Michael Van Dussen's Richard Rolle: On Lamentations is a welcome addition to the recent Exeter Medieval Texts and Studies series publications of several texts from medieval England, in Latin and Middle English. Together with recent editions (Richard Rolle: Unprinted Latin Writings, edited by Ralph Hanna, 2019) and translations (Richard Rolle's “Melody of Love”: A Study and Translation, with Manuscript and Musical Contexts, trans, Andrew Albin, 2018), it contributes to an overhaul of scholars’ perception of Richard Rolle's corpus by making another of his Latin texts available in a critical edition, with a facing English translation.
Van Dussen provides a substantial introduction to Rolle's commentary by first looking at the Old Testament Book of Lamentations and its commentary tradition. Although paying due respect to Rosamund Allen's pioneering work on Richard Rolle's writings, Van Dussen emphasizes that she perhaps missed the opportunity to emphasize the originality of Rolle in choosing this particular Old Testament book for his commentary. Indeed, the tradition of commentaries on this book did not begin before the Carolingian period, when Rabanus Maurus's contribution was followed by Paschasius Radbertus's own commentary, whose influence grew following its insertion into the Glossa ordinaria, which was Rolle's sole access to the Lamentations commentary tradition.
Rolle's authorship of On Lamentations, otherwise known as Super Threnos, is attested in several manuscripts as well as in Henry of Kirkstede's list of Rolle's works compiled c. 1340–1378. This treatise is thought to have been composed during his early days as a religious writer. Although it poses as a commentary, it challenges generic categorization, as do most of his other writings, and offers glimpses about personal contemplative and devotional practice, without, however, making reference to Rolle's singular characteristics, such as fervor, dulcor, and canor, found in the later Latin writings.
Van Dussen makes apt use of the work of J. P. H Clark, John A. Alford, and Malcolm Robert Moyes in assessing the idiosyncratic exegetical characteristics of Rolle, whose dependence on the Glossa ordinaria perhaps depended on memory rather than a written copy. It may be that this rather distant connection with the Glossa gave him more freedom in managing particular exegetical techniques (association, amplification, substitution) and in blending his own voice with that of the prophet. This allowed him to create a multivocal horizon with the prophet, the commentator, and the soul, each expressing in turn a perspective fed by the Old Testament book. Quite typical of Rolle's commentary strategies, such multivocality allowed him to create penitential, devotional, and contemplative moments that burst out of the straitjacket of the commentary tradition.
It seems that Rolle, aware of the Hebrew acrostics that accompany many of the verses of the Book of Lamentations, supplied the Hebrew letters, but fell short of completing the task, with only 15 letters out of 22, and in the first chapter only.
Super Threnos is extant in four manuscripts. Van Dussen judiciously collates them with Johannes Fabri's 1536 printed text, as it offered lections not found in any of the extant manuscripts. The circulation of Rolle's commentary was limited, and there is little evidence of a medieval readership. On the other hand, by looking at the circulation of Rolle's Latin writings on the European mainland, Van Dussen invites us to consider Rolle not only as an insular writer, but one whose influence on the mainland was far from negligible, especially in Bohemia, Moravia, Poland, Germany, and Austria. The evidence brought forward offers a useful viewpoint that contrasts with the work of Ralph Hanna, whose exploration of Rolle's Latin writings is circumscribed to England. Both, however, concur in pointing to the significance of the impact of his Latin writings, many of which still need to be made available in critical editions such as the one provided by Van Dussen.
The critical edition, based on Dublin, Trinity College, MS 153, offers variants from the three other extant manuscripts and Fabri's edition. It is supplied with a facing English translation, textual and explanatory notes, and a source apparatus that shows Rolle's almost exclusive reliance on the Glossa ordinaria. An appendix with a list of commentaries on the Book of Lamentations up to 1500 nicely complements this excellent edition, which, one hopes, will be a source of emulation for additional editions of his Latin writings.
