O U T L A W S

The term, Outlaw, is from "olde English" and means one who is put out of the protection or aid of the law. A person who is in contempt of authority by refusing to become amenable to a court's jurisdiction. The court proceedings themselves are called Outlawry. Outlawry may take place in criminal or in civil cases. In the United States, Outlawry in civil cases is unknown, and if there are any criminal cases of Outlawry, they are very rare.

Our founder, Robin Hood, was a legendary hero of 12th-century England who fought the sheriff and the the rich nobles to help the poor. Chivalrous, manly, fair, and always ready for a joke, Robin Hood reflected many of the ideals of the English yeoman. He lived in Sherwood Forest with Little John (his chief archer), Friar Tuck, Maid Marion (his beloved), and his band. Robin Hood was the hero of at least 30 Middle English ballads and of many later stories and plays. He is mentioned in such diverse works as Piers Plowman, Ivanhoe (1820) by Sir Walter Scott, and The Once and Future King (1958) by T. H. White.

The legend of Robin Hood has been going strong for over 800 years. And in that time, Robin Hood has been yeoman, knight and earl. He's been a courteous robber, a brigand and brawler, a medieval revolutionary. The story of Robin Hood and his merry men refers to him as a wolf's-head. "Wolf's-head" is the old popular term for an Outlaw. Outlaws were just that, outside the law and its protection; they could be hunted by anyone. Wolves, menaces to livestock, could also be hunted by anyone. So when an authority figure, like the sheriff, wanted to get everyone to hunt down an Outlaw he'd yell "Wolf's-head!" Later the term went from being the call for action to being a nickname for Outlaws.

Robin Hood was the legendary Outlaw hero of a series of English ballads, some of which date from at least as early as the 14th century. Robin Hood was a rebel, and many of the most striking episodes in the tales about him show him and his companions robbing and killing representatives of authority and giving the gains to the poor. Their most frequent enemy was the Sheriff of Nottingham, a local agent of the central government (though internal evidence from the early ballads makes it clear that the action took place chiefly in south York shire, not in Nottingham shire. Other enemies included wealthy ecclesiastical landowners.

Robin always treated women, the poor, and people of humble status with courtesy and respect. A good deal of the impetus for his revolt against authority stemmed from popular resentment, by the people, over those laws of the forest that restricted hunting rights. The early ballads, especially, reveal the government's cruelty that was an inescapable part of medieval life.

Numerous attempts have been made to prove that there was a historical Robin Hood, though references to the legend by medieval writers make it clear that the ballads themselves were the only evidence for his existence available to them. A popular modern belief that he was of the time of Richard I probably stems from a "pedigree" fabricated by an 18th-century antiquary, William Stukeley. None of the various claims identifying Robin Hood with a particular historical figure has gained much support, and the Outlaw's existence may never have been anything but legendary.

The authentic Robin Hood ballads were the poetic expression of popular aspirations in the north of England during a turbulent era of baronial rebellions and agrarian discontent, which culminated in the Peasants' Revolt of 1381. The theme of the free but persecuted Outlaw enjoying the forbidden hunting of the forest and outwitting or killing the forces of law and order naturally appealed to the common people.

Although many of the best-known Robin Hood ballads are post medieval, there is a core that can be confidently attributed to the medieval period. These are Robin Hood and the Monk, Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne, Robin Hood and the Potter, and the Lytyll Geste of Robin Hode. During the 16th century and later, the essential character of the legend was distorted by a suggestion that Robin was a fallen nobleman, and playwrights, eagerly adopting this new element, increased the romantic appeal of the stories but deprived them of their social bite. post medieval ballads (which gave Robin a companion, Maid Marian) also lost most of their vitality and poetic value, doubtless as a result of losing the original social impulse that brought them into existence.

The wild west cowboy Outlaw era most portrayed in the movies was between 1860 and 1900, with the primary focus after the end of the civil war. The Outlaw stereotype was made up from drifters and cow pokes with a hankering to live life to the fullest … without respect for the law - often proclaimed only by the will of one man courts, such as "Judge Roy Bean" shown here in the large white sombrero, wearing a sixgun and sitting on a whiskey barrel. He is surrounded and protected by his hand picked "law men", exactly the same as most modern judges today.

The frontier figure "Judge Bean" lived from 1825–1903. He was born in Mason County, Kentucky. He left Kentucky for California in 1847, and seems to have spent the next 15 years in such enterprises as gold seeking and cattle rustling. He joined a band of Confederate irregulars during the Civil War and then followed the railroad construction crews as a saloonkeeper and gambler. In 1882 he settled in the Texas camp of Vinegaroon; he had it renamed Langtry after his idol, the English actress Lillie Langtry, then set himself up as justice of the peace, "the law west of the Pecos.' Holding court in his saloon, "The Jersey Lily,' he often used his six-shooter to enforce his notion of justice. In 1898 he gained national attention for staging a boxing match on a sand bar in the middle of the Rio Grande (to avoid the ban on boxing in Texas), featuring the heavyweight champion, Bob Fitzsimmons.

Many of the Outlaw types were left overs from the famous Cantrel’s Raiders an elite guerrilla group dedicated to robbing the trains and supply lines of the Union army. Trained as thieves, and using hit and run tactics, to grab money and supplies for the starving and dilapidated Confederate Army, this way of life became natural for these "loose canons". When the war came to an end they continued on with the only way of life they knew. Just walk right in, point your sidearm and demand what ever you wanted, it was so easy. Most towns did not have a Sheriff, and in the towns that did, he was often corrupt, bought and paid for by the richest man in the county (some things never change).

There was no such thing as fair and impartial law then,   and there still isn't.

All people who live subject to other people's laws are victims. People who break laws out of greed, frustration, ignorance or vengeance are victims. People who overturn laws in order to replace them with their own laws are victims. Think about this the next time you break the law, even a minor law like speeding.

Outlaws, however, live beyond the law. They don't merely live beyond the letter of the law, They live beyond the spirit of the law. In a sense, then, they live beyond society and have a common goal, that goal is to turn the tables on the boundaries of society. Outlaws always push the limits and are the first to step over the lines.

When they succeed, they raise the exhilaration of the universe. They even raise it a little bit when they fail. The most important thing is that they keep trying to live free.

We revere the mythos of the Outlaw, the self-conscious romanticism, all Outlaws are photogenic. We like the Outlaw's smirk and the black wardrobe of the Outlaw. We enjoy the song that is playing, "The Highway Men".

We cherish the way respectable men sneer, and the way young women tremble, when they say "Outlaw."

"When freedom is Outlawed, only Outlaws will be free". The Outlaw lives as if that day were here. We effect the attitude of the Outlaw.

Unwilling to wait for mankind to improve, the Outlaw's boat always sails against the flow of the tide. Criminals, because they're plagued with guilt, will surrender and go quietly.

Outlaws, because they are pure, will never surrender.