It probably is one of many performed by wandering jongleurs catering to the tastes and theme of market days and fairs.
This means it is the oldest to survive in written form, but is very probably part of a much older oral tradition.
This "trickster is tricked" theme, and that of the cuckolded husband, were the main preoccupations of the medieval farceur.
The play is in many respects identical to the first chapter of The Life of Lazarillo de Tormes, a picaresque novel published anonymously in Spain in 1554.
The play may have served as source material for the book, or both may have emerged from a common folktale.