Christian Works : Explanationes in Job

Rolle, Richard, of Hampole, 1290?-1349

Christian Works

<p style='text-align: justify;'>The <i>Explanationes notabiles super lectiones illas Beati Iob qui solent in exequiis defunctorum legi</i> is the first printed edition of one of the most popular of medieval English devotional works. Richard Rolle was a native of Yorkshire who after study at Oxford underwent religious conversion and became a hermit, eventually settling at Hampole in Richmondshire near the priory of Cistercian nuns. Although his life and writings attracted controversy he was revered in his lifetime and after death, and his Biblical commentaries and spiritual autobiographies were widely circulated. One of the first English books to be printed outside the capital, this edition was printed by Theodoricus Rood, a native of Cologne active in Oxford in the early 1480s.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>The book is filled out with a sermon by St. Augustine of Hippo, <i>De misericordia et pia oratione pro defunctis</i>, one of the earliest English printings of that author.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>This copy arrived in the Library in 1664 with the collection of Richard Holdsworth (1590-1649), former Master of Emmanuel College. Formerly bound with four post-1500 items, it was separated from its fellows in the nineteenth century and removed to the Incunabula collection.</p>