Author Description

The volume De emendacione vitae by the Middle English mystic Richard Rolle has long been neglected by editors. One reason may lie in the sheer number of extant manuscripts of this text. Some 108 (largely complete) manuscripts with the Latin text have survived along with 16 others in the Middle-English translation. By laying down a complete and definitive comparison of the manuscripts, this volume, besides gathering and describing the many Latin manuscripts, is the first attempt to point out the relationships between the various manuscripts, and to discover the Latin texts that lie behind the medieval translations. This volume is thus the first critical edition of the Latin texts as well as a complete German translation of De emendacione vitae. Latin and German text.