The pastoral solitary: contemplative life and the care of souls in the works of Richard Rolle
Keywords: contemplative spirituality
medieval Latin
medieval literature
book history
Richard Rolle

The central argument of this thesis is that Rolle’s major works were written and disseminated in the context of Rolle’s own pastoral ministry, that they are embedded in traditional literature of pastoral and devotional instruction, and that they can be understood as pragmatic and functional devotional aids, designed to assist readers holistically in their spiritual development.
This thesis is divided into an introduction and four chapters. My introduction examines why scholarship has pervasively seen Rolle as an eccentric, idiosyncratic personality and writer, arguing that this perception is indebted to a conventional conception of eremitic life as a rejection of worldly norms, and is an image which Rolle cultivates rather than something which transparently reflects his personality. I challenge the way that this impression of Rolle has been supported by a characterisation of him as a controversial figure in his lifetime and after his death. More foundationally, I challenge the prevailing scholarly paradigm in which Rolle’s writings are read as introspective, personal outpourings. Instead, I suggest that examining the outward-looking, pastoral dimension of Rolle’s work offers a new way to reassess his sources, his purposes, his audience, and his self-portrayal.
My first chapter examines the intersection of eremitism and pastoral care. By drawing on medieval depictions and evidence of hermits involved in pastoral care, I argue that Rolle did not need to ‘invent’ the authority of his spirituality (as Nicholas Watson influentially claimed): despite positioning themselves on the margins of society, hermits conventionally acted as spiritual teachers, and Rolle situates himself in this tradition. I examine manuscript evidence supporting the view that Rolle created books of pastoral care and dispersed them to mentees. Thus I argue that Rolle exercised a pastoral ministry in his lifetime, and his works were written in this context.
My second chapter situates Rolle in conventional scribal practices of medieval pastoral care. It argues that his writing emerges from a stratum of pastoral books which typically reshape and compile existing materials for new readers, especially readers without access to a large library. I show that many of Rolle’s shorter texts are copied or translated directly from priestly handbooks. I demonstrate that Rolle’s longer pastoral texts represent pastoral compilations of pastoral resources, many of which are unedited and have thus escaped scholarly notice. This shows that Rolle had access to pastoral resources and participated in conventional practices of pastoral care.
My third chapter turns towards Rolle’s contemplative writings, contesting the scholarly perception that these are primarily introspective. Instead, I argue that they are designed for spiritual edification and are especially preoccupied with the rudimentary and intermediate aspects of spiritual life, such as penitence and contempt for the world, rather than the contemplative heights with which Rolle is generally associated. Even though Rolle emphasises the rarity and exclusivity of contemplative experience, his writing turns restlessly up and down the spiritual spectrum, at times proclaiming a highly general purpose of stirring readers to repentance and salvation. In this way, his Latin works act as guides to the whole life of perfection and participate in the ‘care of souls’.
My fourth chapter turns to Rolle’s language of interiority, especially his treatment of the first-person voice. Whereas past scholarship has tended to see the voice of Rolle’s texts as the projection of the historical Rolle’s own personality and emotion, I argue that he self-consciously adopts a wide range of rhetorical personas to instruct and model devotion for his readers, drawing on an exegetical understanding of Scripture as an encyclopaedia of different voices. While pastoral literature has attracted little attention in literary scholarship given its conventionality and simplicity, Rolle’s multi-faceted experimentation with different voices emerges from his pastoral purposes, producing one of the most creative and sophisticated oeuvres of work in the late Middle Ages.