We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 July 2016
The unedited Canticum amoris of Richard Rolle is a Latin poem of one hundred fifty-two lines addressed to the Virgin Mary. Written after he had become a hermit and while, it seems, he was still a youth, the work is of considerable interest for itself, for the light it sheds on the author as man and artist, and for a study of the confluence of the currents in the stream of English literature at the beginning of the fourteenth century. The signature, woven into the poem, leaves no doubt about its being a genuine work of one who in England was probably the most influential English writer of the late middle ages. It was listed among the Latin works of Rolle which Horstmann intended to edit, discussed by Miss Hope Emily Allen in her indispensable canon of the hermit's work, and singled out by Mr. Raby as a work that should be published.
1 ‘ Squalentis heremi cupiens et in aruis haberi,’ Canticum amoris (= C.A.) line 154, taken with ‘Sistens in suspirio’, ibid, line 2.Google Scholar
2 ‘ Iuuenem ingenue amor alligauit,’ C.A. 11; ‘Hinc geror, iuuenculus, in languente uita,’ C.A. 32; ‘Pulcra placens puero nulla uiuit talis, C.A. 67.Google Scholar
3 ‘Uirgo, quam cecini, animam sublima Ricardi, ‘G.A. 156. Google Scholar
4 ‘In English or in Latin he was, during the latter half of the Fourteenth Century and the whole of the Fifteenth, probably the most widely read in England of all English writers. Investigation of English wills and of documents bearing on the ownership of books seems to show a dozen owners of manuscripts of Rolle for one or two of the Canterbury Tales.’ Chambers, R. W., On the Continuity of English Prose from Alfred to More and his School (London 1932) ci.Google Scholar
5 Yorkshire Writers . Richard Rolle of Hampole and His Followers, ed. Horstman, C. (New York 1896) II xxxvi.Google Scholar
6 Writings Ascribed to Richard Rolle , Hermit of Hampole (New York 1927) 89ff.Google Scholar
7 Raby, F. J. E., in Modern Language Review 30 (1935) 340: ‘it is very desirable that Rolle's Latin poem which begins, Zelo tui langueo uirgo speciosa, and is contained in MS Rawlinson C. 397 of the Bodleian, should be published.’Google Scholar
8 Officium de Sancto Ricardo de Hampole et Legenda de Vita eius . ed. Perry, George G. (EETS, o.s. 20, Re-issue; Oxford 1921) 11.Google Scholar
9 Ibid. 12.Google Scholar
10 Eccli. 24.11–13 and 15–20, expecially verse 20: ‘Sicut cinnamomum et balsamum aromatizans odorem dedi: quasi myrrha electa dedi suauitatem odoris.’ Google Scholar
11 C.A. 69–73 Google Scholar
12 Melos amoris ; Super mulierem fortem; Contra amatores mundi; Incendium amoris; The Form of Living; Ego dormio. Google Scholar
13 Luc. 10.42. Google Scholar
14 Melos amoris , British Museum, MS Sloane 2275 fol.43. All references to the Melos will be cited from this MS as 5, which has been collated with all the other eleven extant MSS.Google Scholar
15 Luc. 11.27–28. Google Scholar
16 Raby, F. J. E., A History of Christian-Latin Poetry from the Beginnings to the Close of the Middle Ages (Oxford 1927) 363–75.Google Scholar
17 See Burghardt, Walter J., ‘Mary, S.J., in Western Patristic Thought’ in Carol, J. B. (ed.), Mario logy I (Milwaukee 1955) 109–55.Google Scholar
18 See for example ‘ A Salutación of Our Lady ’ in Cambridge Middle English Lyries . ed. Person, Henry A. (Seattle 1953) 11.Google Scholar
19 E.g. St Bernard, De laudibus Virginis Matris, PL 183.58.Google Scholar
20 Hope Emily Allen, English Writings of Richard Rolle, Hermit of Hampole (Oxford 1931) xvii. Miss Allen prefers the title Melum contemplativorum to Melos amoris, both forms being used in the MSS. I here use the latter as found in the Sloane MS, the basis of the edition I have prepared. Google Scholar
21 Writings Ascribed to Richard Rolle 90.Google Scholar
22 Ibid. Google Scholar
23 Ibid. 92.Google Scholar
24 S fols. 32–32v.Google Scholar
25 Writings Ascribed to Richard Rolle 92.Google Scholar
26 Ibid. 62.Google Scholar
27 Ibid. 81.Google Scholar
28 Tractatus super Cantica Canticorum , John Rylands Library, MS lat. 395, fol. 15, collated with Oxford, St. John's College MS 127.Google Scholar
29 Walter, J. Burghardt, S.J., ‘Theotokos: The Mother of God,’ in The Mystery of the Woman, ed. Edward D., O'Connor (Notre Dame, Indiana, 1956) 7,Google Scholar
30 English Writings of Richard Rolle , 23.Google Scholar
31 Ibid. Google Scholar
32 S fol. 15.Google Scholar
33 S fol 22v.Google Scholar
34 English Writings of Richard Rolle 91.Google Scholar
35 Ibid. 105 108.Google Scholar
36 Ibid. 83.Google Scholar
37 Ibid. Google Scholar
38 The Psalter by Richard Rolle of Hampole . ed. Bramley, H. R. (Oxford 1884) 523–4.Google Scholar
39 C.A. 1–2. Google Scholar
40 C.A. 5–8. Google Scholar
41 passim, C.A. Google Scholar
42 S fols. 1v-2.Google Scholar
43 S fol. 9.Google Scholar
44 S fol. 11.Google Scholar
45 S Chap. xxviii, fols. 21–22.Google Scholar
46 S fol. 19V.Google Scholar
47 S fol. 35v Google Scholar
48 Writings Ascribed to Richard Rolle 90.Google Scholar
49 C.A. 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 26, 33, 34, 55, 56. References of a less specific nature, which may be interpreted otherwise than physical, are found in lines 23, 24, 25, 29, 30, 31, 41, and 42. Even counting these eight doubtful lines, one can hardly say that twenty lines constitute a ‘special emphasis.’ Google Scholar
50 Ars versificatoria 1.74 quoted in Edmond Faral, Les arts poetiques du XIIe et du XIIIe siècle (Paris 1924) 135.Google Scholar
51 ‘ C'est ainsi que, pour la physionomie, on examine dans l'ordre da chevelure, le front, les sourcils et l'intervalle qui les sépare, les yeux, les joues et leur teint, le nez, la bouche et les dents, le menton; pour le corps, le cou et la nuque, les épaules, les bras, les mains, la poitrine, la taille, le ventre (à propos de quoi la rhétorique prête le voile de ses figures à des pointes licentieuses), les jambes et les pieds.’ Faral, ibid. 80.Google Scholar
52 Secular Lyrics of the XIVth and XVth Centuries . ed. Hope Robbins, Rossell, (Oxford 1952) xix-xx.Google Scholar
53 Ibid. xxi.Google Scholar
54 See present writer's The Rhetorical Aspects of Richard Rolle's Melos Contemplatiuorum, microfilm publication No. 8716, University Microfilms, Ann Arbor, Michigan. Google Scholar
55 Cf. English Writings of Richard Rolle 39–53. Google Scholar
56 Ibid . 43.Google Scholar
57 Cf. lines 6, 7, 8, 21, 24, 30, 31 etc. Google Scholar
58 Cf. lines 1, 2, 6, 7, 18, 19 etc. Google Scholar
59 Writings Ascribed to Richard Rolle 90.Google Scholar
60 Cordier, A., L'Allitération latine (Paris 1939) 14.Google Scholar
61 ‘ Si uitabimus eiusdem litterae nimiam adsiduitatem,’ Ad Herennium 4.12.18.Google Scholar
62 Traité de Stylistique appliquée au Latin (Paris 1935) 42.Google Scholar
63 He cites among others an example from the epilogue of the first book of the Tusculan Disputations: ‘portum potius paratum nobis et perfugium putemus, quo utinam uelis passis peruehi liceat,’ Traité de Stylistique 45. Google Scholar
64 Ibid. 46.Google Scholar
65 Sister Angela Elizabeth Keenan, Thasci Caecili Cypriani de Habitu Virginum (Washington 1932) 34. Google Scholar
66 Lease, Emory B., A Syntactic , Stylistic and Metrical Study of Prudentius (Baltimore 1895) 63.Google Scholar
67 Balmus, Constantin I., Etude sur le style de saint Augustin dans les Confessions et la Cité de Dieu (Paris 1930) 277 -82; and Inez, Sister M. Bogan, The Vocabulary and Style of the Soliloquies and Dialogues of St. Augustine (Washington 1935) 135, 139.Google Scholar
68 Virgilii Maronis Grammatici Opera . ed. Huemer, Iohannes (Lipsiae 1886) 77, 120.Google Scholar
69 Epistolae Columbani S. Abbatis, PL 80.283. Google Scholar
70 Aldhelmi Opera . ed. Ehwald, Rudolfus in MGH Auct. Antiq. 15. xxii.Google Scholar
71 Ibid. 488.Google Scholar
72 Ibid . 352.Google Scholar
73 Flower, Robin, The Irish Tradition (Oxford 1947) 17. Myles Dillon, Early Irish Literature (Chicago 1948) 177, illustrates this technique.Google Scholar
74 AH 51.347. Google Scholar
75 AH 51.315. Google Scholar
76 Poems of John of Hoveden . ed. Raby, F. J. E. (London 1929) xxiv-xxvi.Google Scholar
77 Ibid. 45.Google Scholar
78 See Oakden, J. P., Alliterative Poetry in Middle English, A Survey of the Traditions (Manchester 1935), especially pp. 15–19 for the prose.Google Scholar
79 The Minor Poems of the Vernon MS. ed. Furnivall, F. J. (London 1901) II 711.Google Scholar
80 Hymns to the Virgin and Christ . ed. Furnivall, Frederick J. (London 1867) 1.Google Scholar
81 The Anglo-Saxon Minor Poems . ed. Van Kirk Dobbie, Elliott (New York 1942) 97. Professor Dobbie says that ‘the poem is unique in Anglo-Saxon literature in having a great number of Latin and Greek words scattered through the text,’ ibid. ci. Two other Anglo-Saxon poems, the Summons to Prayer and the Phoenix, carry alternating Anglo-Saxon and Latin half-lines. Cf. ibid, lxxiii.Google Scholar
82 The present writer is engaged in editing Rolle's unedited minor Latin works. Google Scholar
83 Writings Ascribed to Richard Rolle 90.Google Scholar
84 My sincere gratitude is owing to the Librarian of Trinity College, Dublin and to the Keeper of Western Manuscripts of the Bodleian Library, Oxford for their kindness in giving me permission to edit the text of the Canticum amoris from the manuscripts in their keeping. Google Scholar
85 Abbott, T. K., Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of Trinity College , Dublin (Dublin 1900) 20.Google Scholar
86 Miss Allen cites this as: ‘Incipit canticum amoris de beata virgine per Ricardum,’ Writings Ascribed to Richard Rolle 90. Google Scholar
87 Macray, Gulielmus D., Catalogi codicum manuscriptorum Bibliothecae Bodleianae : Partis Quintae fasciculus secundus viri munificentissimi Ricordi Rawlinson… codicum classem tertiam… complectens (Oxford 1878) 182.Google Scholar
