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RICHARD ROLLE. 167
Richard of Hampole, the name of a small hamlet,
not far from Doncaster, which was the seat of a
Cistercian nunnery. At a hermitage near Hampole
he lived a life of great austerity and devotion.
Scarcely anything is known of his early history,
except that he retired from the world about the
beginning of Edward III.'s reign. He was a prolific
writer, mostly in Latin. His works comprise commentaries
on Scripture and on the offices of the
Church. But by far the most valuable and interesting
portion of his writings are those in his own mothertongue,
not only philologically, but as throwing light
upon the religious feeling and mode of thought of the
period. He is chiefly known by his long poem called
the " Pricke of Conscience." In this he draws a
fearful picture of the state of the world, which, as he
believed, was fast approaching its end, and gives
appalling descriptions of death, the terrors which
accompanied the dying hour, even in the case of
good men, and the torments of condemned souls.
Penitential discipline, austerity, and gloom are the
boundaries of the narrow horizon of his life,
which is
scarcely brightened by a ray offender or happy feeling.
He wrote many prose works, also, in the vernacular,
amongst them " Piti Job," and a translation of the
whole Book of Psalms. One of his treatises is on the
active and contemplative life, addressed apparently to
some lady of rank and wealth. It is interesting to
find the austere hermit telling her that her way of
serving God was not by a withdrawal from the world
into a monastery, but by the diligent performance of
life's active duties. Numerous copies of his works