[2] In the song, Robin Hood and some of his men, disguised as shepherds, poach a deer in an area where they know the Bishop of Hereford will pass through.
[6] Scholar Stephen Knight notes that there are multiple historical Bishops of Hereford who have been suggested as a model for the character in the ballads.
As the ballad identifies the sitting king as Richard, the contemporary bishop William de Vere, in office from 1186 until his death in 1198, has also been suggested, but Knight regards this as unlikely.
[7][8] The Bishop of Hereford appears in Howard Pyle's influential children's book The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood (1883), based on the medieval ballads.
The Hereford Bishop appears in the anime series Robin Hood no Daibōken voiced by Yuu Shimaka, and is portrayed as a greedy bishop of Nottingham and ally to Baron Alwyn (the main antagonist) who desires Marian Lancaster for the Lancaster's wealth; however, he later betrays the Baron near the end and joins with Robin and his friends to overthrow his unstable leader.