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The ‘Canticum Amoris’ of Richard Rolle

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 July 2016

Gabriel M. Liegey
Gabriel M. Liegey*
Affiliation:
Fordham University
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Extract

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.

Type
Articles
Information
Traditio , Volume 12 , 1956 , pp. 369 - 391
Copyright
Copyright © Fordham University Press 

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References

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

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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

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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

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25 Writings Ascribed to Richard Rolle 92.Google Scholar

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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

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39 C.A. 1–2. Google Scholar

40 C.A. 5–8. Google Scholar

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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

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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

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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

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65 Sister Angela Elizabeth Keenan, Thasci Caecili Cypriani de Habitu Virginum (Washington 1932) 34. Google Scholar

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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

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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

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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

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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