Richard Rolle

Mystical Experiences

It was probably while still living with Dalton, two years and eight months after becoming a hermit, Rolle had his first mystical experience. Around a year later, he felt similarly after listening to a choir, and he began to take less interest in all things temporal.

Dalton himself was arrested and his lands confiscated in 1322; the lack of mention of this fact in accounts of Rolle's life makes it likely that he was no longer living with Dalton by this point.

It is unclear where Rolle lived from 1321/2 until his death in 1349. One theory is that Rolle spent the early 1320s at the renowned Sorbonne, becoming well-trained in theology, and perhaps being ordained there. This theory is based on the entries in three seventeenth-century manuscripts at the Sorbonne, assumed to be copies of medieval originals, which record a Ricardus de Hampole as being admitted to the Sorbonne in 1320, entering the prior's register in 1326, and noting that he died in 1349 among the sisters of Hampole near Doncaster in Yorkshire. Scholars, however, are divided on the authenticity of this material. Whether or not Rolle studied in Paris, it is probable that most if not all of this time was spent in Richmondshire, either living with his family at Yafforth, or, given the uncertain political conditions in the region at the time, wandering from patron to patron.

Rolle's Disciples

Around 1348, Rolle knew the Yorkshire anchoress Margaret Kirkby, who was his principal disciple and the recipient of much of his writings and would be important in establishing his later reputation.

Death

Rolle died in Michaelmas 1349 at the Cistercian nunnery at Hampole. Because of his time spent there, he is sometimes known as Richard Rolle of Hampole, or de Hampole. It is not known what his role there was. However he wrote The Form of Living and his English Psalter for a nun there, Margaret Kirkby (who later took up a similar life to Rolle, as an anchoress), and Ego Dormio for a nun at Yedingham. It is possible that he died of the Black Death, but there is no direct evidence for this. He was buried first in the nuns' cemetery at Hampole. Later records of people making offerings of candles at his shrine show that he was moved first to the chancel and then to his own chapel.

Later reputation and veneration

Richard Rolle inspired a flourishing cult, especially in the north of England, which was still active at the time of the English Reformation. Part of this may have been due to the efforts of Margaret Kirkby, who moved to the priory, probably between 1381 and 1383, to be near the body of her master, Rolle. Margaret may have spent the last 10 years of her life here, and between 1381 and 1383 a liturgical office for Rolle, including a great deal of biographical information about him, was written; it likely includes stories about him remembered by older members of the community.

Rolle's works were widely read in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, more so even than Chaucer. In the words of Nicholas Watson, scholarly research has shown that "[d]uring the fifteenth century he was one of the most widely read of English writers, whose works survive in nearly four hundred English ... and at least seventy Continental manuscripts, almost all written between 1390 and 1500." Works of his survive in about 470 manuscripts written between 1390 and 1500, and in 10 sixteenth- and early-seventeenth-century printed editions (including the sixteenth-century edition by Wynkyn de Worde). In some manuscripts, Rolle's Commentary on the Psalter is interpolated with Lollard teaching, providing indications of one group who read his work. Rolle's work was not uncontroversial. He was criticised by Walter Hilton and the author of The Cloud of Unknowing; a defence of Rolle's work was written by the hermit Thomas Basset in the late fourteenth century against the attack of an unnamed Carthusian. He was defended by various religious figures, however (one of whom compared his accounts of mystical experience to those of the German Henry Suso), and the Incendium Amoris or Fire of Love is mentioned as one of the books Margery Kempe had a priest read aloud to her to increase her devotion.

The shrine and priory at his burial place of Hampole was dissolved on 19 November 1539. The remains can be seen in an old schoolhouse in Hampole.

Rolle is remembered in the Church of England with a commemoration on 20 January and in the Episcopal Church (USA) together with Walter Hilton and Margery Kempe on 9 November. He is also venerated as a blessed by the Catholic Church on 29 September, however his cult is little known outside England.

Modern editions and translations

• Andrew Albin, Richard Rolle's Melody of Love: A Study and Translation, with Manuscript and Musical Contexts, (Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2018): contains an alliterative English translation of the Melos amoris, plus a spurious chapter, manuscript marginalia, and associated music; see also the companion website
• Frances Comper, The Life of Richard Rolle, (J. M. Dent, 1928) [Contains an English translation of the Office for Rolle on pp. 301–11. The original Latin text of the Office is in Reginald M. Wooley, The Officium et Miracula of Richard Rolle of Hampole (SPCK, 1919).]
• English Writings of Richard Rolle Hermit of Hampole, ed. Hope Emily Allen (1931)
• The Contra amatores mundi of Richard Rolle of Hampole, introduced and trans. Paul F. Theiner, (University of California Press, 1968) [translation into English, alongside Latin text, of Liber de amore Dei contra amatores mundi]
• Le Chant d'Amour (Melos Amoris), ed. Francois Vandenbroucke, (Cerf, 1971) [This uses the Latin text of the edition of E. J. F. Arnould (1957), alongside a parallel French translation.]
• The Fire of Love, trans. Clifton Wolters, (Penguin, 1972)
• Biblical commentaries: Short exposition of Psalm 20, Treatise on the Twentieth Psalm, Comment on the first verses of the Canticle of Canticles, Commentary on the Apocalypse, trans. Robert Boenig, (Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, Universität Salzburg, 1984)
• Richard Rolle, the English writings, trans., ed., and introduced by Rosamund Allen. Classics of Western Spirituality, (Paulist Press / SPCK, 1988) [includes modern translations of The English Psalter and Commentary, The Ten Commandments, Meditations on the Passion, Ghostly Gladness, The Bee and the Stork, Desire and Delight, Ego Dormio, The Commandment, and The Form of Living]
• Richard Rolle: Prose and Verse, ed. S.J. Ogilvie-Thomson, Early English Text Society 293, (Oxford: OUP, 1988) [This is the standard modern edition of many of Rolle's Middle English works, with the important exception of the English Psalter.]
• Malcolm Robert Moyses, Richard Rolle's Expositio super novem lectiones mortuorum, 2 vols, (Salzburg, 1988)
• The tractatus super psalmum vicesimum of Richard Rolle of Hampole, ed. and trans. James C. Dolan, (Edwin Mellen Press, 1991)
• Richard Rolle: Emendatio Vitae. Orationes ad honorem nominis Ihesu, ed. Nicholas Watson, (PIMS, 1995) [the Latin text of Emendatio Vitae]
• Richard Rolle: Uncollected Prose and Verse with related Northern text, ed. by Ralph Hanna for the Early English Text Society, (Oxford University Press, 2008)
• Richard Rolle: Unprinted Latin Writings, ed. Ralph Hanna (Liverpool University Press, 2020)
• Spahl, Rüdiger, ed., De emendatione vitae. Eine kritische Ausgabe des lateinischen Textes von Richard Rolle mit einer Übersetzung ins Deutsche und Untersuchungen zu den lateinischen und englischen Handschriften (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2009). [critical edition of the Emendatio Vitae]
• Hudson, Anne, ed., Two Revised Versions of Rolle's English Psalter Commentary and the related Canticles, vols. 1–3, ISBN 9780199669202. Early English Text Society, o.s. 341-3 (Oxford University Press, 2012–4)
• Van Dussen, Michael, ed. Richard Rolle: On Lamentations. A Critical Edition with Translation and Commentary. Exeter Medieval Texts and Studies (Liverpool University Press, 2020)