Before we can analyse how deception was used in medieval warfare, we must establish the cultural framework within which the combatants operated: the social values by which they and contemporaries judged their conduct. It is also necessary to understand how our sources were written, what the authors and their audience expected from a narrative history and particularly a history of war. As noted above, medieval chronicles are often far removed from our notions of impartial reporting. They are conscious literary constructions, drawing on over a thousand years of Classical and medieval writing. Each chronicle author had their own agenda and nuances that influenced how they depicted warfare.

Foxy Outlaws and Outlaw Foxes: Trickery in Medieval Literature

We begin by noting that one of the most enduring and recognisable images of the European Middle Ages is a trickster figure: Robin Hood, the greenwood outlaw who uses his cunning as often as his bow and arrow to resist the Sheriff of Nottingham. Modern audiences are familiar with Errol Flynn leading his men into Nottingham Castle disguised as monks (1938, dir. Michael Curtiz and William Keighley) and Kevin Costner's band emerging from foxholes to ambush wagonloads of ill-gotten tax money (1991, dir. Kevin Reynolds). This use of deception reflects the original fifteenth-century ballads. In Robin Hood and the Potter, after losing a fight with the titular potter, Robin exchanges clothes with him and uses the disguise to work his way into the Sheriff's confidence. Similarly, in Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne, having killed Gisborne and mutilated his severed head, Robin dresses himself in Gisborne's clothes and passes his enemy's head off as his own in order to rescue Little John.

Although these ballads were likely composed much later than the period studied in this volume, similar tales of forest-dwelling outlaws have survived from the central Middle Ages. The infamous pirate Eustace Busquet (d. 1217) was portrayed as a cunning anti-hero in the thirteenth-century Old French poem Li Romans de Witasse le moine, fighting against the unjust count of Boulogne from his refuge in Hardelot Forest. He adopts many disguises, including a shepherd, a carpenter, a pastry cook, a prostitute and a potter.