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Joanna H. Drell
ROLLE, RICHARD, OF HAMPOLE
(d. 1349)
Hermit and mystical writer. Little is known of Rolle’s
life, although some facts can be gleaned from the read-
ings of the liturgical offi ce prepared for the possibility
of his canonization, and some conjectures can be made
based on his writings. According to the offi ce he came
from Thornton, near Pickering, in the diocese of York,
and was sent to Oxford with the support of Thomas
Neville, archdeacon of Durham. He left the university
at nineteen, however, and returned home, where he re-
tired to the forest to live as a hermit. Shortly thereafter
he was taken in by John de Dalton, a local squire, and
given an eremitic lodging within Dalton’s household.
This proved inadequate, and he removed to some other
place—apparendy against Dalton’s will. Rolle seems
also at this rime to have been tempted to take a lover
(possibly a real person was involved, or perhaps only
a diabolical apparition) but resisted the temptation by
invoking the precious blood of Jesus.
Rolle’s writings contain a number of passages refer-
ring to criticism, particularly for irregularity in changing
his place of hermitage. However, no record survives
indicating either his formal enclosure as a hermit or
formal proceedings against him. Records of his educa-
tion and possible ordination are similarly lacking. We
do not know when he took up residence at Hampole,
Yorkshire, nor in what relation he stood to the Cister-
cian convent there, in whose cemetery (later church)
he was buried.
Although we have only the vaguest knowledge of his
worldly life, Rolle has left us some clear indications of
the progress of his spiritual development. In the Incen-
dium amoris he describes the reception of the gifts of
“heat, sweetness, and song” that are characteristic of his
spirituality. The fi rst gift he received was that of actual
physical heat warming his breast. At fi rst, he says, he
thought that what he felt was some form of temptation;
but he came to recognize it as corresponding to a second
gift, of sweetness in prayers. Finally, while at prayer in
chapel one day, he heard “as it were a ringing of singers
of psalms, or rather, of songs.” Time and again Rolle
writes of this threefold gift of heat, sweetness, and song
(calor, dulcon, canor).Works
Rolle’s works can be divided into three classes: scrip-
tural commentaries, original mystical treatises, and
lyrical and poetic compositions.
The most important scriptural commentaries are the
Latin and English commentaries on the Psalter; Rolle
also composed Latin commentaries on the fi rst few
verses of the Song of Songs, the fi rst six chapters of the
book of Revelation, and the Lamentations of Jeremiah.
Five other treatises (including, particularly, the Judica
me Deus) also derive their name and form from their
commentary on particular scriptural verses. Another
four commentaries are based on biblical texts used in
the liturgy or on ecclesiastical texts. All of these lesser
commentaries are in Latin. Although the commentaries
are based for the most pan on earlier works in the same
genre (the Psalter commentaries, for example, derive
largely from the “literal” explication in Peter Lombard’s
Commentarium), they also develop a number of themes
characteristic of Rolle’s interests and teaching, such as
devotion to the name of Jesus, and the experience of
heat, sweetness, and song. These works probably derive
from the period of Rolle’s spiritual maturity.
The most important works in Rolle’s canon are his
three great Latin treatises and his four Latin and Eng-
lish epistolary tracts. The fi rst treatise, De amore Dei
contra amatores mundi, compares the eternal joys of the
lover of God with the passing pleasures of this world.
In each of its seven chapters Rolle describes a different
aspect of worldly love and shows how the lovers of thisROGER II