Companion to the English prose works of Richard Rolle : a selection

Rolle, Richard, of Hampole, 1290?-1349.

Horstmann, Carl, b. 1851.

Works wrongly attributed to R. Rolle*. [In this category, Horstman includes miscellaneous texts assigned to Rolle by eighteenth- and nineteenth-century scholars like Thomas Tanner (Bibliotheca Britannico-Hibernica, 1748, p. 375), or by references in the MSS themselves.]

*. [Several versions of this text exist. Harley 1706 records Version C, according to the Manual of the Writings in Middle English, vol. 7.]

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Synne of bacbytynge.

Bacbyte not þe synner, but be sory for hym. Kutte fro þi tunge the synne of bacbytynge, hurte not a noþer manys lyfe . . . . ¶ That þat þou bacbytyste in a noþer, drede þou þat in þi-selfe; whan þou blameste anoþer, rep[reue] þin owen defawtys. If þou wolte bacbyte, þenke on þin owen synnes; byholde not oþer mennys trespasses, but inwardely by-holde þin owne; þou schuldeste neuer bacbyte, yf þou wolte byholde þi-selfe. ¶ Here no bacbyters, lysten not to tale-tellers; for lyche gylty ben þe bacbyters and þe herers. Desyre not þou to wytte þat þat perteynyþ not to þee; þo þingges þat men speken by-twene hemselfe, bysye þe not to knowe; axe þou neuer what eny man spekeþ, seyeþ or doeþ; be not to bysye, leue suche [bysynes þat perteyneþ not to þee; by as grete] bysynes amende þin synnes, by howe myche þou byholdyste oþer mennys.

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