SOURCE: George G. Perry, English Prose Treatises of Richard Rolle de Sampole, N. Trubner & Co., 1866.

Perry's 1866 edition of Rolle's treatises in English constituted the first time these manuscripts were made available since the Middle Ages. In the following excerpt, he touches on many issues central to Rolle scholarship, including Rolle's reputation, the authenticity of the manuscripts, and the matter and style of Rolle's English.

The treatises which follow, now for the first time printed, are taken from a miscellaneous collection of Poems, Tracts, Prayers, and Medical Receipts, made by Robert Thornton, archdeacon of Bedford, in the earlier half of the fifteenth century¹. These religious tracts are especially valuable in two ways. First, as illustrating the teaching given to the people—the unlered or lewed folke—in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; next, as being genuine specimens of the old Northumbrian dialect—perhaps the finest form of the ancient...