Richard Rolle The English Writings

This volume includes a translation of the major prose works, several of the ascribed lyrics and a selection of the commentaries written in English by this fourteenth-century (c. 1300-1349) English mystical writer and hermit.

This book explores the fifteenth-century translations of Richard Rolle's Latin and English writings into English and Latin, respectively, raising questions about the impact of translation on an author's legacy through the editorial activity of his translators. The volume also discusses Rolle's sensory mysticism--which was criticized by the ensuing generation of mystics--whilst looking into the ways in which translations of his work create a fifteenth-century version of Rolle. While the fifteenth-century translations did not represent the standard means of shaping Rolle's authority, this study illustrates individual encounters with Rolle's writings in which interpretation was much more overt than in the devotional reuse of untranslated Rollean material. The volume asks if alternative and perhaps controversial portraits of the same author arise from the translations. Richard Rolle has received many, often conflicting, labels in scholarship: the father of English prose, the first medieval English author, the first known mystic of English literature, the runaway Oxford man, the non-conformist hermit, and the misogynist. This book is located in the context of the late medieval censorship culture which inevitably impacted the translators' treatment of authority, revelatory writing, and theological speculations. The analysis of Rolle in translation highlights the various meanings, practices, and implications of translation in the fifteenth century.

This book considers the place of deification in the writings of Julian of Norwich and Richard Rolle, two of the fourteenth-century English Mystics. It argues that, as a consequence of a belief in deification, both produce writing that is helpfully viewed as sacred eloquence. The book begins by discussing the nature of deification, employing Norman Russell’s typology. It explores the realistic and ethical approaches found in the writings of several Early Greek Fathers, including Irenaeus of Lyons, Cyril of Alexandria, Origen, and Evagrius Ponticus, as well as engaging with the debate around whether deification is a theological idea found in the West across its history. The book then turns its attention to Julian and Rolle, arguing that both promote forms of deification: Rolle offering a primarily ethical approach, while Julian’s approach is more realistic. Finally, the book addresses the issue of sacred eloquence, arguing that both Rolle and Julian, in some sense, view their words as divinely inspired in ways that demand an exegetical response that is para-biblical. Offering an important perspective on a previously understudied area of mysticism and deification, this book will be of interest to scholars of mysticism, theology, and Middle English religious literature.