of Richard's biography. The ‘office’ is printed in the York Breviary (Surtees Soc. vol. ii. app. v.), and from the Thornton MS. in Lincoln Cathedral Library, by Canon Perry in his edition of Rolle's ‘English Prose Treatises’ (1866).
Rolle represented a revolt against many of the conventional views of religion in his day. He was a voluminous writer of devotional treatises or paraphrases of scripture. In his literary work he exalted the contemplative life, denounced vice and worldliness, and indulged in much mystical rhapsodising. But he was by no means wholly unpractical in his methods of seeking to rouse in his countrymen an active religious sense. He addressed them frequently in their own language. As a translator of portions of the bible into English—the Psalms, extracts from Job and Jeremiah—he deserves some of the fame subsequently acquired by Wiclif. While he was well read in patristic literature, he had no sympathies with the subtleties of the schoolmen; and when commenting on scripture avoided any mere scholastic interpretation, although he often digressed into mysticism of an original type. His popularity was so great that in after times ‘evil men of Lollardry,’ as they are described in the rhyming preface to his version of the Psalms, endeavoured to tamper with his writings, with the view of putting forth his authority for their views. Therefore the nuns of the Hampole convent kept genuine copies in ‘chain bonds’ at their house.
Rolle wrote in both Latin and English. His English works were written in a vigorous Northumbrian dialect, but they won immediate popularity all over England, and his dialectical peculiarities were modified or wholly removed in the numerous copies made in southern England. Many of his Latin works he himself or his disciples translated into English. With regard to the treatises which exist in both Latin and English versions, it is often difficult to determine for which version Rolle was personally responsible. Two of Rolle's Latin ethical treatises, ‘De Emendatione Vitæ’ and ‘De Incendio Amoris,’ seem best known in English translations made by Richard Misyn in 1434 and 1435 respectively [see Misyn, Richard]. The English versions have been published by the Early English Text Society (1896). A great part of his literary remains is still unpublished. Manuscripts of his works are numerous in all public libraries—fifty-four are in the Bodleian Library, forty-nine are in the British Museum, and forty-four in the Cambridge University Library. Of his English paraphrases of scriptures only those of the Psalms have been printed. His rendering of Job in English verse, entitled ‘The IX lessons of the diryge whych Job made in hys trybulacyon … clepyd Pety Job,’ remains in Harl. MS. 1706 (art. 5)—a volume containing many other of Rolle's tracts. An English verse paraphrase of the Lord's Prayer, assigned by Ritson to Rolle, is in Harl. MS. 435.
Of Rolle's English works, two prose treatises were printed by Wynkyn de Worde in a single volume in 1506, 4to, viz. ‘Rycharde Rolle Hermyte of Hampull in his contemplacyons of the drede and loue of God with other dyuerse tytles as it sheweth in his table,’ and ‘The remedy ayenst the troubles of temptacyons’ (Brit. Mus.). The latter was also reissued by Wynkyn de Worde in 1508, 4to (an imperfect copy on vellum is in the British Museum); and again by Wynkyn de Worde in 1519, 4to (the copy of this edition in the British Museum is perfect, and is said to be unique).
Rolle's chief English work long remained in manuscript. It is the religious poem called the ‘Pricke of Conscience.’ This, he tells us, was written in English for the instruction of those who knew no Latin. Lydgate in his ‘Bochas’ (f. 217 b) mentions how
In perfit living, which passeth poysie,
Richard hermite, contemplative of sentence,
Drough in Englishe ‘the prick of conscience.’
Rolle's poem consists of a prologue and seven books, treating respectively of the beginning of man's life, the unstableness of this world, death and why death is to be dreaded, purgatory, doomsday, the pains of hell and joys of heaven. Human nature is treated as contemptible, and asceticism is powerfully enjoined on the reader. The style is vigorous; the versification is rough. It is written throughout in rhyming couplets, the syllables of each verse varying in number from eight to twelve, although never more than four are accented. The lines reach a total of 9,624. Rolle quotes freely from the scriptures and the fathers, and shows himself acquainted with Innocent III's ‘De Contemptu Mundi;’ Bartholomew Glanville's ‘De Proprietatibus Rerum;’ the ‘Compendium Theologicæ Veritatis;’ and the ‘Elucidarium’ of Honorius Augustodunensis. In title and subject, although not in treatment, the work resembles the English prose treatise, the ‘Ayenbite of Inwyt’ (i.e. the ‘Remorse of Conscience’), which Dan Michel of Northgate translated in 1340 into the Kentish dialect from the French (‘Le Somme des Vices et des Vertus,’ written by Frère Lorens in 1279). Rolle's poem was freely quoted by Warton in his
