Richard Rolle was an English hermit, mystic, and religious writer. He is also known as Richard Rolle of Hampole or de Hampole, since at the end of his life he lived near a Cistercian nunnery in Hampole, now in South Yorkshire. In many ways, he can be considered the first English author, because his vernacular works were widely considered to have considerable religious authority and influence (both locally and internationally) soon after his death, and for centuries afterwards. Indeed, until the nineteenth century northern English medieval religious texts were regularly mis-attributed to him because of his ongoing authority.
