Richard Rolle

• Medieval Latin literature
• Liturgy, sacraments & worship

“This is a fine edition and translation of one of Richard Rolle’s most influential but at present least-known treatises, the last of a series made up of long postillae on biblical verses that were among the fruits of his productive later years. The Glosses on the Nine Lessons of the Dead, now made wonderfully accessible, remains as thought-provoking as it was for the monks, solitaries, and devout churchmen for whom it was written, presenting a chastened version of the voice of the ecstatic hermit who speaks in so many of Rolle’s works, yet preserving all his wonted urgency, brilliance, and shockingly confident independence from earlier authorities. Even those most knowledgeable about the English contemplative tradition will learn a great deal from Andrew Kraebel’s learned introduction, the product of sustained engagement with Rolle’s prolific writings and their rich manuscript tradition, which builds on and extends the deep reappraisal of this pivotal writer undertaken over the past decade. This book makes an indispensable contribution to the study of late-medieval Christianity, especially in England.” — Nicholas Watson, Harvard University

Andrew Kraebel this year joins Rice University as Associate Professor of English, following a decade of teaching medieval English and Latin literature at Trinity University. His monograph Biblical Commentary and Translation in Later Medieval England: Experiments in Interpretation (2020) received the Ecclesiastical History Society’s book prize, as well as the John Nicholas Brown Prize from the Medieval Academy of America. He is editor of The Sermons of William of Newburgh (2010) and, with Ardis Butterfield and Ian Johnson, of Literary Theory and Criticism in the Later Middle Ages: Interpretation, Invention, Imagination (2023). His essays have appeared in Speculum, Traditio, Mediaeval Studies, The Library, and other journals, as well as in various collections.