Richard Rolle: The English Writings (CLASSICS OF WESTERN SPIRITUALITY)

The Classics of Western Spirituality

by Richard Rolle, Rosamund S. Allen

This important volume is a modern English translation of Richard Rolle's English writings. Much of the translation is based on Hope Emily Allen's Middle English edition of 1931. It is supplemented by more complete versions of the English Psalter and the Meditations on the Passion.

It aims at a presentation of Rolle in today's language, and for readers with a modern approach to spirituality who are interested in the religious aims and idioms of the past. The book also seeks to convey some of Rolle's religious fervor, and above all the measured cadence of his prose style, placing him within the context of the ideas and language of his own age.

Genres: Religion, Christianity, Spirituality, History

232 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1979

About the author

Richard Rolle (1290/1300 – late September 1349) was an English hermit, mystic, and religious writer. He is also known as Richard Rolle of Hampole or de Hampole, since at the end of his life he lived near a Cistercian nunnery in Hampole, Yorkshire. In the words of Nicholas Watson, scholarly research has shown that "during 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."

Reviews

[Kenneth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Richard Rolle was a 14th century English mystic and hermit who left behind a body of writings in both Middle English and Latin. This volume translates the Middle English ones into modern English. It includes scriptural commentaries on some of the Psalms and the Song of Songs (i.e. the Song of Solomon), and the Ten Commandments. He discusses on how to live the Christian spiritual life. One of the works, "The Form of Living" was written for a nun named Margaret Kirkby and was copied, as were these other works, for other monastics. There survive quite a number of Rolle's writings, both the English and Latin ones, in England and on the European continent, as well as other works by influential writers - think Julian of Norwich, Walter Hilton, the author of "The Cloud of Unknowing", just to name three of the English ones. Recommended to anyone interested in the spiritual/mystical/religious life. For me, this was part of my private Lenten reading this year.

Richard Rolle's dates are ca. 1290/1300 - 1349. He died the year that the bubonic plague -the Black Death - was ravaging Europe and England, but as the translator in her introduction mentions, it's unclear that Richard died of the plague.

[Zuzanna W · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was boring as shit I can't lie