page_title: Roolwer
section_title: Attestation
hierarchical_section_title: Roolwer / Attestation
caption_attribution_description: English: One of three Keeills in this churchyard, Isle of Man. A Keeill is a primitive chapel dating from 6th to 11th centuries.
context_page_description: Roolwer, also known as Hrólfr, was an eleventh-century ecclesiast. He is the first named bishop of a jurisdiction which later became the Diocese of the Isles, and appears to have served at his post before, and perhaps during, the reign of Gofraid Crobán, King of Dublin and the Isles. Roolwer's name appears to correspond to the Old Norse Hrólfr, which could mean that he is identical to either of two contemporary like-named bishops of Orkney. Roolwer's predecessor in the Isles may have been Dúnán, whose death in 1074 during the Dublin overlordship of Toirdelbach Ua Briain, King of Munster, may have enabled the ecclesiastical separation of Dublin from the Isles. The site of Roolwer's cathedral is unknown, although Maughold and St Patrick's Isle are possibilities.
context_section_description: The ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Kingdom of the Isles, from the mid twelfth century at least, was the Diocese of the Isles. Little is known of the early history of the diocese, although its origins may well lie with the Uí Ímair imperium. The episcopal succession of the Isles, as recorded in the Chronicle of Mann, starts its chronology at about the time of the reign of Gofraid Crobán, King of Dublin and the Isles. The first bishop to be named in the chronicle is Roolwer himself, and the form of his name preserved by this source suggests that his name is a garbled form of the Old Norse Hrólfr. The chronicle states that Roolwer was the bishop before Gofraid Crobán's reign, which could either mean that he died before the beginning of Gofraid Crobán's rule, or that Roolwer merely occupied the position at the time of Gofraid Crobán's accession.
caption: One of several ruinous keeills in the churchyard of Kirk Maughold. According to the chronicle, Roolwer was buried at the "church of St Maughold".[1] Whether this was the site of his cathedral is unknown.[2][note 1]
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