Richard Rolle (c. 1290–1349), the “Hermit of Hampole,” near Doncaster, was born at Thornton in Yorkshire, and was sent to Oxford, but from nineteen devoted himself to asceticism. He wrote religious books and rendered the Psalms into English prose. His great work is “The Pricke of Conscience” (Stimulus Conscientiæ), a poem written both in English and in Latin, on the instability of life, death, purgatory, doomsday, the pains of hell, and the joys of heaven (ed. by Morris, Philolog. Soc. 1863). Some of his prose pieces were edited by Perry in 1866; others Dr. Carl Horstmann in 1894–96.

  Richard Role, alias Hampole, had his first Name from his Father, the other from the place (three Miles from Doncaster) where living he was honoured, and dead was buried and sainted. He was an Heremite, led a strict life, and wrote many Books of Piety, which I prefer before his Propheticall Predictions, as but a degree above Almanack Prognostications. He threatened the Sins of the Nation with future Famine, Plague, Inundations, War, and such general Calamities, from which no Land is long free, but subject to them in some proportion. Besides, his Predictions, if hitting, were heeded: if missing, not marked. However, because it becomes me not ἁγιομαχεῑυ, let him pass for a Saint. I will adde, that our Saviour’s Dilemma to the Jews may partly be pressed on the Papists his Contemporaries. If Hampole’s Doctrine was of Men, why was he generally reputed a Saint; if from God, why did they not obey him, seeing he spake much against the viciousness and covetousness of the Clergy of that Age?

  His Latin theological tracts, both in prose and verse, are numerous; in which Leland justly thinks he has displayed more erudition than eloquence. His principal pieces of English rhyme are a Paraphrase of part of the book of Job, of the Lord’s prayer, of the seven penitential psalms, and the “Pricke of Conscience.” But our hermit’s poetry, which indeed from these titles promises but little entertainment, has no tincture of sentiment, imagination, or elegance.

  The penitential psalms and theological tracts of a hermit were not likely to enrich or improve the style of our poetry; and they are accordingly confessed, by those who have read them, to be very dull. His name challenges notice, only from the paucity of contemporary writers.

  Hampole commands a large vocabulary, from which he draws with lavish hand. He likes to mass synonyms, and does not hesitate to repeat words and turns of expression; nor does he in general proceed with pedantic uniformity, but occasionally looks forward and backward. Making no æsthetic claims, with only the desire to instruct and edify, striving only to make what is black, right black, and what is bright, very brilliant, he has, nevertheless, produced many very effective passages. His verses are flowing, but unlike most northern poets, he does not trouble himself at all about the number of syllables. The verses of his short couplets have always four accents, but often more than four unemphatic syllables. This, too, is characteristic of the man, who was indifferent to external symmetry. All in all, Hampole is the most notable English religious writer of the first half of the fourteenth century, and he had a corresponding influence upon later religious literature, especially that of the fifteenth century.

  Noticeable for his English and Latin compositions, in prose and verse, and still more so by his character. He is the first on the list of those lay preachers, of whom England has produced a number, whom an inward crisis brought back to God, and who roamed about the country as volunteer apostles, converting the simple, edifying the wise, and, alas! affording cause for laughter to the wicked. They are taken by good folks for saints, and for madmen by sceptics: such was the fate of Richard Rolle, of George Fox, of Bunyan, and of Wesley…. Rolle of Hampole is, if we except the doubtful case of the “Ancren Riwle,” the first English prose writer after the Conquest who can pretend to the title of original author. To find him we have had to come far into the fourteenth century. When he died, in 1349, Chaucer was about ten years of age and Wyclif thirty.

  Richard Rolle was one of the most remarkable men of his time—yea, of history. It is a strange and not very creditable fact that one of the greatest of Englishmen has hitherto been doomed to oblivion. In other cases the human beast first crucifies and then glorifies or deifies the nobler minds who, swayed by the Spirit, do not live as others live, in quest of higher ideals by which to benefit the race. He, one of the noblest champions of humanity—a hero, a saint, a martyr in this cause—has never had his resurrection yet.

  Though not “the father of English literature,” yet Richard Rolle may have influenced both prose and verse, as every skilled and popular writer must do. There is, however, nothing to show that he formed or modified it to any great extent. He was not a man of letters, like Spenser, striving to mould or polish a rugged speech. He used it as he found it. In his poetry it is improbable that he introduced any new measure or metre. To have done so would have frustrated his purpose. He wished to popularize sacred poetry, in order to banish profane love-songs.

  For the attribution to him of the revival of strictly alliterative verse there is little if any more warrant than for the ascription to him of the invention of the heroic. We can at the most (and also at the least) allow that this revival was a very reasonable consequence of the increased stimulus to literary composition in the North—always fonder of alliterative rhythm, and more rebel to strict metrical ways, than the South—of which he certainly was one of the lights and leaders.