Richard Rolle, better known from the place of his death and burial as Hampole, was a famous preacher and highly venerated hermit in Yorkshire, during the former half of the fourteenth century.
The day of his death seems to be clearly fixed to September 29, 1349.
The day appropriated to his memory was January 20.
An office was drawn up for this Festival, probably under the direction of the nuns of Hampole, in anticipation of his Canonization: the Lessons of which furnish the fullest and most authentic record of his life and acts. Additional particulars may be gleaned from some of his writings.
His father was William Rolle, a man apparently of respectable position; being the intimate friend of John de Dalton, the gentleman who afterwards became his son's patron.
Richard was born at Thornton, near Pickering: and was sent to Oxford by Thomas de Nevile, Archdeacon of Durham.
While he was at the University he applied himself, we are told, to the study of Theology and of the Holy Scriptures; rather than to the Natural Sciences, or to those subtilties of the Law, or arts of disputation, by which many sought to advance their fortunes at the peril of their souls.
At the age of nineteen, fearing that he might be entangled in the snares of sin, he left Oxford, and returned to his father's house.
Soon after this, as it would appear, he changed his habit, and assumed the profession of a hermit. The account given of this process is remarkably simple and graphic. He had a sister, whom he dearly loved.
