The Monk

The Meddling Monk, or simply the Monk, was the first other known member of the Doctor's race apart from Susan to be encountered by him in his travels. The Monk was the possessor of a Mark IV TARDIS and said he left the Doctor's (then unnamed) home planet some fifty years after the Doctor did.

He liked to meddle in history and to change it for his own amusement and for what he considered to be the better &mdash; lending mechanical assistance to the builders of Stonehenge; giving Leonardo da Vinci tips on aircraft design; and, when the Doctor first encountered him, attempting to prevent the Norman Conquest as part of a plan to guide England into an early age of technological prosperity. On that occasion he wore the guise of a monk in order to gain the trust of the 11th century locals, hence the name by which he is most often referred.

Unlike the Doctor's other Time Lord adversaries, such as the Master, the Monk was a well-meaning but childish man who was not half as clever as he thought he was, and who never seemed to realise the seriousness of what he was doing.

During the events of The End of the World the Doctor stated that his homeworld had been destroyed and that he was the last of the Time Lords. Whether the Monk was present on Gallifrey and killed with the others is uncertain.

The Expanded Universe

 * For some time, there was speculation that the Monk was actually an earlier regeneration of the Master or the War Chief. However, this theory has been contradicted by records of the Doctor's other encounters with the Monk.


 * The Monk once teamed up with the Ice Warriors in a complex plan to build a giant sonic weapon. In this portrayal, the character (who piloted a TARDIS also shaped like a police box) did not wear a monk's habit, and was referred to as "the Time-Meddler"; however, it was clearly the same person.  The Monk was easily defeated by the Fifth Doctor ("4-Dimensional Vistas").


 * The Seventh Doctor for a time encountered various alternate realities that have been created due to the Monk's meddling with time. During these events the Monk's actual name was revealed to be Mortimus. ("No Future")


 * The young Mortimus was a friend of the Doctor's, and a member of a cabal of rebellious young Gallifreyans at the Academy known as "the Deca". The group also included the Doctor, the Master, the Rani, Azmael, the War Chief and Drax. ("Divided Loyalties")