Biography of Richard Rolle de Hampole,

Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 49 Richard Rolle de Hampole ROLLE, RICHARD, de Hampole (1290?–1349), hermit and author, born about 1290 at Thornton in Yorkshire (probably Thornton-le-Street), was the son of William Rolle of Thornton in Richmondshire, and was sent by his parents to school at an early age, where he showed such good promise that Thomas de Neville, archdeacon of Durham, sent him to Oxford, paying all the charges of his education. There he is said to have made rapid progress in his studies, but, being moved with a strong desire to devote himself to a religious life, at the age of nineteen he left the university and returned to his home. Richard's ambition was not to enter any of the recognised communities of monks and friars, but to become a hermit and give himself up to contemplation. His mode of making his profession was to construct for himself a costume from two of his sister's kirtles, one white, the other grey, which she lent to him, and having borrowed also his father's rain-hood, he took up his abode in a wood near his father's house. His family naturally looked upon him as out of his senses. Richard, 1