and began to dream of ways of fighting back.  These feelings manifested in peasant revolts in both England and France on multiple occasions before the end of the Hundred Years War.  Robin's longbow most certainly played a part.


References
general - http://www.boldoutlaw.com/robages/
robin hood wiki - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Hood
history channel - http://www.history.com/topics/british-history/robin-hood
yeoman wiki- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeoman
The Art of War in the Middle Ages Oman, C.W.C. (1885)
Longbow - http://blog.histouries.co.uk/2010/10/12/a-short-history-of-the-english-longbow/