The figure of the jovial
friar was common in the
May Games festivals of England and
Scotland during the 15th to 17th centuries. Friar figures also appear in
morris dances associated with May Day celebrations of the period. By the mid 16th century May Games were becoming increasingly bawdy, and in one play Robin even gives Marian to Friar Tuck as a concubine: "She is a trul of trust, to serue a frier at his lust/a prycker a prauncer a terer of shetes/a wagger of ballockes when other men slepes." His appearance in "Robin Hood and the Sheriff" means that he was already part of the legend around the time when the earliest surviving copies of the Robin Hood ballads were being made. A friar with Robin's band in the historical period of
Richard the Lion-Hearted would have been unlikely as the period predates formal
mendicant orders in England. Nonetheless, hermits in England date as far back as
Cuthbert in the late 7th century, and
monasticism was present as early as the 5th century. In addition, multiple historical references to hermits unallied with formal orders have been noted, among them
Eustace the Monk (a medieval outlaw) and
Robert of Knaresborough who was a contemporary of Richard I. However, the association of Robin Hood with Richard I was not made until the 16th century; the early ballad "
A Gest of Robin Hood" names his king as "Edward". What follows is a
story which includes different versions of the
legend. He was a former
monk of
Fountains Abbey (or in some cases,
St Mary's Abbey in
York, which is also the scene of some other Robin Hood tales) who was expelled by his
order because of his lack of respect for
authority. Because of this, and in spite of his taste for good food and wine, he became the chaplain of Robin's band. In
Howard Pyle's
The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, he was specifically sought out as part of the tale of
Alan-a-Dale: Robin has need of a priest who will marry Allan to his sweetheart in defiance of the
Bishop of Hereford. In many tales, from
Robin Hood and the Curtal Friar to
The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, his first encounter with Robin results in a battle of
wits in which first one and then the other gains the upper hand and forces the other to carry him across a river. This ends with the Friar tossing Robin into the river. In some tales, he is depicted as a physically fit man and a skilled
swordsman and
archer with a hot-headed
temper. However, most commonly, Tuck is depicted as a
fat,
balding monk with a good sense of humour and a great love of food and
ale, often together. Sometimes, the latter depiction of Tuck is the
comic relief of the tale. Two royal writs in 1417 refer to Robert Stafford, a
Sussex chaplain who had assumed the alias of Frere Tuk. This "Friar Tuck" was still at large in 1429. These are the earliest surviving references to a character by that name. ==Portrayals in other media==