Christian feast day: Richard Rolle (Church of England)

Richard Rolle was an English hermit, mystic, and religious writer. He is also known as Richard Rolle of Hampole or de Hampole, since at the end of his life he lived near a Cistercian nunnery in Hampole, now in South Yorkshire. In many ways, he can be considered the first English author, because his vernacular works were widely considered to have considerable religious authority and influence soon after his death, and for centuries afterwards. Indeed, until the nineteenth century northern English medieval religious texts were regularly mis-attributed to him because of his ongoing authority.

The Church of England is the established Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It was the initial church of the Anglican tradition. The Church traces its history to the Christian hierarchy recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain by the 3rd century and to the 6th-century Gregorian mission to Kent led by Augustine of Canterbury. Its members are called Anglicans.